My son and I always look forward to September 1st, as this is when dove season opens in Colorado. Duck and geese migrate instinctively due to a change in the weather, marking the migration from summer into the fall and winter months, and signaling the beginning of various types of hunting.
The last few years we have hunted along the South Platte River in areas such as Brower State Wildlife Area (near Greeley Colorado) and Jean K. Tool State Wildlife Area (near Brush Colorado). This year I thought we would take a different approach and hunt in south-eastern Colorado. The reason for this is that in recent years, we tend to get that first cold spell anywhere from a week to a few days before the 1st of September causing the dove to start their migration south, and leaving the hunting conditions a little sparse. That being said, I thought we would try our luck hunting dove along the Arkansas River near Rocky Ford Colorado.
While I have never hunted this area, and typically stay within my comfort zone – I thought a change of scenery and hopefully warmer weather might make for a good experience and an enjoyable productive dove hunt. Now the question was – which state wildlife areas do we want to visit/try?
Earlier this year when I was adding the Colorado State Wildlife Areas into this website, I remember that there were certain state wildlife areas that are limited to youth/mentor hunting only. I decided to do some research to see if any properties in and around Rocky Ford offered this.
I searched all the Colorado State Wildlife Areas for the word “youth”, and low and behold there was one – Melon Valley State Wildlife Area. Now I know this may seem like a “plug” to my website, but I thought that I would share the steps I took to find this SWA:
1. Go to http://www.thesportsglobe.com/PublicLands/PublicLandSearch.aspx
2. Toward the top of the page I searched for the word “youth” in the section “Find Public Lands by Name or Keywords”.
We went to Melon Valley SWA for the opening weekend (September 4th) and to our surprise, there was only one other mentor/youth couple on the entire property. While the property is just over 120 acres, it took us off guard as in the years past, opening weekend in all the other places we have hunted dove has typically been busy with a high number of hunters.
The morning hunt was more productive for us than any year prior, as we had bagged 11 Mourning Dove by 9:30 in the morning. Thinking back, I cannot remember ever bagging that many dove in an entire weekend in prior years, and some years (due to the cold weather) we may not have been that successful for the entire season.
We stayed the entire day in the heat of the sun, and while mid-day was not that active, the afternoon had completely thrown us off guard. Somewhere around 3:45 in the afternoon things went from slow, to extremely busy. During a period of an hour or so, we must have gone through almost two boxes of shells each. The dove seemed to have been coming in from every direction. We bagged our limit somewhere around 5 o’clock and started packing our belongings, but the doves were still flying strong when we left the property at 6pm.
Needless to say – this was by far our best dove hunt ever! We have never limited out on dove before, and were completely amazed at the experience. Even though the drive from Denver is about 3 hours to Melon Valley SWA, we decided to try our luck a couple of weeks later with almost the same results – 26 birds on Saturday, September 18th.
We both enjoy hunting, fishing, wildlife and being in the outdoors. Regardless if we “bag” anything or not, we enjoy what Colorado has to offer. This year has really been something to remember for years to come!
I would like to give a “hats off” to the Colorado Division of Wildlife for what I believe is a great wildlife, habitat, and management system. Setting aside certain properties for youth is important for getting our next generation of hunters and anglers interested in the sport, and for keeping them in the sport. For more information about The Colorado Division of Wildlife and Youth Information, please visit http://wildlife.state.co.us/Hunting/HunterOutreach/YouthHuntingBirds/YouthRegs.htm.
Regards,
Tom.