It was sometime during mid-season more than 10 years ago. Which, incidentally, turned into far and away the best dove shoot I'd been on to date. And I can't help but "graciously" take all the credit for it happening.

One day prior, while on a half hearted scouting trip to our farm near Garwood, I arrived early so I could visit with my uncle's family who lived on the place before I would drive around later in the afternoon looking for birds.

A norther had just passed and washed the sky clean, still blowing pretty good but showing signs that it might be calmer the next day. Terrible conditions for doves. Strong north winds always drive the local birds farther south, but a friend of mine named Ethan had called and said he was going to be off midweek and he wanted to hunt, so here I was.

Low and behold, while I was parked at the farmhouse at around 2 pm, I noticed a steady flight of doves filtering into a plowed ricefield not even a half mile down the road, and I mean a bunch of 'em. In no time, the high-line on the east side was stacked with birds, had to be at least 50. Well the wheels were suddenly turning. By the time my friend showed up the next day before noon at my insistence, I had this bright idea worked out about putting dove decoys on that power line. I kept assuring him that it was in fact disconnected so there was no imenent danger.

One hour later, with a flimsy cane pole nearly twenty feet long and a clip taped to the end of it rigged with a fishing line pull release, the first decoy was hoisted up toward the thin cable. After losing it twice, he finally managed to hit the cord, and as soon as he made contact the decoy snapped ouf of the clip and stuck in a perfect position. We celebrated.

At 5 minutes to 2pm, Ethan left to move to truck out of the way, and before he could jog back to where I was, I had four birds down on my first three shots. From my station on the end of a row of round bails, we proceeded to wear 'em out as doves steadily poured over for the next 2 hours, sucking right into the five feather flex replicas on the line in front of us.

It was easily the best I'd ever had using decoys on mourning doves. And I have used this technique at least 20 times since then and the success is undeniable. If you can safely get dove decoys on a high-line, then look out. It works! You can pull doves in like decoying ducks. I've never seen anything like it.