OT dove fields. Who planted one? How do you get it ready?

I’m afraid to bait it. This field got busted a couple years ago. My dad bought this land in December of 17. Dove season opener of 2016 the previous owners son in law got busted for baiting. The land owner called it in bc he hated his son in law.

Doing sunflower next year. I got a late start and Browntop millet is the easiest to grow.

I’ve wondered if that’s legal... we have 100 head on that place

Yep, it has to look legit though. We had a coral on a fence line where crack corn would spill out all over the place when we fed the cows.

quote:

---

You're over thinking it. Cut it in strips and bait the shite out of it. As for landing areas. I set a couple Tee post 15-20 feet apart, run two strands of wire in between them. Put a few of the cheap foam or hard plastic decoys scattered about and then one or two mojo doves. Sounds stupid, but they cup right in. Good luck

---

Second all of this excapet baiting it. Strips and decoys......that’s all you need.


Depending on location I’d be careful waiting until Monday. If there are a bunch of dove fields in the area they won’t be many birds left by noon Sunday. I know it seems like an unshod field will be a magnet but the number of dove shot on opening day is staggering. If there are a bunch of fields being h7nted around yours the birds may get shot out and run off...especially if it’s near a town or residential area where they can feed, gravel and water on loans.

Decoys work, by the way. Get em higher than fence posts and on the ground and use mojos.....they work like a magnet. Especially early in the season.

I’m not sure cutting strips on Friday and shooting it Saturday or Sunday is a legitimate agriculture practice. I know you can’t shoot waterfowl on millet strips because it is categorically not a legitimate agricultural practice to strip millet. It has something to do with the millet coming back every year which it certainly will. You can, however, disc a millet filed or flood it and hunt ducks and geese over it. Dove on millet are different however but I think if you strip it 48 hours isn’t long enough unless you disc it or are in the process of dishing when you are shooting it. I’ve hunted stripped millet fields at Barry colleg WMA that the DNR was discing the morning of opening day so it would be legal. The entire field was limited out by 4 PM.

Also consider plowing at least some of the perimeter. Dove prefer open ground. Nothing like pure fine dirt or sand next to a strip of disced grain next to a strip of standing grain. Add a few dead trees still standing, somewhere to gravel and some water and they’ll stay around all winter. Dove LOVE plowed dirt. Even a plowed strip in a cow pasture is like a magnet.


Next year mix some sunflower strips in with the millet. Even Johnson grass. You can mow and disc either as a legitimate ag practice even while you are shooting it.

All of this depends on the game wardens interpretation. I’ve got access to about 1000 acres of corn in the panhandle of Texas and 2 years ago it didn’t make. The farmer mowed it but didn’t disc it until the following spring. That corn almost destroyed the goose season for everyone because the geese wouldn’t leave it and the local warden said it wasn’t a legitimate ag practice. Every field in the area could’ve been considered baited because they determined this one was. A couple of the outfitters in the area appealed to the feds and they said it was fine but the state could interpret their laws as they see fit. An appeal to the state was finally favorable. That field was good as anything in Saskatchewan that year. We killed so many ducks, geese and cranes it was almost too easy......this field was BLATANTLY baited....it was still yellow with corn during the conservation goose season. The local warden was right.....that filed simply being mowed and not disced should not be hunted....but the feds and the state said it was. The farmer stripped it, disced it and eventually turned it over last year during the season and it was good but nothing like the year before last.

quote:

---

My understanding is that for a dove field as long as you plant it in the spring or early summer, you can do anything you want as far as manipulation. That was a Georgia dnr YouTube video

---

That may be correct. It’s perfectly legal to intentionally flood a corn field to attract ducks and geese and hunt them there. Planting for dove is far less regulated.

I was told by a game biologist in Tennessee about 30 years ago that about 90% of dove born ever year die before they reproduce one time whether they are hunted or not.
There is no evidence that baiting them impact this or limits. It’s merely public opinion that drive any limitations on shooting dove. When you consider most people will hunt dove Saturday and maybe Labor Day and never again 7ntil the following season that’s probably true.

quote:

---

This is my first year planting my own dove field.

---

You have to plant them really shallow or else they suffocate.