doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Dove Field Chronicles (Pic heavy)

Each year I prepare, plant and shoot a 24 acre field of sunflowers for doves. A close friend owns the field, and I prepare and plant it with my equipment. We have planted this field each of the past 5 or 6 years for doves. It is dedicated to that use. We have sons and daughters (and grandsons in my case), and friends and neighbors each fall. We eat well, and shoot (I'd like to say "well" but will maintain a modicum of honesty in this thread ). The field is exceptional for the number of doves it attracts each year. It is not uncommon for us to bag 1200 to 1500 each year in this field, on 5 or 6 shoots.

I have considered doing this for several years, while I prepared our dove field each year, but decided this year to go ahead with it. With the thought that some of you might find it interesting, I decided this year to chronicle the steps necessary to prepare a sunflower dove field, properly, in our neck of the woods. It will be updated periodically throughout the summer, with pictures and narratives, so that the nuts and bolts of it all can be understood, and hopefully enjoyed, by those interested, right up through opening day. Dave, if you find that this belongs in another forum, please move it. I post it here so that more doublegun dove shooters might see it, but submit to your wisdom.

We begin with the preparation of the field in early April. Last years' sunflower cadavers have been left in the field all winter so that game can glean the leftovers from last years crop. First step is to disc the field, to cut up last years' residue. This was done a couple weeks ago and, now, we see the disc coming back through for a second trip, and applying the grass herbicide trifluralin (Treflan) and incorporating it into the top few inches of the soil profile with a 26' disc harrow.



This took about two hours to do.

Next, we see the frontal view looking out from the driver's seat of the JD 8400 as we begin subsoiling and bedding the field. On the left you can see the tracks from the fertilizer spreader, which broadcast a blended fertilizer which had the analysis 80-20-80-10S. This gives 80# of nitrogen, 20# of phosphorous, 80# of potash and 10# sulfur per acre. As I do this trip I mix the fertilizer in the top profile of the soil, pull 8 ripper shanks which go about 18" deep each and shatter the hardpan layer directly under each row, throw up a bed over the ripper slot, and drag the top off the bed leaving it ready for planting. To the right you can see the flat topped beds from the previous pass.



Next photo is the rear view from the tractor seat, showing the subsoiler/bedder stopped. The ripper/subsoiler shanks are in the ground and can't be seen.



Next contribution will show the planting operation. We will try to get the field planted early next week. It is important to get this done in a timely manner, as the sunflowers need to dry down after maturity, so that there is a few weeks time for the doves to begin to really home in on the field and feed heavily prior to the season opening.

Spring is heah' in the "Souf". Hallelujah!

SRH

Oh Stan, can I call you Dad or Brother or something to help defend this field in dove season? Good for you also, for helping the doves and others for a place to feed.

Stan, have you considered a career in farming?
Gil

Great idea to do this, Stan. Looking forward to each new post as the field progresses. Is this the big field that Ross and I shot with you?
JR

One and the same, John. Lots of local doves still hanging around it this spring. I am convinced that doves become imprinted on a particular place to find food, and teach it to their young. I have found that the more you plant the same field, year after year, the better it gets.

Might be something to help pass the blahs associated with the next 4 months, as we await "The Opener".

SRH

Stan, what a great idea for a thread! I hope Dave will allow it to remain here in the main forum because what you are doing is of particular interest to those of us in the dove shooting states. My friends and I do the same sort of thing here in deep south Ga and comparing your methods to ours will be fun, especially so with the pictorial record of your progress.

Your opinion regarding the fact that some fields attract birds year after year and others similarly prepared don't goes right along with my own experience. I've always figured it was the "recipe" of the soil that caused it, but it may be instead that the birds just remember the good spots...Geo

I sure enjoyed this thread-very interesting. I bet it's a hoot to shoot some doves over this field. I look forward to more photos as the operation progresses, to include the finished product!

We have some land it would be interesting to try this on, on a smaller scale. Problem is, more often than not, the majority of doves have headed south by the time the season opens here. I wonder if a great food source, such as this, would keep the birds around a bit longer?

How early do they typically leave, Cameron? Is there anything much for them to feed on or do you think cold weather drives them south?

Brown top millet is a really good dove attractant, and matures in about 60 days, if I recall correctly. You might could grow it and get it matured before they leave.

SRH

Stan,

It's usually the cold weather that drives the birds south. The season opens Sept 1st and we've usually had a few good frosts by that time, or it's borderline freezing temps. Usually by the 3rd-4th week of August, they're scarce. If we haven't gotten any frosts, it could be in the high 30's-low 40's with rainy/drizzly weather. I can drive down to our property about 50 miles SE and hear doves cooing on the property and I presume nesting in the timber we have, so not much in the way of a good food source on the property or surrounding land. There is about a 15 acre piece that we used to grow hay on, that hasn't been planted with trees, and has lain fallow for 30 years or so. I figure that would be a good piece to play around with, and I do enjoy a good dove shoot, although I have to say, I've never had a spectacular one that you folks are probably used to. The effort wouldn't be wasted though, as there is plenty of whitetails, turkeys some elk and a resident population of CA quail, that drive my dad nuts, due to scavaging on the strawberries in his garden, when ripe.

About 45 miles due south of here, one starts to get into the fringes of the Palouse country, which is mainly wheat. I've driven down on opening day and it's been very spotty as to whether one finds birds or not, so based on that, it could be that even a good food source might not hold birds in the area.

Thanks for the suggestion Stan. I guess one would need to forge ahead to see what the outcome would be, concerning doves.

Cameron, I used to hunt doves a little on the Palouse west of Pullman/Moscow and the one constant we found that would bring them in was...water. We hunted the banks of the Palouse river and any little stock tanks left from the pre-clean farming days. Kilt a few. Missed more.

Doves and clean farming don't mix well. They LIKE weeds.... But it would be an interesting experiment to plant a specific "dove feed" patch so far north!

Neat thread.