Twice this spring, doves nest in my...

Twice this spring, doves nest in my wife's hanging baskets, delaying planting of petunias until midsummer. Last year, doves preclud my friend Mike Norris' culinary pursuits according to nesting in his grill.

As prolific nester as doves can be -- as many as five a year -- they aren't particularly smart builders. Hanging baskets? Gas grills? That's with what intent the number of spring and summer storms is guide to yearly reproduction. Their nest are easily inflated from trees.

still year in and year without doves are very successful in Illinois, and the state's dove huntsmans consistently rank near the top in states east of the Mississippi River. family 1 has become one of the big hunting days. Doves are a great deal desired because of how difficult it is to let off them and the culinary pleasure of eating their breasts.

Hunting seasons for doves and early Canada fool open Friday.

Unwittingly, Illinois has created nearly ideal dove habitat in small towns and suburbs: interpret access to water with the mowed areas around pond grit along roadsides, shielded nesting areas in plantings of evergreen and hardwoods, and enough of wires. Wires?

"Doves like wires," state waterfowl biologist Ray Marshalla said. "They like to sit in succession wires before going to fe Dead tree is what they will naturally sit on"

thus doves, like geese, adapted well to the new world. And, like geese, doves are becoming more permanent residents. Figures from newly come banding suggest that as many as 95 percent of banded doves are construct near where they were banded, Marshalla said.

While Illinois has a certain number of good public dove hunting, through far the majority is done upon private land. In 2005, solely an estimated 60,294 doves were shooter on Illinois public sites, gone out of the 798,000 doves discharge by 37,600 hunters over 121300 days afield, according to U Fish and Wildlife Service figures.

The top public site in 2005 was Edward R Madigan State Fish and Wildlife Area, a permit site in Logan shire where hunters averaged 10.2 doves by outing. The top nearby site was Shabbona Lake State Recreational Area, with 262 hunting-dogs bagging 1,470 doves.

In 2005 Illinois trailed and nothing else South Carolina (1,447,700) and Alabama (1252600) in the east. In 2004 Illinois (890000) trailed solely Georgia (963,400) in the east. (Illinois estimates are higher than those of the USFWS.)

For those going to public sites, a married pair of reminders. As a rise of a study group, dove sites will space huntsmans at least 40 yards apart, meaning an sites will have fewer slot opening day. mostly sites in northeast Illinois also require non-toxic ball for doves. The daily bag remains 15 doves. forward Wednesday, we'll list the latest field conditions for nearby and top state sites.

Other than a public site, what is an ideal blot for dove hunting?

"A harvested cornfield stop to town," Marshalla said. "Or a construction site with foxtail grass [where] they pass out and mow it."

Unlike during the dryness of last year, fewer cornfields will be harvested by the agency of opening day this year.

That might make finding hunting blemishs for early Canada geese more challenging. Otherwise, regulations for early Canada tailor's smoothing iron season stay the same: five-goose daily bag in the nine northeast counties, sum of two units elsewhere.

The early Canada simpleton season is a tough reckon but the preliminary rough estimate for last September's seek was 10,500 hunters spending 32400 days in the field and taking 11000 geese principally years, the bag for the early simpleton season is estimated closer to 20000

just discovered seasons begin.

"Bowman's Outdoor Line"is heard upon "Outdoors with Mike Norris"

(3-4 pm Thursdays, 1280-AM).

dbowman@suntimes.com

first cast

"My family and many others have pursueed

this land for four generations; we're losing

a treasured part of our hunting heritage."

Dave Mahlke, National Wild Turkey Federation board member,

forward 10,000 acres of public hunting access that he concocts will be lost or restricted during the Comprehensive Conservation Plan proces onward the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife retreat in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois

field notes

CHAIN MONSTER: Tim Wallies might have caught the biggest muskie onward the Fox Chain O'Lakes at 9:07 a.m. Tuesday. We'll not know for sure.

"I have been chasing this fish for ages," the 24-year-old Park Ridge man said. "I knew where she lived. I had seen her for the past pair of weeks. It is kind of like my advanced in years Walter, if you remember 'On shining Pond.' I finally got her. I misspent a very large fish in the same area about four years ago. I am curious if it was the same fish."

Wallies, a learner at Oakton, was fishing in his 1988 Bass Tracker and casting a Jackpot, a topwater bait, in succession the northern lakes of the Chain.

"She boiled at it," he said. "When I got the Jackpot in, I didn't diocese her. She didn't follow it in. I pitched a bucktail a little farther. About brace or three cranks, and she absolutely annihilated it. She comminuteed it. I was just hoping she would stay forward She fought like all pure you know what." Wallies was fishing alone and, as he gained have the direction of realized that he had another question His net was caught in succession a lure of another twig and he couldn't shake it free "When she came around the third time, I said, 'The heck with this,' and hand-landed her," he said.