re: Baiting up a small dove field?

Losing your truck gun ........

it’s called proper habitat

[quote]No. It's not a subjective thing. There are lists of agriculture practices. It either meets them or it doesn't. You say that you have to disk under top sown wheat 7 days before the season. That's not correct.

There is no list to Agriculture practice. It's definitely subjective and thats why It's up to a judge. You can't guarantee anybody they won't get a ticket for shooting doves over a disked up field.

Can’t trick me JC!!!

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Do This:

Build/Buy a few wooden troughs and put them out near water or sand, fill with wheat.

The night before season opens go pull them up and take them far away from field, make sure no wheat spilled out.

It works

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I know folks who use tarps. Put tarps out, dump grain in the middle, remove tarps and make sure nothing stays behind. Also know 2 of them who were busted for it and it cost them 2 years of license purchases in Georgia and a couple of grand each. It ain't worth it. And it ain't right to boot....

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It will be up to the game warden to determine if it truly meets the agricultural practice criteria. One best be careful.

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WAAAAAAYYYYY to subjective. I had access to 4 sections of grain fields in the panhandle of Texas about 10 years ago for 5 seasons. One season the farmer lost a corn crop and the insurance paid him to bush hog it in July and August. of 4 Texas and 2 Federal wardens 2 state wardens told me they'd write it, 2 said they would not and would hunt it themselves (one of them did later during crane season) and the 2 feds said it would be up to the judge. The local judge was Ok with it, never spoke to a federal judge. Huntin dove, ducks, geese and crane over those fields that season and got checked several times, even a couple of times by the 2 state wardens who said they'd write it in August. Never a citation. That one field was almost visibly yellow from the air until January. There was corn EVERYWHERE. The really amazing thing is that the birds never really got in it...I think it had soured or something but they didn't care for it....the wheat, peanuts and cotton??? Forget about...you couldn't run them out of that stuff but they were very uninterested in the corn. If the corn was baited though the area was. Never got a ticket.

I was not going to hunt it. In my opinion it did not fit the spirit of the law if it did fit the letter. After 2 of the 6 officials told me it was OK and 2 of the other 4 were non-committal and one Judge said he wouldn't worry about it we shot Dove on the other fields. We did not shoot dove in the corn but we did kill a bunch of snow geese in the spring season on the corn...but by then there was more grass growing than corn present. For whatever reason all of that corn just wasn't that attractive to birds. Deer loved it...but birds, not so much. We SLAYED ducks, geese and cranes on those 4 sections for 5 years. Never cost us a dime other than I did some electrical work on the owners barn the last season. I knew his son and we had hunted together and I had a field spread and he didn't. It was fantastic. I could hunt it now but its too far and I have sold my field spread...

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You do whatever you like. Dove hunting falls under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Meaning there are FEDERAL laws that must be followed, in addition to any state laws. Federal laws always super-cede state laws.

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Still up to the fed to write it and the feds to prosecute it. It is all subject to the opinions of the officials. They also consistently write folks for shite that is tossed out of courts.

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Absolutely not the case. You are welcome to grow any crop that you please (corn, sunflower, soybeans, etc) and hunt over it at any time. When it is growing. When it has died, etc. You can mow the crop in strips.

In fact, look at dove hunts that take place on National Wildlife Refuges and state Wildlife Management Areas. They plant and hunt over sunflowers, millet, milo, etc. Some is left standing. Some is bush hogged into strips. And this is Green Jeans doing this himself.

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Every NWR and state managed waterfowl pond, field and dove field I ever saw was prepped exactly as described. Every commercial dove field I ever shot was prepped just that way and had been inspected prior to opening day and approved. I have hunted on a bunch of commercial waterfowl operations where this is exactly how they are prepped. I have prepped a dove field of my own just this way for years and get checked almost every season multiple times and never got a ticket. If it ain't legal they don't write it.

I leased a field in North Alabama adjacent to Wheeler NWR for years and another one in Richland Washington adjacent to McNary NWR for 3 seasons and not only were they ALL prepped in just this manner they were both in a direct flight path from the Tennessee River and the Columbia River and hard up against the NWR. I do not know that they did it at Wheeler but at McNary I know they did because I volunteered...they fed waterfowl on McNary by dumping TONS of grain less than 1/2 mile from my lease. Tons of it. And the state and feds knew I was hunting that field...and even talked about being envious of having access to it. They never wrote a ticket but they did kid about doing so to shut me down and then hunting it themselves. I still think if this were not a NWR those fields would have been unhuntable because of the feeding going on just across the fence. I suspect they did at Wheeler also but I was never involved in the spreading of grain there. Wheeler does not hold the number of birds that McNary does though so they may not have to feed at Wheeler...the birds would clean out the entirety of the Columbia Valley and starve before getting to Oregon had they not done it at McNary...of so they claimed. On Washington Warden told me it was done to hold the birds in Washington and prevent them migrating to California. Why he never really explained but he believed it....

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Now if a person disc it up plants 90-100 pounds of wheat saves his receipts and takes pictures of him planting it in the window that his state shows as planting time. He then Tells green jeans it’s his deer food plot that he intends to hunt and decided to shoot the doves that showed up he’s ok.
Just don’t let him find one kernel of cracked corn or have proof that you planted multiple times.

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This is bad advice. If you hunt over a disced field that has exposed wheat seeds you're screwed.

There were some folks between BR and New Orleans that were large land owners and very wealthy hunting doves in a millet field. They cut and burned the field and decided to throw out millet seed to draw in more birds. The federal green jeans busted them. They were able to determine that that much of the millet wasn't cultivated through their lab. I love dove hunting but it isn't worth getting busted. I stopped planting 6 years ago.

Plant goat weed all over the place. It’s a perennial.

It produces a white seed that looks like popcorn and doves love it.

You’ll not have to bait anything