WMA Dove Fields

WMA quota dove hunts continue to grow in popularity. In just four seasons, the number of applicants has grown from 12,269 to 17,575. Photo by Adobe Stock/Verbbaitum.

It’s hard to believe we’ve only got about a month to go before hunters 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 public fields 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.

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 was the first shoot at London Farms VPA, where 258 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. While it took four priority points for a guaranteed spot, 54 percent did get a seat using just three points.

The overall most popular dove hunt in the state last year was the only hunt on Di-Lane WMA. There were 1,075 folks who put in for one of the 100 spots. However, every hunter who chose this hunt as their first choice and used three priority points were given a spot. About half the field was filled with hunters who used just two priority points.

There were six 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), Wilson Shoals (only hunt), Chattahoochee Fall Line Hilliard (first hunt), Walton (only hunt) and Di-Lane (only hunt).

WRD continues to put dove fields in the dirt, and we hope this trend continues as interest in WMA dove hunting continues to grow. The number who applied for a 2023 WMA dove quota hunt was 17,575, up from 16,324 in 2022, 13,501 in 2021 and 12,269 in 2020.

Use WRD’s Game Management Region map to line up with the public dove fields listed below.