New student and looking to go dove hunting opening day or close. Would need to be within at least 2 hours or so of college station. Any recommendations? Thanks!

Gonna be slim pickings I'm afraid. Very hit or miss. However, there is a solid white wing population in town now. One of their flyways out of town is just N of university dr/Raymond Stotzer but before you get to Villa Maria. I occasionally park there in the morning pointing SE and watch the whitewing flights out of town in the fall and finish my coffee after dropping the kids off at school. That flyway goes right over traditions toward the Brazos and the farmland around the river. That's all I've got, we dove hunt out in Coleman county.

Buy a TPWD annual hunting permit for $50 and have at
It. Don't plan to live off the doves you shoot though.

The permit and map book isn't available until Aug. 15, but you can probably view last year's map book online to see available properties to hunt, which tend to roll over each year.

Been low numbers reported around BCS the last few years. Generally I'd say west of there might give you a better chance to get in their migration route.

Bad news first since there is no good news: shooting dove around College Station is all about lowering your expectations. It's not gonna be good.

Finding somewhere to go (besides very below average public) is even harder.

That's all.

RCR06 said:

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Been low numbers reported around BCS the last few years. Generally I'd say west of there might give you a better chance to get in their migration route.

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In my unscientific opinion, based on 50+ yrs of dove hunting the Brazos-Burleson-Robertson county area...the decline of several years bottomed out in 2018, with a slight recovery last year. But when it was damn near zero, a slight recovery was just an optimistic way to hope it will eventually return to the 2010-2012 level, when the whitewing and mourning doves together made for some great local hunts.

There will always be some pockets or areas locally that produce a good-to-great hunt, but those (credible) reports were rare the last few years.

Notice he did say "within 2 hours of CS" so it doesnt have to necessarily be right in the bottom. I will echo that hunting Brazos bottom aint what it used to be 10 years ago.

Maybe check out the Stiles Farm Foundation near Thrall, it would be about an hour and fifteen minutes from College Station. Last year they leased their land to be used as public land with the TXPW program. There is a decent amount of farming in that area so maybe there will be some late corn or milo still in some fields or just harvested to keep birds around.