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Ground shooting Doves? Unsportsmanship?

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Rule3

Rule3

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Whats the opinion (not legal) of ground shooting Mourning Doves with a single shot high powered pellet rifle.?
Un sportsmanship? or OK (to eat not just shoot)

Also, do Ring neck doves taste the same as Mourning doves?

There are lots of non native Ring necks or Eurasian Collared Doves and many other cross breed types.
 
I've never shot doves, but I have shot a lot of pheasant. On one trip, I watched a "friend" my brother brought along "ground pound" a rooster in a ditch.

Rather than becoming ungentlemanly myself, I got out of the truck and walked the seven miles back to town. I was still pretty ticked when I got back to my brother's house.

The first rule, after safety, is "fair chase." There is no fair chase if the bird is sitting on the ground.


Bullseye
 
I agree with Bullseye's take if you were talking about ground shooting any bird except a turkey with a "shotgun"; no sport at all. Slob hunting! But, you are referring to something totally different. I would think it challenging enough to slip up and shoot them with a pellet gun.
Carry on.
 
Its illegal to hunt any game animal with an air gun in Texas. Ring neck doves are not game animals.So I guess it would not be considered unsportsman like. Mourning dove are game animals,therefore illegal and unsportsman.
 
The only small bird I have hunted is woodcock. I've only shot when they are in the air, but of course they blend in too well to see them when they're on the ground. At home there are 2 or 3 doves on the ground under my bird feeder most of the time, but they're too big to actually get seed directly from the feeder. Occasionally, I get out my Daisy .22 single shot pellet pistol and pop one of them. The velocity is too low to actually injure a dove with a body hit, but the flurry of feathers flying is somehow satisfying!
 
:) Some people have just got to kill something. I have seen people shoot dove out of a tree. Not me! When I hunted I ate what I killed. Don
 
I don't shoot them on the ground because it's unsportsmanlike. (I will, however, admit to being tempted when I see a couple dozen on the ground around my bird feeders.)

I don't often shoot them on the wing, either. But that's only because I can't hit them.

Which brings to mind one of my favorite hunting jokes:

A man stops by a sporting goods store, buys a box of dove loads, and asks the man at the counter for recommendations on where he might find some doves. The salesman tells him about a great spot a short distance away, and the customer goes on his way.

An hour or so later he returns to the store and asks the salesman, "What's the limit on doves around here?"

Impressed that the man could have bagged his limit so quickly, the clerk replies, "20."

Reaching for his wallet, the hunter says, "Well...better give me 19 more boxes of those dove loads..."
 
Bullseye 2620 said:
I've never shot doves, but I have shot a lot of pheasant. On one trip, I watched a "friend" my brother brought along "ground pound" a rooster in a ditch.

Rather than becoming ungentlemanly myself, I got out of the truck and walked the seven miles back to town. I was still pretty ticked when I got back to my brother's house.

The first rule, after safety, is "fair chase." There is no fair chase if the bird is sitting on the ground.


Bullseye
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My dad and grandfather started me hunted doves and quail when I was 6 or 7 years old. It was explained to me early on that shooting one other than on the fly and I would be walking back to the house.

I've never fired a shot into a squirrells nest either, even if I saw the squirrell climb in. Rule was, if he made it home without me getting him first he was 'home free'.
 
All depends upon how hungry you are, or expect to become. If you are shooting for sport, I believe that you should give them a sporting chance, thus enhancing your shooting skills and providing a rare and excellent meal.
If you are feeding yourself, your family, or others in need, then maybe you should look into hunting turkey with a trot line baited with corn, dead falls, or the like. All are illegal, but survival is where the end justifies the means.
just my hillbilly-opinion.
Peace,
gordon
 
Shooting them on the ground is simply not acceptable. When they are sitting on a wire they are not technically on the ground however :D
As far as shooting ducks on the water , I take the 5th on that one ;) (besides-water is not technically on the ground)
 
We are talking in the back yard under the bird feeder.:D
So it's illegal to boot as I live in the city limits and cannot so much as shoot a sling shot. I just wanted a few for dinner.

Now if I was out in the field and hunting quail or doves with a shotgun, then no I would not shoot them on the ground. I guess there is no difference really.

Just for discussion, how come deer can be shot standing still, from a blind in a tree usually in a area that has been filmed, recorded, baited etc or from 500 yards away with some super high power scope That does not seem sporting to me, but I do not hunt them. I think they should have to be running.:D
 
I started hunting ruffed grouse in Indiana in 1972 and the thought of shooting one on the ground never entered my mind as I never saw one on the ground.

A few years later I started going to Wisconsin to grouse hunt with several uncles and cousins. The very first morning my cousin and I were driving down a dirt road and came upon a car driving very slowly pretty much in the middle of the road and about the time we got ready to pass the drivers door flew open and a middle aged man got out and pulled a cased shotgun out of the back seat loaded it walked a few feet in front of his car and shot a grouse standing in the middle of the road.

I assumed this was illegal but several days later on a rainy day in the cabin I was reading the Wisconsin game laws and found much to my suprise that it was legal as long as the road was unpaved.

In the years since I have seen this many times. This seems to be a tradition in Wisconsin that is sanctioned by the state.

I think these folks see this as sporting as tramping through brush behind a dog. I am always a guest in their state and am reluctant to judge them.
 
Shooting on the ground with a shotgun? No go. But on the dove I've hunted, getting within pellet gun range and scoring the hit
is probably harder than a thirty yard crossing shot with a twelve gauge.
When it comes to hunting, what's legal is not always ethical, and illegal is not always unethical.
 
In two weeks my telephone service will go out because of some city boys driving along the dirt road shooting dove off the wires. It's a yearly event. Shooting off wires or on the ground is not sport - never.
 
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OCD1 said:
Just for discussion, how come deer can be shot standing still, from a blind in a tree usually in a area that has been filmed, recorded, baited etc or from 500 yards away with some super high power scope That does not seem sporting to me, but I do not hunt them. I think they should have to be running.:D
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The regulations must be tailored to the habits of the particular animal and its local habitat. You have to tailor the regulations, teach hunters what those are, and equitably and predictably enforce those rules.

But, at the end of the day, sportsmanship is up to the hunter. What kind of hunter do you want to be?

If a hunter has pride in his or her woodcraft and shooting skills, built up over a period of years, then he or she is more likely, I think, to forego things like cameras and baits because, for that man or woman, it isn't about filling the freezer up with meat, it's about proving his or her value though the successful application of those hard-gained skills, and doing so on demand. And it's about respect for the animal by not making use of every possible technological advantage.

Just like some people are satisfied with "the gummint cheeze" and really don't care as long as their bellies feel full, others of us prefer something a little more refined. It's the same in the field. The best hunting I ever did was by myself -- no friends, no dogs, no intelligence network -- just me and 700 acres of Iowa cornfield that just seemed to be right, and a Beretta 12-gauge side-by-side. The rooster I tracked for three hours one morning, sometimes crawling on my belly, and who got away from me twice, tasted better that evening than anything I had eaten in a long, long time, you better believe it.


Bulleye
 
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CAJUNLAWYER said:
I hereby nominate you for honorary Cajun :D
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Well I could pick them off the feeder directly as they are then a pest and depriving the song birds from their provided Gov't handout. The Ring Necks are not native and I classify them as a invasive pest. No one would care if it was a Python, Iguana, Cuban Tree Frog, Nutria, Monitor Lizard etc, etc.;)
 
Regardless of the legalities, I think it's sporting enough to use a single shot pellet rifle as long as you're out in the open just as you would be when hunting them while they're in flight, with a shotgun. I think ground shooting would be even more difficult.

If you still feel a bit of guilt, you can then eliminate the use of any optics and use POOS (plain old open sights).

If your conscience still isn't clear, then use a shotgun with slugs. Just be careful of ricochets, and keep in mind that you probably won't be eating any.
 
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