LSON Foundation dove hunt a big success

By Tim Smith

Please let me thank the LSON Foundation for the dove hunt I won in a drawing at the Ft. Worth Texas Trophy Hunters Extravaganza. Also let me thank Mark Roberts for donating the hunt.

I contacted Mark and booked our hunt for Friday, September 26.

When we got in the Uvalde area, I called Mark and we set up a 6 a.m. meeting location for the morning hunt. I have never been to the Uvalde area, but Mark made everything easy to find with good directions. The field we hunted was close to town and covered in native sunflowers and dove weed. The birds started flying as soon as it was light.

Me and my son, Robert Earl, had our backs to the a tree line, but the birds were coming right to the middle of the field so we moved forward to a draw running through the middle of the pasture and it was on.

I was shooting a new Berreta A400 Xplor in 28-gauge. Because of the small shot charge (3/4-ounce), I tried to keep my shots to 30 or 35 yards. By 8:30, I had 14 birds. I bought this shotgun just for dove and quail hunting. It has a 28-inch barrel and weighs 5 pounds, 2 ounces, so you can carry it all week.

Robert Earl was shooting a Charles Daly 20-gauge. I sat on my dove bucket and watched him shoot his first double and take the next four birds he shot in a row.

My son is 16 years old and been shotgunning for the last four years — clay pigeons, dove and duck hunting — but never in a dove field with that many birds. It was great to see him really start to catch hold of shooting. You can coach, give advice, talk about shotgun shooting, but nothing can do more to get a young shotgunner hooked for life than knocking some dove out of the air.

My son and I have directly benefited from the LSON Foundation.

I hope thousands of other Texans also benefit from the LSON Foundation.