Native, Migratory, & Harvestable Species During Dove Season

Non-Native, Invasive Dove Species

To learn more about Illinois dove species, we recommend:

• Do You Know Your Doves? by Laura Kammin (Outdoor Illinois)
• Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura): A Feathery Missile by Kyle Hedges
• Mourning Dove (All About Birds, Cornell Lab)
• White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica) – A Migratory Game Bird Profile by Ryan Lisson
• White-winged Dove (All About Birds, Cornell Lab)
• Illinois’ first White-winged Dove specimen by Josh Engel
• Eurasian Collared-Dove – A Migratory Game Bird Profile by Ryan Lisson
• Eurasian Collared-Dove (Cornell Lab, All About Birds)
• Ringed Turtle-Dove (Texas A&M Agrilife Research)
• How to Identify Mourning Dove Habitat by Ryan Lisson
• Understanding the Dove Migration: Local Versus Migrant Doves by Kyle Hedges and Frank Loncarich

Methods (Means of Take)

The hunting methods that can be legally used to harvest doves in Illinois vary depending upon whether you are hunting an IDNR site or private land. Federal sites may have their own rules, so be aware of them before attempting to hunt.

Public Land (IDNR Sites)

• Must use a shotgun of gauge 10 or smaller (e.g., 12 or 20 gauge)
• Barrel length shall not be less than 18 inches, and the overall length shall not be less than 26 inches
• Must not be capable of holding more than 3 shells in the magazine and chamber combined. Any shotgun having a capacity of more than 3 shells must be fitted with a one-piece plug that is irremovable without dismantling the shotgun or otherwise altered to render it incapable of holding more than 3 shells in the magazine and chamber combined (see Plugged Shotguns below)
• Some IDNR sites require non-toxic shot, such as steel (see Non-Toxic Shot below)

Private Land

• Can use any shotgun, rimfire rifle, muzzleloading rifle, handgun, air rifle, archery or falconry methods allowable under statewide regulations
• Statewide regulations on guns, archery and falconry can be found above and the digest of Statewide Hunting Regulations

Plugged Shotguns

Per U.S. Fish and Wildlife regulations, you cannot hunt migratory game birds with a shotgun that can hold more than three shells, unless you plug it with a one-piece filler that cannot be removed without disassembling the gun.

Non-Toxic Shot

Many IDNR sites require non-toxic shot, such as steel, but some do not. Check the site page for more information. Federal land requires non-toxic shot to be used.

To learn more, we recommend:

• Information for Dove Hunters: Dove Hunting and Baiting (USFWS)
• Hunter’s Responsibility (USFWS)
• Tom Roster’s 2016 Nontoxic Shot Lethality Table
• Why I Stopped Shooting Lead at Doves by Jesse Griffiths
• What Chokes and Shot Size to Use for Dove Hunting by Edgar Castillo
• Choosing a Shotgun for Dove Hunting by Edgar Castillo

Please note:

You cannot harvest doves by the use or aid of bait or baiting of any kind. “Bait” means any material, whether liquid or solid, including food, salt, minerals and other products that can be ingested, placed or scattered in such a manner as to attract or lure upland birds. “Baiting” means the placement or scattering of bait to attract upland birds. An area is considered as baited during the presence of and for 10 consecutive days following the removal of the bait.

In order to hunt doves, both residents and non-residents are required to have:

• Hunting license (unless exempt: see Hunting Licenses: Exceptions)
• State Habitat Stamp
• HIP Certification 
  • Annual registration with HIP (National Migratory Bird Harvest Information Program) is a requirement for all dove hunters in Illinois.
  • HIP registration is free and available at IDNR vendor locations, online at exploremoreIL.com or by calling (866) 716-6550. For more information, please visit HuntIllinois.org or the current Illinois DNR Digest of Hunting and Trapping Regulations for more details.

Some IDNR sites require a lottery-based permit to hunt on managed fields during the first few days of the first season. There is a FREE dove lottery that you can enter to hunt one of these sites during one of the first five days of that season (September 1 to 5). During this season, hunters must wear a back patch, issued at the site upon check-in, to hunt.

After the first five days of the season, no permits are required to hunt doves, but please note that some sites require windshield permits for hunting after September. Please look up your site in the site directory to learn more.

What Is It and How Do I Apply?

IDNR manages fields at several sites across the state, which they open up for more closely controlled hunts during the first five days of dove season or for the Youth or Youth/Adult Hunt on the first day. These sites are usually planted with crops to attract doves, and by drawing a spot during the first five days of the season, you are more likely to get good action on the fields than you might if you go later (which you can still do — the free permit is only to get a spot during the first five days of the season at specific sites).

In order to participate in these hunts, you must apply for the Free Dove Hunting Permit and select either the Open Ages Site-Specific Dove Permit or the Youth and Youth/Adult Site-Specific Dove Permit option. Please note that not every IDNR site is managed for dove hunting or included in this hunting program, so be sure to research which sites you are interested in applying for before you begin your application. A list of sites, as well as nearly everything else you need to know about the Free Dove Hunting Permit can be found here. IDNR also has a Free Dove Permit One Stop page that you may also find useful, and you can see the number of remaining permits available for each site here.

How Does the Hunt Work?

If you are selected in the lottery, you will be told which site and dates you have drawn. You will arrive at that site to check-in (between 9 and 11a, generally) and go through a brief safety talk, will be briefed on the different fields, and will get a back patch associated with your name that you will pin to your back. Once this has been completed, you will go to your field and set-up at marked locations, and you will wait until shooting hours open for the site (although dove hours go from sunrise to sunset, IDNR-managed dove permit sites generally begin at noon and go until 5pm). Once you are finished for the day, you must return your back patch and check out from the site at the office, reporting your harvest.

Different sites will have different nuances, so be sure to check your site directory to understand exactly what is expected of you, and when. If you check in too late, your permit may become void, for example.

Do I Have to Have the Free Dove Permit to Hunt Doves?

No! The Free Dove Permit is only for some IDNR sites during the first five days of dove season. After that, even the managed sites switch back to non-permit regulations and hours (but be sure to check with your specific site, because site regulations can always vary!). Please see the example from Des Plaines State Fish and Wildlife Area, which illustrates some of the differences between the Dove – Permit regs and the Dove – Non-Permit regs. Just make sure you have your license, your state habitat stamp, your HIP certification, and if your site requires it, your windshield card.

You are NOT required to wear blaze orange or blaze pink when hunting doves unless you are also hunting other species (rabbits, other upland birds) simultaneously.

• We have an Upland Hunting Equipment Checklist that you may find helpful, although please be aware that not all information is dove-specific.
• You can use spinning-wing decoys when hunting doves.
• You may use dogs, but you do not have to.
• You’re going to be sitting out in a field and waiting for quite a while when dove hunting on IDNR-managed sites during the first five days of the season, so we recommend bringing something comfortable to sit on, bug spray, and sunscreen.

Shooting Technique

To learn how to actually hit a dove when out hunting, we recommend the video below. Doves are erratic and fast, so essentially, shot placement on doves boils down to aiming just in front of where a dove will be.

Where to Aim

Just like when you’re hunting any other species, you want to make ethical shooting decisions that will minimize suffering and maximize a clean harvest.

• Hitting the vital organs: aim just below the head to target the heart and lungs for a quick kill.
• Taking a head shot: this is an effective way to cleanly kill a dove, but only if you’re a skilled shot. If you aren’t, it wouldn’t be ethical to focus on head shots, as you are more likely to injure the bird.
• Lead your shots (mentioned above)
• Practice!
• Shot Opportunity Ethics
  • Understanding the limits of your abilities and the limits of your gun are important for learning which shots are ethical for you to take and which are not.
  • Shoot only at birds inside your effective range AND only at birds you are confident you can hit.
  • If you shoot at a bird that is out of your range or at the limits of your effective range, you are more likely to hit the bird with only a few pellets, which might injure but not kill (or even knock down) the bird.

We recommend checking out:

• Dove Limits Made Easy by David Hart
• Hunting Mourning Doves: Shot Placement Made Easy by Connor Thomas

Recovering your bird after shooting it is both a matter of ethics and a matter of regulation: there is a law in Illinois that relates to retrieving killed or crippled wildlife (often referred to as a Wanton Waste law):

“You cannot legally kill or cripple any species protected by the Illinois Wildlife Code for which there is a harvest limit without making a reasonable effort to retrieve such species and include it in the harvest limit…”

Illinois Department of Natural Resources (520 ILCS 5/2.33-hh Wildlife Code)

Federal regulations also have a Wanton Waste law, and as a migratory species, mourning doves fall under this law, too. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

“You must make a reasonable effort to retrieve all doves that you kill or cripple and keep these birds in your actual custody while in the field. You must immediately kill any wounded birds that you retrieve and count those birds toward your daily bag limit. Your birds must remain in your possession while in the field. You cannot give your birds to another person in the field regardless of whether or not they are properly tagged.”

Ethically, you owe it to the doves that you kill to recover them and make use of as much of their meat as you can, and any that you injure deserve to avoid suffering.

To recover your doves, you should:

• Keep your eyes on where it falls: doves are small and blend easily, so find a landmark point and walk directly to it.
• Do not take your eyes off the spot the dove landed until you recover it
• Do not shoot another bird until you recover the first
• David Hart recommends, “If you don’t find your bird right away, drop a hat and then start walking in concentric circles, moving out a little from your mark after each circle. If you have trouble finding birds in thick cover, move to a different location.”
• When you walk out to retrieve a bird, leave your shotgun behind at your spot.

When transporting a dove from the field to its final destination, you must maintain the head and/or one fully-feathered wing on each bird.

If you give the bird to someone else, you must fill out a gift tag.

We encourage you to report information about when and where you harvested the bird. You will be emailed a Certificate of Appreciation with information about when and where the dove was banded. Your cooperation on reporting band numbers gives dove biologists a wealth of information useful in managing the resources to provide hunters with maximum recreational opportunities while protecting dove populations. Reporting banded birds is only available online. Please click here.

To learn more about dove banding, we recommend:

• Mourning Dove Banding in Illinois Q&A by Kathy Andrews Wright
• Mourning Dove Banding Program by Kathy Andrews Wright
• Mourning Dove Population Status Reports (USFWS)

The video below is a good tutorial about how to clean (breast-out and pluck) doves.

Please note that unless it is extremely hot and you plan to be in the field for a long time, you most likely do not need to clean your doves until you arrive home.

The most popular way to cook doves is probably some variation of the bacon-wrapped jalapeño popper. The popper is a classic for a reason, but if you’re looking for inspiration for new recipes or want to learn more about the characteristics of dove meat, check out the links below!

• Dove Poppers – Easy Wild Game Appetizer by Jack Hennessy (Project Upland)
• Dove Recipes by Hank Shaw (Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook)
• Top 5 Dove Recipes: Elevate Your Culinary Game This Season by Gabby Zaldumbide

• Hunter Safety Education Courses — online and in-person options (click here to search for a local class by county). Remember, anyone born on or after January 1, 1980, is required to complete an Illinois hunter safety education course before purchasing a hunting license.
• Hunt Illinois is an Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) website that helps users find information about sites, figure out and purchase the licenses and permits they need, report their harvest, and learn more about species-specific regulations. It also has a a seasons and lotteries calendar as well as a hunting site directory that lists the site (and provides a link to each site’s specific page), location, and species that can be harvested there. The upland page of Hunt Illinois also contains information about dove-specific regulations and permits.
• The Illinois Hunting and Trapping Regulations Digest is an important resource that is published annually and in English, Spanish, and Polish. It is intended to act as a guide to the laws and regulations for hunting and trapping in Illinois, but please note that the digest is not intended to cover all hunting and trapping laws and regulations, but it is a useful reference. You can download this year’s digest in your preferred language, or you can seek out a hard copy at local vendors that partner with IDNR to distribute the digest.

• From IDNR
  • Dove Hunting (IDNR)
  • A list of sites, as well as nearly everything else you need to know about the Free Dove Hunting Permit can be found here.
  • IDNR has a Free Dove Permit One Stop page that you may also find useful.
  • You can see the number of remaining permits available for each site here.
  • Upland Birds (Hunt Illinois, IDNR)*
• Mourning Doves and Grizzly Bears by Dan Stephens
• Project Upland has many great articles about the different aspects of dove hunting (tactics, species, recipes, etc.)

*Please note that sometimes, doves are grouped in with upland birds (like they are on the Hunt Illinois site), sometimes they are placed with small game like rabbits and squirrels, and sometimes upland birds, doves, and small game are all grouped together (like in the annual Illinois Digest of Hunting and Trapping Regulations). We wanted to make a note of this here to alert new hunters that they may have to dig a little bit to find dove-specific information, depending on what site or reference they are looking at.