Former Soil Conservation Service employee and longtime writer Mat Taylor offers his outdoors column for Dispatch Record readers. He can be contacted at (254) 518- 2262 or via e-mail at mntaylor@agristar.net. It is just days before the opening of dove season. What kind of season will it be?

From observations on our ranch, I have seen more mourning doves this year and fewer white-winged doves. In the past few years, most of the doves have been whitewings.

As I am recovering from heart surgery, I probably will limit my dove hunting this year. If I do hunt, I plan to use my Mossberg Model 500 410-gauge pump shotgun.

It will be more difficult to bring down the birds, but the 410 has very little recoil, and will be lighter and more enjoyable to carry.

With a few exceptions, there have never been a lot of doves on our ranch. We do not have any cropland fields with grains that usually draw them, and even though we have a large farm pond, not many doves water there.

Most of the hunting is for passing doves traveling from fields along the Lampasas River to their roosting sites.

I can remember several special dove-hunting experiences. One advantage of a career with the USDA Soil Conservation Service was being able to meet and work with numerous farmers and ranchers. And during dove season, I often received several invitations to hunt.

During my stay in Lamesa, I was able to hunt on a farm located on the edge of the caprock. The high plains area has many grain sorghum or maize fields. After harvesting, these fields drew a lot of dove. The birds would feed then fly east and pass through canyons to their roosting sites in mesquite tree pastures off the caprock.

If you picked a good spot, the pass shooting could be fantastic. It was difficult hunting as the birds were flying very fast, but you sure could burn up a lot of shells.

I also recall one dove hunt with my late father-in-law. My wife's parents lived in Midland, and we had the opportunity to go dove hunting at a cattle feedlot south of town. The lot was vacant at the time, but doves flocked there by the hundreds to eat the waste grain.

We sat in the shade of a silo and collected our limit of 12 birds in only about 30 minutes. A few days later we went back, and the hunting was just as good. I have never bagged a limit of doves in such a short period of time.

A third hunt I remember well took place while I was working in Snyder. What made the hunt unique was not the number of doves but the shotgun I had the opportunity to use.

I had been assisting a Western Texas College professor with some conservation practices on his ranch east of town. He had a large pond on the property, and we noticed a lot of doves were watering there. He invited me to hunt with him, and a couple of days later I accepted the invitation.

At the time, I was hunting with a well-known brand of pump shotgun in 20 gauge. It was a good gun, but for some reason I could not shoot it very well. In fact, after shooting a box and a half of shells, I had bagged only three birds. I was embarrassed and frustrated.

My host said he had to stop hunting and get ready to attend a meeting at the college. I told him I was doing so poorly I also was going to quit. He replied by saying I could use his shotgun -- a Winchester Model 21, a classic side-by-side gun in 12 gauge.

The moment he handed me the gun, I knew it was special. The shotgun felt like it was made for me. He also gave me 12 shells, all he had remaining. After using about 40 shells in my gun to down only three birds, I began to shoot the Model 21 and believe it or not, in a short period of time I killed nine more doves with the 12 shells to reach my limit.

I was hooked. From that moment I knew someday I wanted a highquality, side-by-side double barrel shotgun. I hated to give Model 21 back to my host.

Well, I have never been rich enough to purchase a gun like that 21, but I have owned other doublebarreled shotguns such as a Savage Fox and a Stevens. They weren't in the same class as the 21, but they shot well, and doubles have remained my favorite bird gun.

I noticed recently on the Gunbrokers Web site that plain field model Winchester 21s were selling for more than $8,000. Therefore, I will never have a Model 21 -- unless I have a rich uncle I don't know about who dies and leaves me his fortune.

There are, however, some highquality side-by-side shotguns being imported from Turkey by CZ firearms. They are reasonably priced at just under a $1,000, and from photographs and reviews they appear to be very well-made guns. I just may bite the bullet one of these days and purchase one in 20 or 28 gauge with an English straight stock and splinter fore end.

In the meantime, I will have to get by with my lowly 410 pump.

If you plan to take to the field for doves on opening day, good luck.