Band tailed pigeon

M

memphis john

Member
I know this is off topic for a duck site, but people on this site seem to be well educated , so I will toss this out. Has anyone ever shot band tailed pigeons? I was told they are the only wild native pigeon since the passenger pigeon became extinct. I am in Nevada and seem to remember reading about them. Do people eat them or just shoot one to say they shot one? How scarce are they?
 
that isn't authorized until after a "coo counts" in the late Spring indicates successful breeding...when we get a season its short which means it can be a complete washout if we have a week of bad weather.....when the stars align though, when we get a season, when the huckleberry crop is good, when the weather is sharp and crisp and clear up high, where the Pigeons will be, its one of my absolute favorite hunts.

two adults and Mike.jpg

Get up high in the second week of September here and if the Huckleberry crop is good you'll find them. If you treat the birds with the respect they deserve and don't ambush them while they're feeding, shooting them out of the trees or on the flush when they are easy shots as some do, when you shoot them as they are smoking down off the top of a ridgeline its some of the sportiest shooting I've ever enjoyed....

I wasn't aware that Nevada had a season. Your Pigeons are the Interior race and are smaller and paler than our Coastal birds and don't typicaly migrate as far as our West Coast birds do....if memory serves Arizona has the most birds and the highest harvest numbers of the States that have seasons on the Interior race.....

As far as how common they are they are definately much reduced from the numbers they once enjoyed...Back "in the day", unfortunately a "day" I wasn't around to experience, the limit was 10 birds a day and the season length was much longer than the seriously curtailed seasons we have these days. Fortunately the population seems to have stabilized and is increasing, at least enough so that we can ejoy a season on them again, however short it may be.

No other "native" Pigeon seasons in the U.S. Red-Billed Pgeons occur along the Texas / Mexican border but there is no season for them in the U.S. althought they can be shot in Mexico. One other "native" Pigeon species in the U.S., that one being the White Crowned Pigeon that occurs in the U.S. only in extreme Southern Florida and even there is rare outside of the middle and southern Keys. No season for them although they were once shot, and may still be, in the Carribean.

Steve
 
I hunted the band tail pigeon when I was in hi school back in the early 50`s, we either hunted the tide flats or just off the flats . They would feed on elder berrys and cascara berrys......The place was Raymond Wa and would attract up to a hundred hunters and a dog was most helpful as many guys would bring there dogs out in the afternoon and pick up cripples getting there limit of 7 birds. When I first started I would flock shoot without success until an older hunter told me pick out just one bird . After that my success rate went way up but 50yrs ago goes to show you how times have changed........now just the memory
 
I hunted them a bit in the early 80's along the timberlines on mud flats here in Olympia Wa. It was a good cheap hunt for a kid: several buddies, guns, a dog and a few minute drive. I think hunting them was stopped for a while and recently opened up again (year by year decision...?). I don't bird hunt anymore so I don't pay that much attention to it. Always looked forward to frying them up afterwards. We would breast them out, flour, and fry 'em up with salt and pepper. MMMM MMMM, good eats.
---Joel---
 
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