Love for the dove as birds plentiful in opener

SACRED HEART, MINN. - As a crimson sun rose over a hazy, humid Minnesota River Valley, Tom Kalahar swung his shotgun at a mourning dove winging overhead.

A single shot shattered the morning stillness and the bird tumbled, nearly landing on Kalahar's chocolate Lab.

"It's been a long time, Jack," he said as the dog excitedly retrieved the first bird of a new hunting season. Kalahar's aim wasn't rusty, even though it had been eight months since his last wing shot.

But there was no time to celebrate.

Mourning doves -- single birds or in groups of three to six -- fluttered erratically across the landscape and the staccato of gunshots erupted from seven of Kalahar's hunting partners. We were hunkered along a grassy fenceline on the edge of two harvested wheat fields on opening day of the dove season Monday.

Two days earlier, Kalahar, 55, of Olivia, Minn., and a friend had spotted hundreds of doves in the fields. Their scouting paid off. As dawn dissolved to daylight, doves flew from nearby trees to feed in the fields. We intercepted some -- or tried to.

The birds' erratic flight -- they dip, dive and duck -- makes them as difficult to hit as a fluttering knuckleball. They can leave a shotgunner contorted -- and humble.

"Over your head!" Kalahar hollered to his son, Adam, who was nestled in the grass 40 yards away. He stood and fired, but the two doves flew on unscathed. Then two others winged past behind him, slipping out of shotgun range before he spotted them.

Though his dad has been hunting doves since the Minnesota Legislature reinstated dove hunting in 2004 after a 56-year ban, Adam, 26, of Minneapolis, was a first-timer.

He quickly discovered the joys and frustrations of dove hunting.

Make a good shot, and you gain confidence that you can hit these elusive targets. Then miss your next three shots, and your confidence fades.

I shot my first bird of the day straight overhead. It fell nearby and was quickly grabbed by my Lab, already panting in the heat and humidity. Then six birds flew over and I managed to drop only one.

After 45 minutes of fairly constant activity, the action slowed at our end of the field.

But down the fenceline to the west, four members of our group continued to fire -- and fire often.

That, too, is part of dove hunting: Only a few hundred yards away, the action remained hot.

Still, birds trickled past.

I missed a single bird that bobbed and weaved from the south only 15 feet off the ground. I missed again at a flurry of birds that winged past from the west, then watched a dove fly low right over my head while I reloaded.

There are two ways to miss doves: while shooting at them, of course, and simply not spotting them in time to even fire a shot.

That happened to me time and again as I huddled in the grass with my dog, trying to stay low and out of sight but still scan the sky 360 degrees for birds.

I was scratching my dog's ear and never got my gun off my lap when another dove flew low overhead. I made a nice right-to-left crossing shot at a single bird, and dropped one of two birds that flew from behind me overhead. But many others flew past that I just never spotted in time to shoot.

By late morning, as the temperature approached 80 degrees, the action slowed and, damp from sweat, we called it a day and compared notes.

Ben Hillesheim, 49, of Bird Island, and his 18-year-old son, Eric, both shot their 15-bird limits. The pair went through about three boxes of shells, a testament to the difficulty of dove hunting.

"We had our 30 by 8:45 a.m.," Ben said.

They were hunting next to a treeline and had put out a half-dozen dove decoys on a wire. "They funneled right through here," Eric Hillesheim said.

Greg Larson, 57, of Woodbury shot 11 doves and witnessed the dove action nearby.

"They were dropping like rain," he said. "The decoys seemed to make a difference."

Mike Anderson, 29, of Danube, hunting near the Hillesheims, also shot 15 doves. Though it was terrific hunting, "there wasn't even close to the number of birds we saw last week," he said.

(Scouting is key to success for mourning dove hunting; Kalahar and Anderson spent several mornings before the season looking for fields holding birds.)

Meanwhile, Kalahar and his son each dropped five birds, and Travis Luebben, 34, of Albertville, Kalahar's son-in-law, shot a half-dozen. I bagged seven.

The total: 79 birds, an average of nearly 10 apiece.

"That's not bad," Kalahar said.

Son Adam agreed.

"That was fun; I really liked it," he said of his first dove hunt.

The best part was yet to come: wrapping the doves in bacon with peppers, onions and water chestnuts and grilling them.

"It will be one of the best things you taste in your life," the elder Kalahar promised.