Action Heats Up for Doves : Hunting: Warm temperatures in southeast corner of the state result in the most success as first half of season opens.

California’s dove-hunting season, in doubt until only 11 days ago, opened Saturday with the best hunting coming in the southeast corner of the state.

“I’m up to my eyeballs in hunters right now,” Department of Fish and Game warden Rusty McBride said by phone from Winterhaven, where the California, Arizona and Mexican borders meet. “The hunt’s going great . . . a lot of limits.”

In the Imperial Valley to the west, success was mixed, although Jerry Murphy of El Centro said it was a “pretty good hunt. More people were happier this year, which probably means there were a few more birds.”

Shooting in the lower San Joaquin and Antelope valleys was off because of cooler weather.

No protesters were reported. The Fund for Animals and Animal Legal Defense Fund had filed comments critical of the DFG’s environmental documents submitted to the Fish and Game Commission.

The commission certified the hunt Aug. 22 after testimony by Red Hunt, chief of the DFG’s division of wildlife, that dove populations were up 30% this year. Most were near the border.

Murphy said: “It’s only about 105, 106 (degrees), but the humidity’s up pretty good.

“The guys that were getting most birds were on the eastern edge of the (Imperial) Valley around the Highline Canal and the Holtville area. There were a few farther south that were doing pretty good between Holtville and the (Mexican) border, southeast of the valley.

“The number of hunters is probably about what it’s been in the past. We probably sold a lot more licenses to out-of-towners this year because guys were waiting to find out if there would be a hunt. It’s been real busy.”

McBride said the ratio of white-wing to mourning doves favored the latter by about 80%. Hunting of white-wings is legal only in Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

McBride said: “There was one (good) spot below a place called Berryman Farms right on the Indian reservation boundary. They just rolled along there today.”

Some hunters from the Los Angeles area went north instead of south. Don Lesher hunted about 10 miles north of his former home in Visalia. The temperature was in the 70s.

“It really should have been bad for the birds,” Lesher said. “It was too cool.

“(But) we had a real good hunt this morning. There were no big flights, but they kept coming all morning in ones and twos.”

Lesher was among a group of five hunters who took nine birds each. The limit is 10 per day, 20 in possession.

“And we got that by 10:15 (a.m.),” Lesher said. “Only poor shooting kept us from getting more.”

Although the hunting was “a little better than average,” Lesher said, it wasn’t what it used to be.

“There isn’t as much grain for them to come into. But I grew up here. It’s as much companionship as anything . . . get to see the sun come up in the morning.”

Lowell Kolb, working fields and vineyards northeast of Delano, was among six hunters who shot 26 birds.

“There were a lot of birds up here (until) the cold weather,” Kolb said. “They were pretty well scattered or hunkered down.

“Where we were hunting we limited out pretty easily last year. You had to work for ‘em. They weren’t flying around much. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s not as good as the better (days).”

David Whiteside said there were many hunters but the shooting was slow at his club in Antelope Valley.

“There were not many doves shot,” he said. “Most of the birds were stocked pheasants and chukars. A week ago we had more doves than I’d seen here in years, but they all moved out.”

Whiteside said the only dove limits checked in belonged to Andy and Ben Stokes of Beverly Hills.

The first part of the split season runs through Sept. 15. The second half is Nov. 10 through Dec. 24.