Rainy Day Dove Shoot by Jason

I woke up this morning to pouring rain here in Gainesville, FL. My spirits were also a bit damp as I had plans to go to Watermelon Pond Plantation in Archer, FL to work my German Shorthaired Pointer, Hank, with bird dog trainer extraordinaire, Kate Boulos. A dove shoot was planned for the afternoon. When the rain stopped around 12:00 pm, I was happy. My fiancee and I loaded up Hank and headed out with a cooler full of cold drinks and a mullet dip for the cookout. I prepared it last night after a great day of red fishing out of Cedar Key. It turned out great and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We arrived in plenty of time to grab a quick snack of delicious bar b qued pork, chili cheese dip and baked beans and then headed out to the quail woods.
We stopped at the pond flat and shot at a few snipe, none of which I hit. We worked Hank up into the piney woods and he nailed a single right off the bat. I killed it and he made an excellent retrieve. We continued on and he pointed again, this time very intense and stood until I flushed. I got a bit carried away and hurried my shot. Unfortunately, there wasn't much bird left for Hank to retrieve. Hank continued to improve as the hunting progressed and he located a small covey on the edge of the woods in some scrub oaks. I managed to make a good shot on one; the others were flying too fast. Kate was working a nice Brittany named Spud. He pointed several times and had the birds well located. We had a backing session with Hank and he seems to be getting the idea. Spud had 2 more finds which gave me more opportunities to make Hank honor his point. I also made Hank watch as Spud made the retrieves. We finished by giving Hank, Spud and one of Kate's beautiful English Setters, Biz a good run.
We headed back to the camp, ate some more and then proceeded to the dove field. Although the weather was damp and the sky gray, the doves came in pretty good, although sporadic. We had some good groups come in non stop for about 30 minutes in the late afternoon about an hour before sunset. My dove shooting was not as good as my quail shooting, but I managed to bag 10 and gave Hank more retrieving work. It was a great day and I can't wait to get back out to the woods next weekend for more dog work, quail hunting dove shooting at Watermelon Pond Plantation.