2023 Georgia WMA Dove Field Forecast

Elizabeth Adams, 14, of Decatur County, was drawn for the 2022 youth dove hunt on River Creek WMA and took home some birds.

It’s to believe we’ve only got about a month to go before men, women, boys and girls will file into prepared dove fields in hopes of collecting a limit of 15 birds for the grill.

Thankfully, WRD does a really nice job of providing a list of places for hunters to shoot. To the right is the latest list of public shoots, the crops that have been planted, the acreage of the fields and the predicted forecasts for opening day. Some of these fields are quota-only, and the deadline to apply over at www.gooutdoorsgeorgia.com is Aug. 15.

Those WMAs, VPAs and PFAs that are marked with an asterisk (*) are either offering adult/child quota dove hunts or general quota dove hunts. To see which dove fields offer adult/child dove opportunities, turn to page 88.

If you’re applying for a dove quota hunt, review the quota-hunt selection odds table for the general and adult/child dove quota hunts at https://georgiawildlife.com/hunting/quota#odds. This will guide you on how many, if any, priority points it will take to get drawn for a shoot. For example, some folks don’t want to spend two or more priority points to hunt birds, and they’d rather shoot fields where it takes one or no points.

Last year’s hardest general dove hunt draw from the fields listed to the right was the first shoot at London Farms VPA where 222 folks put this field as first choice in hopes of one of the coveted 30 spots. It took four priority points for a guaranteed draw.

There were five adult/child dove quota hunts that required at least one priority point for a guaranteed spot. In order of difficulty in getting selected with one point, those WMAs were River Creek (first hunt), Buck Shoals (first hunt), Chattahoochee Fall Line Hilliard (first hunt), Walton (only hunt) and Redlands (only hunt).

The overall most popular dove hunt in the state last year was the single hunt on Di-Lane WMA. There were 1,040 folks who put in for one of the 100 spots. However, every hunter who chose this hunt as their first choice and used two priority points were given a spot.

WRD continues to put dove fields in the dirt, and we certainly hope this trend continues as interest in dove hunting continues to grow. The number applying for a WMA dove quota hunt has increased from 16,324 in 2022, up from 13,501 in 2021 and 12,269 in 2020.

Make note that unless otherwise stated, for the third year in a row all WMA shoots will start 30 minutes before daylight, not the 12 noon traditional start that Georgians have been used to all these years.