The large computer company that I worked for had promoted me to their center in Atlanta, Georgia and, before that, had sent me to Endicott, New York for further “training”. While in Endicott I had become violently ill with some type of flu, was in bed for 3 days and finally flew back to Phoenix, although I barely remember the flight back.

Back in Phoenix with time on my hands, while my family was visiting in Houston, it dawned on me that dove season will still on. There was one spot, a stock tank just off the intersection of 7th Street and Deer Valley Rd. that we’d never hunted before. Back then in the mid 70’s this was still cattle country and cows need water, hence the stock tank. So I decided quickly that I’d just go out there and try my luck on the mourning dove.

That afternoon, after the short drive from my house, I arrived at the spot, parked my truck under a big ironwood tree, climbed through the barbwire fence that kept the cows inside and walked the short distance to the stock tank. There were no posted signs, so hunters could use it, since most of the land in Arizona, at that time, was Government land.

At the tank, about a quarter of an acre, I picked a dappled, shady spot under a mesquite, squatted down on my haunches and waited for, I hoped, a good flight of dove. My wait wasn’t long as 2 mourners, from my left, zipped past me, made a circle and landed for a drink. Stepping out of the shadows, the dove sprang up, stretching for altitude, but my 20, gauge pump, barked twice and they crumpled, this was just like shooting doubles at trap!

As the dove came piling in, this was one of those days, I’d used only 11 shots and had bagged 9 birds, one away from my limit. The last dove came loafing by, over the tank and my shot dropped it right into the water, using cow chips and sticks, I “chunked” it toward the bank where I waded out and retrieved it. A limit of shooting in just a little over an hour!

This was a good spot and I’ll have to come back and bring the family, then I remembered that I had to be in Atlanta with my family very soon, no coming back to this spot, but it’ll be hard to forget the easy shoot I enjoyed here!

Having always said, “I’d rather be lucky than good!” this hunting/fishing trip convinced me.  Back in the 50’s and 60’s, dove season in Texas was afternoon shooting only. There were lots of birds and the thinking was, let the birds rest, feed and it will keep some of the pressure off them.  Today, with all day hunting, that thinking is history because now we have an overabundance of dove, mourning, white wing and ring necks.

This particular hunt, or better a fishing trip, took place in Falls County, Texas where my dad and I had enjoyed some fabulous afternoon, water hole, shooting for mourning doves.  My uncle Shelly, Shelton Gafford, had directed us to a couple of stock tanks where there were an abundance of doves and we were rewarded with some good action.

Our mornings were free, so Shelton told us about another place where we could fish, but the rancher allowed no guns or hunting.  This was no problem for us!  Uncle Shelly was careful with his instructions on how to get there, he told us to take Hwy. 7, east out of Marlin, cross the Big Creek Bridge, and turn right at the second gap, or wire gate in the fence, and follow the road to the stock tank.

Following the instructions, the second gap was almost to Kosse, Texas, and ignoring the “Posted” sign, opened it and followed the dirt road until we came to an old, rock quarry that was no longer in use.  Not a stock tank, but looking into the very, clear water, it was easy to see bass milling around, plus several large bream beds.

Keeping the sun in our face, we stood several feet away from the water and whipped our Piggy Boat spinner baits toward the fish.  Immediately, we were both rewarded with two sharp strikes and soon landed two scrappy, 12 inch bass.  They were unusual looking little fish with large mouths and small bodies and we guessed, correctly, they were stunted and for the ferocity of their strikes, probably undernourished.

We kept on casting, catching and stringing the little fish.  We added several, good sized, goggle eye perch, fish that looked somewhat like a bream, but slimmer with their eyes protruding from their heads.  Goggle eyes are good fighters on light tackle and very tasty when fried!

We returned all of the really small ones, but ended up with 15 keepers.  We iced them down and retraced our route off of the property and headed back to Shelton’s ranch for lunch.  Lunch was the big meal of the day and as we loaded up, we reviewed our morning trip with him.

He smiled and shook his head and asked, “You went right through the “Posted” sign?  Did they catch both of you all?”  “Who’s they?” my dad answered.  He replied, “Mr. so-in-so or his Foreman.  They have some expensive bulls on the place, besides there’s a lot of quail and they don’t allow anyone but family out there!”  Answering him, I said, “Uncle Shelly, we didn’t see a soul all morning!”  He just smiled and shook his head.

As he headed into his den, he looked back, smiled and said to both of us, “You shoulda’ turned left at the second gap!”

There were worlds of mourning dove coming in to feed on the grain field stubble, in a field, on an Indian reservation in the Phoenix area. This particular reservation allowed hunting in the grain fields, but we had to be careful not to go into the “No Trespassing” areas that were well marked with signs.

My family, Brad, my ex wife and I, were fast into knocking down these twisty fliers, Randy and Suzanne were doing the retrieving and our bird count was rising. This afternoon, we were the only hunters out so we were hunkered down, a hundred yards apart, along an irrigation ditch, now dry. Many of the birds flew over us as they came into the field to feed, providing some easy overhead shots. We took a break to count up our birds and our tally indicated that we had knocked down 31, five short of our combined limits. Shooting time was just about over so we let Brad, who was an excellent shot with a shotgun and the reigning Arizona, junior state champion trap shooter, finish out the string.

We set to breasting out the dove, leaving both wings on and dusk was settling in by the time we finished. Rinsing our hands, we loaded everything up into the camper, kenneled up the kids and drove off the reservation, we thought. Coming to a cross road, we turned, we thought, the correct way because there weren’t any signs. The next thing we knew, through the dust, here came a pickup barreling toward us, loaded with Indians and as they came closer, we saw they were all armed!

As the truck pulled to head us off, all the Indians were shouting and waving their firearms, we looked to be in deep stuff, but didn’t know of any tribal laws we had broken. One, possibly the headman, yelled over to us, “You’re on private, no trespassing, property and are under arrest! Been hunting, too, we’ll get all of you for shooting after hours?” This really looked serious now.

The year before, we had a run in with an Apache Policeman, he confiscated our .22 pistols and was going to ticket us for carrying firearms on the reservation, until he calmed down some and I told him that I was friends with the Tribal Chairman and named him. He relented, but told us “Friends with the Tribal Chairman or not, if he caught us on reservation with loaded firearms again, we be in big trouble!” Luckily, we never saw this policeman again!

Back to our immediate plight, the Indians were really heating up and I started fearing for my family. My ex had the, formerly confiscated, .22 pistol on her hip and she slipped it over to me, one pistol, 6 shots against a truck full, bad odds, before another Little Big Horn, I’ve got to get the headman talking. Telling him we thought we were headed out toward Baseline Road, he settled down a little and told us we took the wrong turn and were heading deeper into the reservation. He added, “Over the past weeks, we’ve had an increase in grave robberies, but to me, it looks like you just took the wrong turn.” The occupants in the truck were still yelling until he told them to be quiet and told us, “Just turn around and we’ll follow you out.”

Grave robberies meant that folks were sneaking on to the reservation, not robbing the graves of recently buried people, but rooting around in the desert trying to find graves a hundred to two hundred years old. This definitely wasn’t part of our program!

This was to close a call, so during our remaining years in Phoenix, we never went back to that reservation. That truck full of Indians really scared us off!

Sun up Saturday morning found Mickey Donahoo and I again in the field north of San Saba, awaiting the early morning dove flight, but this time we had equalizers, one was my 12 year old grandson, Wesley, pictured, visiting from Paris, Texas, who’d run down the doves and the other was a motorized, dove decoy, pictured below.

This device worked wonders with both white wings and mourners, but no ring necks came around.  We still had the problem of doves sneaking in on us, catching us unawares and then, us putting a few holes in the sky as they departed.

Our overall score for the morning was 6 mourning and 4 white wing dove.  The picture below shows nine birds, but I had already breasted one.

By a long shot, ten birds for a two, hour hunt isn’t up to previous years scores, but this year’s heat drove us in early.  Anyway, we all had to be back to Goldthwaite by 10:00 AM.