doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Visions of sugarplums danced in their heads...

As exciting as Christmas is opening day of dove season for me. It means the culmination of an event, planting the sunflower field, that began in May.............and reaches fruition in September.



In between we pray for rain, fight weeds, and prepare our guns, stools (dove speak for a rotating seat), loads, and wait....................impatiently at times, while watching the azure sky for those wonderful little grey rockets.........



They always come..............or, at least, they always have.



Which is why I, and many others text occasionally as we obsess about what progress has been made towards opening day, how many birds are being seen, and how many days remain............

https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/ge...mp;font=cursive

With bated breath, SRH

Not only do you have some food for them, but it looks like you have plenty of roosting trees too.

All they need, Craig. I see so many doves every day I could not possibly keep count. I can sit outside on the patio and hear the constant call of doves. Wish there were that many quail. I did, however, see five separate nesting pairs of quail Monday. That was enjoyable, if not encouraging.

SRH

What a difference in habitat

Yes, but you've got so much better quail habitat, Mike.

SRH

Well, we did until drought, eye worms, and cecal worms put the population into a tailspin last year. Quail are incredibly fragile. But at the same time they have an incredible ability to reproduce just as soon as conditions improve.

Looks like a slice of heaven. Would love to shoot those doves with my new JW Tolley hammergun.

Wheat is green, sunflowers are up and the weed strips I left are growing as well. Now all I need is rain, time and patience. A lot of the later. Shells loaded already, gun chosen and I am ready. I don't need a count down clock to know it is too far off.

First strip of wheat will be mowed a month before the season. Then a new strip every week to ten days. Sunflowers will be left standing as long a the wheat last. This system kept doves in the field until a full month of the season had passed. By then all the easy and dumb doves were long dead. The ones left were much more fun to shoot and yes to miss as well.

I have another little 6 acre field that I planted in low population wheat, with native sunflowers mixed in. Of course the wheat came on up late last fall, but the sunflowers didn't begin emerging until spring. I've got sunflowers scattered in the wheat from knee high down to just emerging. "J" at Turner Seed in Texas told me to expect that. This is an experiment, as this type of wild sunflower is not native to Jawja.

A friend in TX encouraged me to try this. If I can get them established they will come back every year. Deer don't eat them, and no fertilizer is needed. Sounds too good to be true, but I'm giving it my best shot.

SRH

Stan I ask you not to over react but your posting ties into discussions at my sportsmen's club. I appreciate your thoughts which I will carry to the club, how is planting sunflowers mainly to attract doves different than hunting over ag crops intended mainly for human or animal food or even baiting deer with corn or apples etc? Most of club members say that planting just to attract animals and not for harvest is over the line.