After-Opener Dove Hunting

Moderate weather has changed up the dove hunting since opening weekend, but birds are still flying and providing opportunities in local hotspots. These tasty and plentiful birds offer a great kickoff to hunting seasons in many years, albeit something of a trick in these speedsters’ challenging aerial maneuvers. It’s easy to waste lots of shells on the way to a 15-bird limit. But once cleaned, wrapped in bacon, and grilled over a smoky fire, doves  make it all worthwhile via a memorable meal.

Look for doves to congregate around food sources like cut corn, milo, or even fallow ground with seedy weeds like foxtail. Where water is scarce in dry areas, ponds or pools make great, late evening stopovers where birds drink before roosting. Since doves are almost perfectly camouflaged for bare, sandy soil, be sure to mark down a hit bird so that you can find it. Retrieving dogs can be a big advantage, especially around water.

Light loads like trap or field size 8 shot are adequate for these birds. Get in a good flight zone, find the right leads, and you’re on your way to great Kansas early season hunting.

Hunting Lessons

Great horned owls make it a habit to stay out of sight during daylight. With perfect camouflage, they perch in shadows next to tree trunks, in dense cedar foliage, or clumps of hardwood leaves. Only then can they enjoy peace from crows and other birds that love to harass them. And anyway, they’re nighttime hunters that usually sleep during daytime.

For that reason, I seldom see and photograph great horned owls during our waking hours. But right now, fledgling great horneds are learning to hunt, and like most unskilled youngsters, they settle for less than their preferred mice, voles, and rabbits. An empty stomach gets them out early, well before sundown, when plentiful grasshoppers are most active. And these nutritious insects make great practice for aerial dives and strikes. They’re easy to catch, and a few hours’ work can fill a bird’s crop as it gains confidence.

This week, I’ve filmed several young owls in different counties that were catching afternoon grasshoppers. Again and again, the birds returned to a high perch overlooking a grassy field. When they spotted an insect, they swooped in the exact manner they would on a mouse. Watching from the ground, they might awkwardly chase down another prey, or take a short flight to catch another bite. If the ground perspective didn’t work after a few minutes, they would return to a tree for a better vantage.

These lessons provided insight into one of nature’s fiercest, and most unseen, aerial predators. This video shows a common experience as the next generation of great horned owls grows up.

 

Gettin' Ready

It’s late August, that time of year when deer hunters everywhere sharpen their shooting skills in advance of the early deer season. This afternoon, I visited with a pair of hunting buddies who were sighting in a crossbow. Mark Freeman, 26, of Pratt, is a serious hunter in spite of a disability. And his friend and mentor, Brett Eberle of  Sun City, was there as he’s always been during the past three years that Mark has hunted with a crossbow.

Freeman’s wheelchair is fitted with a special apparatus that holds a scoped crossbow, and small hydraulic arms on the apparatus allow his friend to move the bow according to Mark’s instructions as he sights through the scope. Today, they were shooting a three-inch circle at 30 yards. Mark directed the bow into position, concentrated, and squeezed a special release that triggered the shot. The arrow hit just right of the bullseye.

Eberle cocked the crossbow, loaded the bolt, and clicked off the safety as they repeated the process. The second bolt paired tightly with the first shot, and they adjusted the scope to dial it toward center. 

It’s an oft-repeated system on archery ranges across Kansas, where bolts and arrows are focused on a small spot that might one day mean a filled deer tag. It won’t be long until these friends team up in a Barber County ground blind and use their practice to good advantage, as they have when Mark harvested three deer in the past two years.

Like Mark said, “I might be in a wheelchair, but that doesn’t keep me from hunting.”

Good luck, guys. It’s time I got back on the range myself. I'll see you out there.

American Lotus

My grandpa called them yonkapins, and he knew what he was talking about. That’s still a colloquial name for what’s more commonly called water lily, or American lotus. These unusual plants, not actually lilies, are often seen in Kansas ponds and lakes. And this is prime time to see their splendid flowers.

Lotus plants have large, flat, circular leaves that float on water. The leaves are quite unusual in the plant world, with single stems that connect the leaf with the muddy bottom up to four feet below. A waxy covering makes them impervious to water, which beads up and pools or runs off of the slick surfaces.

The flowers are yellow, with a central blunt pistil in which the seeds form. These structures eventually turn brown and make one of nature’s most interesting artworks – a shaker top with brown seeds that ripen and drop out. The seeds, hard-coated and tasting like a mild acorn, can be cracked and eaten or pounded into flour.

Take your camera and look for yonkapins. You’ll find them to be one of nature’s most photogenic plants.

Kingman SFL Rehab

Boards were pulled at Kingman State Fishing Lake today at noon, the beginning of a renovation project to make better angling there in the future. This popular fishing lake has been in decline since white perch were accidentally introduced a few years back. These aggressive perch, along with a growing carp population, have crowded out much of the fishery’s gamefish, and the lake has been going downhill. So for the seventh time since the 1940s, the lake will be drained, killed out, and started all over again.

Drought causing low water conditions, along with the unbalance in fish species, made this a good time to start over. It’s expected to take several weeks for the lake to drain. A screen is in place to block the movement of any lake fish into the river. Since Kingman is a designated Aquatic Nuisance Species lake (white perch), salvage will not be permitted. The lake will be killed out completely, and hopefully, it will refill and be restocked in 2013. The plan is to stock adult fish as well as fingerlings, so that fishing can resume as soon as possible. The boat ramp is now closed, though bank, wade, or float tube fishing will be allowed until the lake is dry. The lake dropped five inches by 5:00 o'clock.

This project, an interruption for the resource for now, will pay off in much better fishing down the line. And that’s always a management goal for Kansas Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism in conserving our natural resources.

Sunfish Fillets

Cool temperatures and a north wind made a great summer day for fishing, and a few lucky anglers were able to take advantage this afternoon at Jewell State Fishing Lake. This beautiful lake, northwest of Beloit, is known for its big bluegills, though it also offers good bass and catfishing.

I drove through the area for the first time this year, and caught up with a pair of Hesston anglers who made the long drive just for the bluegill fishing. They fished from 9:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m., using worms under a bobber. They kept and cleaned 42 of the big sunfish, resulting in two bags of fillets for some great meals.

Kansas offers fine fishing throughout the state, and sometimes, a road trip to a distant destination just adds to the fun. These anglers, first-timers at Jewell, were impressed and said they would return with their wives, who were “only into catching, not just fishing.”

Fledgling Buzzard

I’d hoped to find a buzzard nest this spring. I looked in lots of old barns, sheds and granaries to finish a “life history” on these interesting birds that are common in Kansas each year. Turkey vultures nest on bare floors in such places, as well as in hollow trees, small caves and crevices in bluffs. And as common as the big black birds are, you’d think their nests would be easy to find.

But I didn’t find any. One small granary held some broken vulture eggshells and feathers in May, but it appeared that a raccoon had broken up the attempted nest. So I finally called off the search.

But I quit too early. Today, traveling down the road where I’d found the broken-up nest, I saw an adult buzzard sitting on the same granary. I stopped, cautiously opened a small wooden door, and there sat a grown juvenile. It was already capable of flight, since it sat about eight feet high on a wall near the open window. But I’m sure it has never left the building. That will probably come any day now.

So I missed a late nesting attempt. Since buzzards usually have two chicks, either this nest was short, or more likely, a sibling had already flown the coop.

Oh well, at least I got some late-stage fledgling stuff for my future story. I’ll watch more closely next summer, and maybe I can get the eggs and young then.