When the calendar flips over to September, a lot of folks start thinking about one thing above all: dove season. Kentucky's opener lands on September 1, fixed date on the calendar, and our friends at WOWK-TV have a rundown of the fall 2026 seasons coming up, with opening day of dove season pegged as the start of the whole fall hunting year. Reading it got me itching for September something fierce.

There's a reason dove opener gets treated like a holiday in dove country. Squirrel hunting and other seasons have their own places on the calendar, but dove opener is the one where everybody shows up. Somebody's got a grill going. Somebody's got a cooler of drinks and folding chairs lined up along a fencerow or the edge of a cut sunflower field. It's as much a social event as a hunt, and I mean that as a compliment.

Doves come in fast and zigzag like nothing else that flies, which is why the shooting on opening day tends to be ugly in the best way. Plenty of shells get burned for a strap of birds. If you're new to it, don't let a slow trigger finger discourage you. Everybody misses their first September. Pack water too, it's usually still hot enough to sweat through a shirt by ten in the morning.

After doves, the fall calendar stacks up from there, and rather than take my word for what opens when, go straight to the source. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources puts out the full regulations every year, and seasons and bag limits shift a little most years, so check them before you plan anything. The booklet is free. I keep one in the truck door pocket all fall, dog-eared and coffee-stained by October.

Something worth saying while we're here: all those seasons and all that public ground don't pay for themselves. Hunters fund conservation in this state and every other one through license sales and excise taxes on guns, ammo, and gear. When you buy your license, you're putting money straight back into the habitat and the wildlife, same as the ticket to the field. Good deal all around if you ask me.

If you haven't patterned your shotgun yet, now's the time. Opening day has a way of sneaking up on you, and there's nothing worse than sitting on a bucket next to a sunflower field with a gun that doesn't shoot where you look. Ask me how I know.

September 1, a cut field, and birds coming in at dusk. That's about as good as early fall gets. I do my dove hunting back home in the Missouri Ozarks myself, but if you've got Kentucky ground to hunt this year, I reckon more than a few of you will be out there too.