By Jennifer Whitlock
Field Editor
Dover hunters will have some changes this fall after hunting regulations for the 2021-22 season were recently approved by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission.
Those who hunt dove in the South Zone will now have an additional two white-winged dove days during the upcoming season.
TPWD defines the South Zone as the portion south of Del Rio and eastward to Orange, with a slight detour south of San Antonio.
“Basically, we are proposing to change that four-day afternoon only season to a six-day afternoon only season,” Shaun Oldenburger, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) Small Game Program director, said during the commission’s public meeting on March 25.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission approved the proposal.
adding the two extra hunting days in the South Zone means trimming back the end of the dove season in January, Oldenburger said.
“We can only open the regular season as early as Sept. 14 by federal frameworks and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said. “We are only allowed 90 days to harvest dove under federal regulations, so we did pull those days at the end of January where we really have very limited dove-hunting opportunities occurring.”
The other two dove-hunting zones in Texas, North and Central, did not have any proposed changes to dove hunting days. Daily bag limits remain at 15 birds per day for all zones, including during the special white-winged dove days in the South Zone.
As always, there is no closed season or bag limit restriction for Eurasian collared-doves, an invasive species, or rock doves, also known as rock pigeons.
Band-tailed pigeons, the Inca dove and common ground dove remain protected species and are illegal to hunt in the state.
Regulatory changes will be noted in the new Outdoor Annual when it is published and updated in mid-August.
For more information on dove hunting regulations in Texas, visit TWPD’s website.
YOU POSTED A CLEAR PICTURE OF A MOURNING DOVE WHY DON’T YOU POST A PICTURE OF THE OTHER BIRDS YOU TALKED ABOUT SO EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. ESPECIALLY THE PROTECTED BIRDS
Hi, Robert. Here’s a link that includes photos and descriptions of each species: https://tpwd.texas.gov/education/hunter-education/know-your-doves
Thank you, good article.
Have there been any studies done on how bad the freeze in February effected the Dove population? We had a large number of what I assume were resident doves, here in Lamar County that froze to death. I found around 10 or so around my yard alone and lots of people in the area were posting about finding dead ones in there yard also.
Now do something responsible and either close the season or reduce speckled trout limits in East Matagorda Bay. Don’t be influenced by big business or tournament pressure.
I would like to know how to tell these protected doves from legal doves while IN FLIGHT at sunup on opening day. You talk about beak color…i dont think i can see that at 40yds.
Have there been any studies re the 20 years of falling morning dove numbers in West Texas, North Texas, East Texas and Central Texas?
Im a 70 yo Dr who has hunted dove for 60 years and it seems the population is steadily falling.
I have, due to patient friends, have access to hunt 500 plus sq miles of ranches in different locations from Cayanosa, Pecos, Sheffield, Big Springs, Orla, Ft Stockton and Weslaco on the Rio.
Also family property in East Texas.
As a kid, we couldnt sleep in the morning for the doves cooing around Buchanan Lake. Later the WW moved in and the M Dove moved out.
Then the grackles moved in and the WW moved out. Now they are in much smaller numbers.
Any studies on the massive bird declines Bird watching friends report? Is it electric turbines?
As a kid hunting in East Tex timbered bottoms the Robins, jays, and flickers and ruby crowned kinglets would at times in migration be so thick and noisy it was all but impossible to sauirrel hunt. The birds almost covered the forest floor and would just move aside as one walked through.
Something is going on and i dont think its good.
As a kid, a drive anywhere in the country in late afternoon would see doves on power lines everywhere. Now, the only place one normally sees them is close to water.
Sometimes i think dove seasom should be closed every other season for a while.
Of course, i still hear of hunters killing many over the limit in baited fields or where sunflowers were planted.
Please help the doves by turning these poschers in.
For those who dont know, 50 years ago the whitewings near the Rio would almost darken the sky. No more.
The farmers once burned the winter sugar cane fields killing tons of roosting grackles.
No longer allowed, now the huge flocks of blackbirds starve the dove and farmers out. Much more crop seed has to be planted to get a crop. When the seed sprouts they decend in flocks and pull the seed out.
From what ive heard it changed do to treaties made on migratory birds with mexico. They seem to love back birds whether grackles to crows or ravens.
Ive seen female grackles roll cardinal eggs out of nests, lay their own and run the female off and end up with the male red bird helping her raise hers.
Rant over.
Dont get me started on the thousands of huge gator gar scarfing up tons of big bass and the acres of huge bass that once schooled on Rayburn or L Livingston before BASS raissed hell and got commercial buffalo netters koved out due to fears they would sometimes kill a big bass. They killed big gator gar by the thousands each year and there has never been really great bass fishing on those lakes like there was before the gill netters were kicked out.
You guys will never see the huge numbers of dove and song birds and bass ive seen iim sorry to say.
Well, GOD bless America and God bless Trump.
Please pardon the typos in my post above. Guess the cataracts are growing.
So what was the impact of the big freeze on dove population in texas?