Hunting season is open for some

Hunters are celebrating with the opening of some hunting seasons. The booming of shotguns will be heard around the Columbia Basin with the opening of dove season. Also opening yesterday were the grouse and archery deer seasons. Read on for a recap of some of these seasons.

Grouse, goose, duck, pheasant, quail, deer, turkey

Forest grouse: Sept. 1 through Dec. 31. September goose season: Sept. 10 and 11; Youth season for duck, goose, coot: Sept. 17 and 18. Youth season for pheasant, quail and partridge: Sept. 17 and 18. The early archery deer season opened yesterday.

Early fall general turkey season: Sept. 17 through Oct. 31, in some Game Management Units, and Sept. 17 through Oct. 14 in other units. The bag limit is one turk in some units and three in others. One of the units offering three turks is where Rudy Lopez and I spotted a flock of 300 birds.

Mourning dove

The mourning dove season will opened yesterday and continue through Oct. 30. The limit is 15 a day, with a possession limit of 45. Great to have an expanded season and limit, as not long ago the season was only the month of September and the limit was 10 a day.

Bonus hunt

If a hunter can find a farmer with a pigeon problem, there may be mourning doves, rock doves (what we commonly call pigeons) and Eurasian collared doves. Remember the collared dove is considered an invasive species, so there is no limit on these birds. Another plus is they are almost twice the size of the mourning doves.

Some hunters consider pigeons to be unclean for some reason. The ones living on farmland are eating the same food as the mourning doves and collared doves.

A hunter allowed to hunt a farm where all three bird species are present can get a lot of shooting in a day and, hopefully, take home a lot of birds. Good luck to all.