Hunting over sunflower fields on any of our state's fish and wildlife areas is a great way to bag your share of doves this season. Photo by Tom Berg.

Hunting for mourning doves has been extremely popular in the Hoosier State for many years. It's easy to see why. Doves are fast, maneuverable, and very hard to hit. They are also exceptionally wary birds, and they have great eyesight. If you are not wearing camouflage, they will usually spot you and head the other way! But that just adds to the fun and excitement of the hunt!

One of the keys to a successful dove hunt is to find areas where doves are feeding on a regular basis. Mourning doves love to feed on a variety of seeds and grain, but one of their favorite foods is sunflower seeds. Managers at our Department of Natural Resources (DNR) properties know this, so they make it a point of planting sunflower fields in an effort to draw in doves for hunters.

Among the state-owned properties, fish and wildlife areas (FWA) provide many opportunities for dove hunting. Property managers will plant fields of sunflowers and take the necessary steps to keep them weed-free. Keeping the fields as weed-free as possible makes it easier for the doves to feed on the seeds as they fall to the ground, and in the end it attracts more birds.

With these thoughts in mind, Indiana Game & Fish magazine has identified three public hunting areas where Indiana bird hunters can expect to find excellent numbers of mourning doves this year. Read on to see what these properties have in store for hunters on opening day.

WILLOW SLOUGH FWA
Willow Slough FWA is in Newton County in the northwest part of the state. This property consists of nearly 10,000 acres of varied habitats, including wetlands, fields, woods and a 1,200-acre lake. It's a great place to hunt waterfowl, but since it always ranks at or near the top in terms of dove harvest, it's also one of the best places in the state to hunt mourning doves, too.

Last year, Willow Slough was again the top public-land producer of doves in Indiana for the fourth year in a row. In 2008, 3,026 doves were harvested at the property, and although that number is down from 2007 when 4,949 doves were bagged here, it is still better than all of our state's other FWAs and reservoirs.

Willow Slough FWA participates in the state's reserved dove hunt, so the first two days of the season are set aside for those lucky hunters who were drawn in the reserved hunt lottery. After that, property managers hold a daily draw at 11 a.m. for the other hunters who show up at the property.