Dove hunting season kicks off with new rule

While hundreds of hunters spent the early hours of Wednesday morning digging into new terrain, Matt Woltman spent that time finding a groove — in his pillow.

He was still planning to go out shooting for the opening day of the dove hunting season, but he planned to get a little more sleep first.

Dozens of others, like Woltman, took advantage of this year's all-day hunt for the dove season, which allowed hunting to take place from sunrise to sunset.

It is the first time in 12 years that the Arizona Game and Fish Department opened the season up all day, allowing hunters to go out when they please and not forcing any locals to miss a day in the office. Previously, hunting had to be halted by noon each day.

“Especially with work, it's nice having the all-day hunt,” said Woltman, who participated in his first dove hunt on Wednesday.

A Yuma native, Woltman had never handled a shotgun during his youth and into his nine years with the Navy. After the end of his service he returned to Yuma and took a job at Sprague's Sports, where he works as the shipping and receiving manager.

It wasn't long before Woltman was joining his stepfather for skeet shooting and, after that, dove. The transition was natural, though he noted that in skeet he yells ‘pull' when he wants to shoot at something.

“It's a little different out here,” he said as the doves he targeted flew in and out of his sight.

Despite the differences, Woltman had no problem dropping doves near the farms of Dome Valley. Within his first few rounds, he clipped a Mourning dove which spiraled into the dirt.

As the sun set over Telegraph Pass, he rounded up his three birds. Woltman still surveyed the valley while chatting up fellow hunter Bryan Palle.

As the pair told stories a bird flew past their line of site. The two traded glances before Palle said “We probably should have shot at that one.”

For those who picked the traditional sunrise start to their hunting trip, the day proved to be as bountiful as ever. For most it was bag limits before 7 a.m. and breakfast by 8.

“I was done at 6:45,” said Kevin Sampson, a 42-year-old hunter from Los Angeles. “It was better than average and pretty consistent throughout the morning.”

Sampson and his father Mike set up south of Yuma in the early morning and finished their day slightly before sun-up. They knew about the all-day hunt, but said that shooting in the evening was of little interest to them.

“We're used to the morning, don't know how to do it any other way,” the younger Sampson said. “It's what we do every year.”

Tom Biggerstaff, a 52-year-old hunter from Canyon Lake, Calif. had the same success. He said he had limited out at 6:30 a.m. and had caught all Mourning dove.

Biggerstaff staked out in Winterhaven this year because, he said, the spots on the other side of the Colorado River had become too crowded.

“I used to hunt in Yuma, but it's gotten to be so crowded and with so many people and so fewer places and they're posting places more often than not and you can't shoot within a quarter-mile of a house,” he said. “The town has really limited the places you can hunt here.”

The dove hunting season will continue today through Sept. 15. With a proper license and tag from Game and Fish, a hunter can take 10 birds a day, only six of which can be from a white-winged dove. The most that may be taken by a hunter during the season is 20.