Photo by Larry Ditto.

In light of the rapid approach of dove season, it strikes me that three colors matter most to the legions of Oklahoma wingshooters going afield on opening day: green, brown and gray.

Green -- for lush vegetation that provides for suitable nesting conditions in the spring and early summer, not to mention the agricultural and native plant growth that will come into play a bit later down the road.

Brown -- for the parched effect that the Sooner landscape takes on by the end of most summers, when a lot of vegetation turns a shade of brown. Doves swoop in to feed on wheat stubblefields, burnt-gold milo plots, crisping sunflowers or croton, and, of course, the bare banks of dwindling waterholes.

And gray -- the color of the rocketing winged ghosts themselves, here one moment, gone the next amid a fusillade of shotgun pellets fired by a row of dove hunters left wondering yet again how they all could have missed these aerial acrobats going Mach 1.

Early on, the outlook for all three colors -- the green of late spring and early summer, the potential for a good year of browning dove food, and the possibility of a good crop of gray mourning doves -- looked good. In fact, as this is written, the state of Oklahoma is awash in green. In addition to the lush green vegetation that dots the state, the Oklahoma map is also filled with the green of flood warnings as another round of heavy rain and thunderstorms aims to make the drought of the last couple of years a distant memory.

SPRING/SUMMER RAINS
"Yes, sir," said Alan Peoples, wildlife chief for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, "the rains have helped a bunch. We're finally out of the drought."

As of press time, rains had come to most areas of the state, and Peoples expressed concern mainly for one region of Oklahoma. "In the northwestern part of state, we haven't had those run-off-type rains that fill all of the ponds back up," he said. "A lot of waterholes out there that went dry and are still dry because of the sandy soil types of land there -- it takes a pretty good rain to fill them up."

However, the statewide bottom line is that the vegetation is good, and looking better all the time as precious raindrops keep falling. "Vegetation-wise, we're great," Peoples agreed.

But while rain is good for the Sooner State landscape, there can be too much of a good thing, according to Mike O'Meilia, migratory game bird biologist for the ODWC. "Conditions are at a point in time," he said, "so if a dove nests in location x and has to survive through a big thunderstorm, it obviously has some effect on them."

Even so, the ODWC biologist doesn't lose much sleep worrying about dove futures in most springs. "That's not something that I worry a lot about unless we have a lot of windy, stormy weather in May and June, when their first nesting attempts occur," he said. "If that occurs, then it has an effect."

Why? Because violent thunderstorms, strong straight-line winds, hail, and -- heaven forbid -- tornadoes all do a number on dove nests and newly hatched young. And not a good number, either.

With much of the state waterlogged and dove nests ready to hatch out at press time, O'Meilia had a prescription for a bumper crop of doves. "At this stage, I'd take a dry, normal, non-stormy spring," he said. "I'd probably take that over a wet stormy one."

Whatever the weather, there is one thing that O'Meilia's pretty sure of: The hunting's likely to be good in the Sooner State this month. "Oklahoma is still one of the best dove hunting states out there," he asserted.

Saying a hearty "amen" to that are the state's legions of dove hunters, a group that numbers 50,000 to 60,000 according to federal numbers, and 75,000 strong in state estimates.

HUNTING EARLY
Of course, to a great majority of those wingshooters -- whom O'Meilia dutifully reminds to get HIP certification along with the hunting license -- dove season is a relatively short affair compared to what the law and the calendar will allow for. "The first two weekends of the season is when most of our dove hunting takes place," O'Meilia said. "After the first half of September, there are some diehard dove hunters out there; I'm one of them. But after the first two weekends have come and gone, you can have some of these places pretty much to yourself -- and you can have some fabulous shooting."

O'Meilia's boss agreed. "The last 10 years or so that's been the status quo," said Alan Peoples. "Ninety percent of our dove hunting occurs that first week or so. I call it the 'opening-day syndrome.'"

Hunters do indeed like to get out there on opening day, but, Peoples added, the season's first cold front inevitably comes through sometime shortly before or after the dove season opener. When that happens, it chases many of the state's native birds south -- which is why many hunters are done for the year by Sept. 15.