Dove Hunting Safety

Safety always matters when your hunting.  Especially when your shooting all over the place when your dove hunting.

• Don't shoot at low flying birds, a hunter could get hit if you do so.
• If your in a group, know where everyone is and communicate with each other.
• Wear ear protection.  Eye protection would also be good to wear.
• Handle guns safely at all times.

There's not too many safety guidelines, but you can also add "use common sense" as a fifth one.  But just a couple guidelines will lead to a much safer hunt.  So follow them.

Tree Stand Saftey

I know that I have written a little about tree stand safety before, but it doesn't hurt to go over being safe in a tree stand again.

• Always wear a full body safety harness.  Also known as a fall arrest system, these harnesses have saved hundreds of lives.  A safety strap should be attached to you and to the tree.  This should keep you from falling more than 12 inches (if you fall)
• There is a rule that is called the 3 point rule.  The rule is to always keep three points of contact (2 arms, one leg or one arm two legs) on the ladder.  But at least keep 2 points of contact, although the 3 point rule is safer.
• Carry emergency contact devices with you.  Cellphones are one type of these.
• Use a haul line to get your gear into the stand.
• Use a climbing belt when you are climbing up to and down from the tree stand.
• Wear boots with non-skid soles.  This will prevent you slipping on slippery wet rungs.

Have a safe hunting season!

Hunting for Doves

Mourning Doves are one of the most popular game birds in the US.  Here are some tips on hunting them.  Whether you are hunting them over a plot or in the field, or selecting ammo, here are some tips.

• If you have a cleared area (like an area that is clear cut) or any other field with brush, doves love those places.  You can usually find a lot of them in those places.
• A sunflower or wheat plot is a great place to hunt for doves.  They like to peck at the ground where seeds are just lying on the ground plainly visible.
• Hunting for doves requires only five things: a shotgun, brown or camo clothes (nothing fancy, unless you want to), some shotgun shells, a field, and some friends.
• Look in areas that have just been cut for grain or hay.  All the loose seed that fell out of the harvester during the harvesting attracts a lot of doves
• When you shoot, swing through the dove, shoot, then follow through by continuing to swing.
• You can also set up decoys to aid you in your hunt.  This makes the doves above think that that area is safe because there is already a bunch of doves left (though check with your wildlife organization to see if this is legal).
• Stick to 7 1/2 to 9 size shot.  This gives you a lot more chance of hitting a dove.  Remember, it doesn't take much to bring down a dove.

That's it for now!

Food Plot Tips

I am here to give a few food plot tips that will help your food plot greatly.


Lime your plot.  If you do nothing else but seed and water your plot, lime it.  Now I know that the optimum pH for soil is 7.0, you might have already tested your plot and found that your plot soil is 7.0 pH.  If it is, skip this step.  If it isn't, listen.  You can do all the fertilization you want, but if your soil isn't 7.0 pH, then you've just wasted some of or almost all of the fertilizer.

Put a game camera next to the plot so you can see if deer are coming to it.

If you can't afford a game camera, this is a great tip I heard from an Antler King food plot video.  Some people said that their food plot plants weren't getting tall.  So Antler King came up with an idea.  If your food plot plants are short, surround one small area of the plants with fencing on the sides and top.  So you are pretty much making a cage.  After a while (a couple days or so), check your plot.  If the plants in the cage grew while the others outside the cage stayed short, that means that deer are coming into your plot and eating at the plants (the deer couldn't get to the plants in the cage).  If all the plants are short, even in the cage, then you might want to add some fertilizer or lime your plot.

Gathering Acorns for Hunting

This article will be short because its just about a brief way to help you gather up acorns faster for deer to feed on under your stand or near some oak trees to increase in the amount of acorns that deer can eat there.

Instructions


4-2x4's, any length (preferably 4-6 ft long.)
1-tarp for the 2x4's to lay on

Put the 2x4's in a square (or rectangle, if you want too) shape and nail them together.  So now you should have, of course, a square (or rectangle) shape.  This diagram should help picture this.  The black rectangle is the 2x4's and the brown is the tarp.



To use this just put a couple down under some oak trees.  The acorns fall down into the box created by the 2x4's and all you have to do to gather them is to lift up the rectangle and the acorns are left lying on the tarp.  Just bag up the tarp and dump the acorns into a 5 gallon bucket and spread them out in front of your deer camera or plot.