Sporting clays: the way to prepare for dove season

I am a fine one to offer suggestions for dove season preparation. Procrastination is my middle name. I try to get the right shells for the right shotgun and remember to put my dove stool in the truck and that's my way of getting ready to hunt doves. That's probably why I waste the first 10 or 12 shells when the birds start flying.

But there is a better way: sporting clays.

Sporting clays courses offer simulated shooting as you would find it in on a real hunt. For doves, there are usually overhead shots, criss-crossing shots and straight away targets that help you get in the swing of things. Shotgun shooting is really all about swinging through and keeping your eye on the target.

But where, you ask? There are two excellent sporting clays courses I can recommend: Shady Grove in Remington, just north of Culpeper, and Central Virginia Sporting Clays in Palmyra.

On Aug. 8, Central Virginia Sporting Clays will hold their monthly fun shoot, with some new targets in place and a delicious lunch to follow. The fun shoot starts at 9:00 a.m., with the last start begin-ning at 3:00 p.m. The cost is $35 for the first 100 targets (includes lunch). It's an additional $25 for reentry. If you need instruction, that can also be arranged.

Owner Brad Landseadel is a certified NSCA instructor who has been shooting for years. He has won or placed in a number of local, state, regional and national tournaments and is proficient in all sporting clay gauges -- he placed second in .410 at the Nationals in 2006. If you are just learning to shoot, Brad can loan you a gun, teach you the basics of gun safety, and show you how to start breaking targets. If you have been shooting for a number of years but have a target that you just cannot figure out how to break, he can help with that as well.

Neil Selby, owner of Shady Grove, has terrific practice facilities with 22 stands of sporting clays, Five Stand, and NSCA tournaments. Neil also is offering his grain fields for a dove hunt on Satur-day Sept. 12.

The annual Shady Grove Dove Shoot includes sporting clays in the morning, a dove shoot in the afternoon with a pig pickin' to follow. Sportsmen can show up as early as 8 a.m. and work their way to the shooting stands. The dove shoot gets underway at noon, and the pig roast kicks off at 4:30. The cost for a full day's events is $125. The cost for just the dove hunt and dinner is $100.

To find out more about Central Virginia Sporting Clays, go to www.centralvasportingclays.com. To pull up Shady Grove, visit www.shady-grove.com. And remember, dove season is just 4 weeks away.

Buy The Right Stuff

Here is a tip for putting a limit of doves in your game bag. Buy top quality shells, such as Winches-ter AA loads. I believe they are the best shells on the market.

Each year right before hunting season, sporting goods stores offer super specials on game loads. Hunters take the bait and stock up on what are inferior loads. Then when the birds start flying, hunters see feathers fall, but not the doves.

One year I was shooting the special-priced loads and was really discouraged at how many doves I had hit but didn't knock down. Many locked their wings and sailed off towards the woods. When I finished that box of low-end shells, I dug into a new box of AA Winchesters my son had given me and the results were like night and day. When hit, the birds folded and dropped. Cripples were few and far between. Since that day, I have only used Winchester AA loads for dove shoot-ing.

Ammo is expensive, I know that, but when you factor in the cost of a hunting license, a long trip to the dove fields and perhaps a fee to hunt, paying a few more bucks for high quality shells is worth every penny -- particularly when you are back at the truck with a limit of birds while your buddies with the cheap shells are still banging away.