On Thursday, September 1st, the San Jacinto Wildlife Area opening day of the 2022 dove season dawned hot with the thermometer quickly heading even higher. By the end of legal shoot time, 110 hunters had utilized San Jacinto in their quest to bag a few of the little birds. This resulted in a total of 177 dove harvested. The average bag came out to 1.6 birds per hunter. That was way up compared to last year’s dismal average of 0.32. As I’ve said before, SJWA isn’t really known as a dove mecca. As is usual with any hunting some hunters came away with nothing, a few hunters were able to harvest several birds, and some bagged 1 or 2 or so. So, as typical for San Jacinto when it comes to dove hunting, it wasn’t wide open, but it wasn’t too bad. It did give a good-sized group of hunters a spot close to home to put in at least a couple of hours in pursuit of the little buff-colored missiles and maybe scratch out a few of them. Especially true for those that couldn’t put in a whole day or more to drive down to Niland or Brawley.
San Jacinto is open for dove hunting until the end of the first half of the dove season on Thursday, September 15th. Sunday (September 4th) is the last day the waterfowl side of SJWA will be opened for dove hunting so, if you want to give the waterfowl side a try for dove hunting you still have the first two days of Labor Day Weekend to give it a try. Also, don’t forget that it’s non-toxic (steel) shot only for all hunting everywhere again this year so don’t mistakenly bring along any lead shotshells. That’s a big no-no.
SoCalHunt 