Mourning doves like this became fair game (birds) Saturday morning in Louisiana. The first split in the South Zone, which includes the Teche Area, ends Sept. 9. A state biologist says there are plenty of doves in the state going into the season.

Teche Area dove hunters who were waiting for the 2018-19 season opener got their first look at the dove population Saturday.

If, that is, they went dove hunting at all. Mother Nature added the strong probability of thunderstorms to the mix this opening weekend for both the South Zone and North Zone. Plus, there’s more emphasis on opening weekend in the North Zone.

“Yeah, they’re calling for thunderstorms but, you know, the birds will still be out there eating. The probability of storms more than likely will keep hunters away than birds out of the fields,” Jeff Duguay said Friday afternoon from his state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries office in Baton Rouge.

Duguay, the state agency’s webless migratory upland game bird research and survey program manager since 2010, believes dove hunters who do take to the field won’t be disappointed, even if they have to wait between squalls to hunt. Based on this summer’s dove banding efforts and the spring’s dove call count, he said, “It looks like the numbers are up. If the weather cooperates, hopefully they’ll have a good weekend.”

The South Zone’s first split ends Sept. 9. The other two splits are Oct. 6-Nov. 25, which is when many of the area’s dove hunters take to the field, and Dec. 16-Jan. 14.

The North Zone’s first split is longer and ends Sept. 23. The other two splits are Oct. 6-Nov. 11 and Dec. 16-Jan. 14.

This is the weekend dove hunters have been waiting for since they put their shotguns to bed last season. Most of the doves are killed the first two weekend of the season, Duguay said, with a majority of the meals on wings harvested on opening weekend.

Approximately 22,000 dove hunters killed an estimated 400,020 doves in 2017-18, the veteran biologist said, basing those numbers on surveys of 6 percent of licensed resident hunters conducted after the last dove hunting season. He said the surveys give biologists “a good idea what’s going on.”

The dove numbers look strong again for 2018-19, he said, noting during the banding process statewide July 1 through Aug. 19 biologists banded 1,741 doves. Usually, during that banding process, 1,500 are banded, he said.

“Actually, it was easier than years past,” he said, noting the dove banding process involves luring the birds into baited traps where they can’t escape until they are banded and released.

Also, the dove call count surveys conducted in late May and early June in 19 locations across the state were encouraging, he said.

“The numbers suggest they’re up a little bit, but it’s just a snapshot,” he said about the dove call counts.

Duguay reminded dove hunters there is fair to good dove hunting opportunities available on Wildlife Management Areas, particularly Sandy Hollow WMA, a 4,655-acre WMA in Tangipahoa Parish. Historically, it is one of the top dove hunting public areas in Louisiana.

“They (biologists) say they have a lot more birds there than they’ve seen in a long time,” he said, adding that population there was estimated at at least 1,000 doves going into opening weekend.