Dove hunting in Pennsylvania starts Sept. 1. A guide for the estimated 16,000 hunters.
Hunting seasons get underway in Pennsylvania with start of dove season Sept. 1.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission reports there are roughly 350 million doves in the United States and more than 20 million are shot annually by hunters.
The agency estimates more than 16,000 Pennsylvania hunters shoot more than 100,000 doves each year.
Dove seasons
In Pennsylvania, the 2023-24 dove season is open Sept. 1–Nov. 24 and Dec. 19–Jan. 6.
A hunting license or mentored youth permit and migratory game bird license are required to hunt doves in Pennsylvania. Hunters are permitted to keep 15 doves each day.
Tactics
The Game Commission has created dove fields on some of its state game lands where doves feed on seeds. You can learn about the more than 30 different public hunting fields on the agency’s website, pgc.pa.gov.
Hunters use dove decoys, including electronic spinning wing decoys, to help bring the flying birds within shotgun range.
Habitat
In addition to the state game land fields, the agency reports you can find mourning doves along open woodland edges. The game birds’ favored habitat includes farmland with scattered trees and shrubs, open woods, evergreen stands, orchards, roadside trees and suburban gardens. Doves usually avoid dense forests.
An early look at dove fields: Pa. Game Commission improves opportunities for dove hunting
Doves feed on a variety of seeds and will fly to places where food is adequate. Doves will concentrate on properties withweed seeds or waste grain, near trees for roosting and nesting, and within easy flight of a water source.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, X @whipkeyoutdoors and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: What to know to hunt doves in Pennsylvania in the 2023-24 season
