My first dove hunt was also my kiddos’ first dove hunt and like most of my hunts, Shaun and his dad were the ones to teach us and take us.  This story is also not in chronological order because we already had gotten dogs to retrieve and trained them at this point. The getting of the dogs was a result of sliding down a beaver run well over waders on a duck hunt, but that’s a story for another time! Just as an FYI waders do a great job of keeping water out as long as you don’t get water higher on your body than the waders go up. 

One of our favorite things to do is share our love of hunting with others and build relationships that usually lead to lifelong friendships, meaningful conversations, and tons of memories. Dad had had a friend of his tell him how much his grandson wanted to go dove hunting and he would be happy for us all to go together on a piece of property he owned. Naturally, we were happy and excited to oblige.

First, we all met together in the field and talked strategy and safety.  Dad and Shaun helped us to understand what to expect and how adrenaline and excitement might make us have a tendency to react in an unsafe manner. I talked through gun safety and we demonstrated proper movements and then Dad and Shaun gave us our marching orders!

Tristan and I were stationed away from the pasture the others were walking through and we positioned ourselves where we had seen dove flying in, of course at dad’s suggestion.  I remember T’s first dove about as well as I do his first duck although he didn’t get quite as excited.  He was shooting my old 20ga pump Mossberg which I think may be called a Maverick and we had our German Wirehaired Pointer, Maverick, with us.  We saw the dove headed our direction and T positioned himself to safely shoot, I still remember the huge grin he had on his face when that bird started falling, T’s eyes wide open. We sent Mavie to retrieve it and he rushed over and found it, picked it up, promptly carried it few feet towards us, and spit it out like it tasted bad! Repeated commands to fetch it up were unsuccessful as he would walk over and sit down by the bird and look at us as if to say, “its literally right here, YOU can pick it up.”  Mavie was duck crazy, I guess something about the dove feathers he just didn’t like.

We stayed there that evening hearing gunfire across the pasture as the others in our group were getting shots at birds, but the most memorable sound was that of laughter and conversation as they walked through the goat weeds and either jumped birds or flushed birds Ripp found. Ripp, our other GWP, didn’t have a care in the world about what he retrieved. You could tell him to fetch up hairbrushes and bottles and he was just as happy doing that as he was bringing you back a mallard!  On the way over to mine and T’s spot he had actually retrieved my first dove and then went with Shaun and the others.

Dove hunting in Texas is hot and since we didn’t want to overheat the dogs, we were giving Mavie a break from finding our birds, while still encouraging him to retrieve them. It was his first dove hunt too, and I took off to retrieve a bird T had shot. We had talked about letting anything that flew in the same direction go while I was out, and that T’s only shot was behind us. About the time I reached the downed bird, I had to search for it. I heard T scream and Mavie yelp.  I yelled to him to find out what had happened, and he screamed what sounded like, “I shot Maverick.” Instant horror began building in my gut but there had been no shot, so I was also confused. Running back to him and Mavie I could see T running to me and that they both physically seemed unscathed although Tristan was crying, and Mavie was huddled under his chair.  When I finally got him settled enough to repeat himself, I learned that because he was determined to hunt behind him and not put me in danger, he was moving he and Mavie around so they could see behind them.

While petting Mavie, T also touched the electric cross fence on accident! He had screamed, “I SHOCKED Maverick!”  I should be a better parent, I should be a better dog owner, my first instinct should not have been to bust out laughing, but I guess I’m neither of those things because, knowing they were both fine, I laughed really loudly and really hard, Tristan didn’t find it all that funny.

A little later T had downed a bird over on the other side of that electric cross fence and shimmied under to retrieve it rather than chancing Mavie again, and besides we could see it and it wasn’t far, which made Mavie and his hate for dove feathers unnecessary in this instance.  As T handed me the dove over the fence, excited as he was for his great shot and swift recovery, he began leaning forward and touched that fence AGAIN all while I was trying to gain his attention and stop him! Today this story is hilarious, Tristan is incredibly leery of electric fences, and we tease him mercilessly every time we are around one but even he can look back at his younger self and have a laugh!

This hunt led to years more with Dad’s friend’s grandson and our family, a lifelong friendship between the kids, and more memories than we can count, as well as some really good food!  The laughter and tears, the relationships built with the dogs and each other are as priceless as the memories we collectively share.