FAIRMONT, W.Va. — Two of the state’s earliest hunting seasons open up on Labor Day Monday. The early Canada goose season begins statewide at daylight. The dove season opens at noon.
“Once in a while it’s a holiday weekend and it extends the season a little. It’s extremely popular for the first three days, but then it tends to wane off a little bit. I always think that’s kind of a shame because our wildlife managers put a lot into managing the areas for doves and the hunting is still good after three days,” said Mike Peters, Game Bird Biologist for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.
He’s talking about the dove season. Each of the DNR’s districts has a at least one and in some cases several wildlife management areas with fields planted and dedicated to attracting doves. Although called “dove fields”, the cultivation on those areas isn’t exclusively for doves. Most birds can thrive when the food sources and habitat is bolstered along with cover. The fields provide a much needed spot for a lot of wildlife to thrive.
Peters didn’t have a sure handle on the forecast for the dove season in 2025.
“Doves are migratory birds and if our population here was a little low, we still have the opportunity for migratory birds to come flying in also,” he explained.
Because of the early wet weather during the spring and summer, Peters said it was hard to get a firm grasp on those numbers in West Virginia. He anticipated hunters would find good success. The key to the hunt isn’t necessarily dove numbers, but hunter numbers.
“I would take several boxes of shells. They’re tough to hit,” he laughed. “If you have several folks hunting on all sides of the field, shots will keep the birds on the move. Otherwise, once they’re shot at, they’ll fly to the other end of the field and sit on a limb and not come back.”
The early Canada goose season is a management tool for the agency.
“The September season is really just to help control resident populations before our migrant Canada geese start coming down through. It gives us a chance to harvest geese without impacting that migrant population,” said Peters.
Typically however, the more plentiful numbers of resident geese tend to be in places hunters have no access.
“In the city limits or on a golf course, yeah the social carrying capacity is probably maxed out. But in places where they can be hunted, like along the Ohio River for instance, I think the population is pretty good and harvest isn’t having a significant impact,” he said.
The early goose season comes well before the fall migration which insures any geese seen or killed in West Virginia during the early season are from West Virginia and not migrants passing through.