On Thursday September 1^st, hunters throughout the upper Midwest will be out in the crop fields, set up around stock dams when they open the 2025 Mourning Dove hunting season.

  Doves, migratory birds found throughout the United States, are the most popular game bird in the country when it comes to numbers harvested.

  You best be on the top of your game when hunting these acrobatic speedsters, as they seldom fly in a straight line, changing their flight path in a second, having the ability to fly up to fifty-five miles per hour.

  In South Dakota, the dove season is open from the first of September through November ninth, with both Mourning doves and the Eurasian collared doves found throughout the state, the daily bag limit for doves is fifteen a day and forty-five the possession limit.

  All migratory bird hunters, including dove hunters must complete and purchase the “South Dakota Migratory Bird Certification” information   Hunters in South Dakota, may have an opportunity to hunt three species of doves, the mourning Dove, Eurasian Collared, and White Winged doves in the southern part of the state.

   You can find doves in certain parts of the state and at times, in large numbers, around a dam one day and with a weather change will be long gone the next day, migrating out of our area.

   It doesn’t take much for these birds to begin their southerly migration, where a weather change, cooler nights, rainy days, they’ll bunch up and if these conditions continue, they’ll head south, where, the spend the winter in warmer climates of the southern United States, Mexico, and Central America.

   When these migrators, we’ll still have an opportunity to hunt these birds coming in from the north.

  Doves, that are seed feeders, feeding in planted and harvested grain fields including millet, wheat and sunflower fields as well as fields that contain rag weed and marijuana as dove love the small seeds these weeds produce.

  If there’s rag weed and hemp around the ponds, the doves will continue to come in to feed throughout the day   

The gauge shotguns the hunters I hunt with have quite a selection when it comes to shotguns which include; twenty gauge, twenty-six and twelve gauge. Each of these will work well when hunting doves, with hunters using trap loads seven and a half, eight and nine shot, depending on what loads are on sale prior to the dove season.

  Some of the best hunting can happen near waitering holes in the early morning as the birds fly out from their roost to drink and again late afternoon when the birds  they make their way back to roost, before calling it a day.

Doves like to check out the area before coming in, dead trees, power lines give doves the opportunity to look things over before coming in. As doves are small birds, dams with open shorelines allow them to land and walk to the water.

  When hunting around ponds, it’s best to have several hunters stationed on either side of the water to keep the birds moving and because doves are such erratic flyers, you never know what direction they’ll come from and by having hunters around the pond or on different ponds in the area, the other hunters are able to let you know if the birds are coming in from behind.

  When dove hunting, there’s quite a difference in shooting a dove, to pick off these swift little flyers as it’s been said that you’re a darn good shot if you average less that ten rounds per bird.