Permit application period winding down for upcoming dove hunting season

LITTLE ROCK — Four of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s wildlife management areas will provide the rare opportunity of permit hunting for doves when the season opens Sept. 6. These four WMAs will be open only to permit winners for dove hunts either Saturday or Sunday of the first weekend of the season.

The WMAs — Camp Robinson Special Use Area near Mayflower, Shirey Bay Rainey Brake in Lawrence County, Frog Bayou in Crawford County and Dave Donaldson Black River in Clay, Greene and Randolph counties — will be first-come, first-served among permit winners.

“The permits for the four WMAs are to offer a more unique opportunity to get out on the first Saturday or Sunday and dove hunt where you aren’t going to have to compete with as many hunters around you,” says Brett Leach, the AGFC’s Waterfowl Program Coordinator “Camp Robinson is central Arkansas-focused, and the more northern parts of the state are served by (Dave Donaldson) Black River and Shirey Bay, and then Frog Bayou is on the western portion of the state. This allows us to reach some different populations throughout the state with these opportunities.”

Shirey Bay Rainey Brake and Dave Donaldson’s Brookings Field will have sunflowers to attract doves. Frog Bayou WMA was flooded for quite a while when sunflowers would be planted, so it will have top-sown wheat around its Power Line Field. Camp Robinson was unable to field a sunflower crop, Leach said, and also will be top-sown in wheat. Camp Robinson will have four different fields spread throughout the property that permit holders will have access to; and Camp Robinson and Shirey Bay also provide the largest number of permits, with 25 for each. The remaining 20 permits are split between Frog Bayou and David Donaldson Black River.

Leach encouraged permit-winning hunters to scout out the WMAs in advance to figure out where they would want to be set up on Saturday or Sunday of opening weekend. Dove season starts 30 minutes before sunrise on Sept. 6. Each day’s hunt concludes at sunset.

After the first weekend, those four fields and their total of 108 acres managed specifically for dove hunting will join several of the state’s other WMAs, totaling another 556 acres of managed fields for doves, for public hunting through Oct. 26, and then resuming Dec. 8-Jan. 15.

To gain one of the WMA permits, which allows the winner and one other hunter to hunt together either Sept. 6 or Sept. 7, hunters can apply on the agfc.com website and click on “Apply For A Dove Permit” at the top of the page to be taken to the AGFC license division’s permit application page. Hunters will have until 11:59:59 p.m. Friday, August 15, to apply. There is a $5 application fee.

Hunters may also try for one of the six private dove fields being offered by the AGFC’s Private Lands Habitat Division for hunting on Saturdays in September. Five of the fields will be open for the first three Saturdays; a sixth field is open for the first two Saturdays. Like the WMA fields, the permit winner may bring a guest, but both hunters must hunt together. Two of the private land fields will have designated hunting areas per each party, while the other four will be first-come, first-served.

The daily limit for mourning and white-winged doves is 15 (possession limit is three times the daily limit). There is no limit on Eurasian collared doves, but that species cannot be field dressed.

Leach notes doves beginning to arrive at dove-banding stations throughout the state. Michelle Furr, who coordinates the Private Lands Habitat Division dove permit hunts, noted earlier this month that doves were showing up in southwest Arkansas, where she lives and also hunts for dove. It’s often hard for biologists to predict just how many doves may be migrating through the state in early September, or joining with many of the doves that stay here year-round, but a dry late July and into August, and healthy sunflowers or the addition of top-sown wheat, always helps.

Visit www.agfc.com/hunting/more-game/dove/ for more information on dove hunting and the public opportunities that will be available for the upcoming season.

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CUTLINES

MAN WITH DOVES
Peyton Dugger with a few doves from a good hunt at Dave Donaldson Black River WMA. AGFC photo.

LADIES HUNT
Two ladies proudly showing a few birds they harvested during a special Womens Outdoor Network hunt. AGFC photo.

MOURNING DOVE
Mourning doves, like the one pictured, are common in Arkansas during September. White-winged doves and Eurasian collared-doves are also legal to harvest during Arkansas’s dove hunting season. AGFC photo.