Hydration on Dove Day, yep it really is important.

Most of us are getting on in years and a lot of us are like trees where we have put another ring around the trunk for every year of our wonderful lives. No matter how old we are it is important to keep out inner stuff, which is over 50% water, hydrated so we don’t get sick and croak and ruin everyone’s Dove Day adventure.

In 1998 I was dove hunting outside of Crawford, Texas and I was using my new Remington 1100 shotgun with the right chokes and I knew I was going to shot my limit on opening day. The only problem was due to dry, hot weather the doves were scarce so I decided to stay out all day under a great big old live oak tree and knock them off one at a time as lonesome doves made their way across the pasture. That was a dumb idea since it was about 105 degrees fahrenheit with very little breeze.

I was being careful, I thought, and drinking plenty of water and eating a few breakfast bars and around 3:00 I was getting just a bit dizzy and more goofy than usual. I went back to the farmhouse where we were staying and drank some more water and came back out with the guys around 4:30 and shot a few doves that were flying in the evening and I really was not feeling very good at all. The result of my day in the heat was spending the next three days flat on my back feeling like total dog droppings and trying to get all my hydration stuff in my body working again.

Now I go to the dove field with a good size ice chest full of cool water and I keep an open bottle of water by my side all day long, drinking about one 16 oz. bottle every hour and a half. That combined with a decent snack of fruit and breakfast bars does a reasonable job of keeping the water and electrolytes working well. Of course the best way to determine if a person is staying hydrated enough is the color of the pee output and the closer to clear and pale yellow it stays the better off the kidney function will be.