YAKIMA — If you find yourself at a barbecue or some other social gathering this weekend, and you are a dove hunter, let me give you a small bit of advice. You may not want to mention you are, in fact, a dove hunter. I know it is hard to believe, but it seems some people have some preconceived notions about dove hunters and dove hunting.

If you happen to mention something about going dove hunting on Monday, there is a good chance you'll get an obvious and immediate reaction. People will glare as if you just made some major faux pas. Their brows will furrow, and their noses will wrinkle like they have just smelled rotting fish. Some will turn away, as if you've suddenly developed a hideous growth on your face.

Some will even verbalize their disbelief.

"You mean," someone -- usually a woman --will ask, "you actually shoot those poor little defenseless birds of peace?"

This is when it's time to step up, tell the truth and be proud of the sport millions of people around our country enjoy.

"No, ma'am, I don't shoot doves," you can honestly answer. "I shoot at them, though, a whole lot."

What most non-dove hunters don't understand is very few doves actually die at the hands of hunters. Most doves die of old age after breeding many times and propagating new generations of doves that also aren't likely to die during dove hunting season, unless they happen to choke on a piece of wheat, or get caught by a neighborhood cat in September.

The reason most doves don't die during dove season, and why dove hunters can honestly say they don't shoot these pretty little birds is, they are next to impossible to hit on the wing with a shotgun.

Hunters have been trying for decades to accomplish this feat. And yet hitting one of these small, fast, aerobatic birds with any kind of consistency is virtually unattainable.

Oh sure, once in a blue moon a dove will zig when it should have zagged and a hunter will shoot into the wide open September sky and the load of number-8s and the bird will meet in the same place at the same time. But it is a rarity.

Heck, former Mariner fireballer Randy Johnson actually has hit more of these speedy birds with a warm-up pitch than some hunters have with a 12-gauge.

That doesn't mean there won't be an army of hunters out there trying their darndest to do so come Monday, Sept. 1, when the dove hunting season opens. If it is a typical opener, there will be fields surrounded by dozens of hunters, all loaded up with extra shells, just waiting for the doves to arrive.

And the doves, somehow knowing dove hunting season is afoot, will be confabbing in large flocks, discussing all of the ploys they amusingly use to make hunter after hunter shoot and miss and look like complete idiots.

Then, when the first glint of light starts to break on the eastern horizon, the doves will start flying to the fields where the hunters await. They will fly at speeds that would blow the feathers off of a normal bird. In fact, some lesser birds would spontaneously combust traveling at such speeds, but doves do it and make it look as easy and routine as a Sunday stroll.

Of course, the second they detect even the slightest movement below, the doves will dip, dive, zip, zam, zowie and shwoosh, all in the blink of an eye, leaving even the most advanced shotgunner wondering what just happened.

Ultra-slow-motion video has shown that, during these little aerobatic escapades, the doves will actually have one wing tied behind their back and some will even be blindfolded.

Depending on what type of shotgun they shoot, the wannabe dove hunters will have shot at least twice, and probably three times, trying to hit the little gray missile as it flitted up, over, under and through approximately 10,000 pellets thrust into the air in one barrage.

That is dove hunting.

Dove hunters don't go out to bag a limit of doves. They go out to shoot at them. And shoot they will do. Shell after shell after shell will be expended. Yet most will return home with little or nothing but a sore shoulder to show for their efforts.

The whole process is not easy to explain. That's why it is best to just not say anything at the barbecue or reception. Because invariably someone will act like they just swallowed sour milk when they hear you hunt doves. And then they will ask, "How can you shoot such pretty little bird?"

Now that is a really good question.

* Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.