Elk City Wildlife Area's public area awash with doves on opening day

Jacob Holem’s occupation is student, but his actions looked like a maestro of a major philharmonic. But rather than a baton, it was his shotgun’s barrel he had slashing and swinging wildly about as he tried to lock on one dove of the hundreds zooming and zipping and twisting about.

Finally, my 12 year-old friend responded the best way possible — he lowered his gun, watched the birds swarm around, and started giggling.

Meanwhile, all I could think of were the words like “fair” and “OK” that Darin Porter had used a few days before to describe the dove populations on the sunflower fields at the Elk City Wildlife Area.

But in the understatement of the year, Porter also said, “But I guess we are a little bit spoiled.”

A little bit, Darin? You think?

Porter is the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism lands manager responsible for three sunflower fields managed for dove hunting at the public area near Independence.

He’s one of many biologists who let sunflowers grow all spring and summer, then mow and/or harvest part of the field about two weeks before dove season. Though it’s now commonly done across the state, some of the southeast Kansas wildlife areas, like Elk City, have the best reputations for producing great hunting decade after decade.

Some of the fields have produced more than 1,000 doves on an opening day. The shooting has been so heavy at many that the state now requires steel shot be used to keep from putting too much lead into the immediate environment.

For years I’d wanted to cover the Sept. 1 dove opener in that region. On a trip to Elk City last spring I learned they had a 10-acre youth-only dove field where only the mentored kids can shoot. I’d been looking for a good spot to take Jake on his first hunt for doves.

We arrived Sunday evening to scout the field, figuring it would be packed with kids and accompanying adults the next morning. Our chosen location was at the farthest end of the field, so we decided to arrive an hour before legal shooting time to save our spot.

But nobody else came until well after the start of legal shooting time, and they left after a few minutes.

Jake and I had the field to ourselves, except for some sizable flights of doves. At first I let him try about any dove passing within 30 yards, but 50 shells and seven doves later he was down to his final box of ammo. And that’s when Mother Nature opened the avian flood gates and waves of doves began sweeping over the field. I have no doubts a couple of flocks had more than 100 birds, and I once counted six flocks from 20 to 60 over the field at once.

After his bit of giggling, Jake calmed and only took shots at doves hovering over a spinning-wing decoy about 20 yards away. He shot his limit-filling 15th dove in short order, and had shot 69 rounds in about 90 minutes.

A half-mile away we found Porter checking hunters at a 17-acre field open to all ages of gunners. He estimated he’d already checked about 30 hunters leaving the fields with limits.

By then the field only held two or three groups, including a late-starting party that had driven up from Oklahoma. One look at a seven-year-old Cade Miller, and his family’s 11-week-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever puppy Typha, bouncing around amid the group was all I needed to ask if I could tag along.

Cade’s mother, Emily, is an avid hunter but was along for kid and puppy control. His father, Adam, had five birds when we met but said it wasn’t from a lack of opportunities. Their friends Patrick Benfer and Kris Richards already had limits. Both stayed another hour or so to tease Adam Miller about his shooting and so Benfer could work his Lab, Gunner, on the doves Miller dropped.

All three hunters commented, repeatedly, on how many birds they’d been seeing.

“We didn’t get here until about 8 but I was done by about 8:45 and Kris was done by about 9,” Benfer said. “I’m telling you, Oklahoma could learn a lot from these Kansas wildlife folks when it comes to dove fields. These guys up here flat know what they’re doing. This is amazing.”

Amazing, Patrick? You think?

This story was originally published September 6, 2014 at 2:37 PM with the headline "Elk City Wildlife Area's public area awash with doves on opening day."