Planting for Doves

Here in the South we are preparing our fields for May planting. What seems to be the food of choice in your area for doves?

sunflowers sunflowers and more sunflowers

Anyone ever try to plant sweet corn, eat what you want out of it and let the rest dry on the stalk and mow it ten days to two weeks before the season. They can not stand it. Limits, Limits, Limits!

I've heard millet and safflower seeds are dove crack...

99% of my dove hunting was in El Centro California... which is desert, so you had to track roosts and canals with clean water.. as the farmers irrigated the concrete canals would drain, so you had to chase the water... then you had to find one that didn't have a bunch of farm land run off in it... Desert doves roost in anything prickly. during the day we would walk scrub brush fields and flush them like pheasant.. these crazy dove would spend mid day on the ground in the shade of a waist high bush...

One time I did a 150 yard push through a scrub field and limited out just on flushing... bad part was by the time I got back to the truck I had drank an entire gallon of water, was still thirsty and did not even remotely have to pee... I'm sure if I did, dust would have come out...

I have tried Dove Millet several times but it seems to lay down to bad after maturity. A heavy rain is all it takes to put it flat on the ground then it mildews in the hot sun (at least here in the south anyway). Corn and sunflowers are my choice, I plant about 5 acres of each and start mowing strips 10 days before the season starts and continue throughout the rest of the season about once a week. Our birds migrate. When we get a front moving through we get new birds and I like to have the new guest fresh food when they arrive.

We cant hunt them here in Mass.

Well after the May planting here are this years results of my corn and sunflowers. I had to wait longer this year to plant because of our drought. They are a few weeks late but have come on nicely. I planted a new variety of sunflowers this year; they are called “Clearfield”. They only type of its kind that you can spray a granual type herbicide on to control broadleaf’s. We have a real problem here with pigweed and this product has helped this year. They are quite expensive but clean. I planted this field with my new Great Plains seed drill using 7.5” rows. Next year I will row plant them so I can cultivate them between the rows. I believe the 7.5” rows are a little to close together. My corn crop suffered some from the drought because it was planted in April but it will do just to mow down to shoot birds over. Our season opens Sept. 3 at noon. Can not wait!

that sure is a sweet looking piece of property... I busted out my decoys the other day.... I will be hunting over 200-900 acre chopped corn fields and attractants are a huge plus..



I have way more dove crap than any single hunter should ever have, but since I always got asked to share, my decoy count kept going up.. I have 4 mojo's, edge expedite flapper and wind spinner, and about 20 hard bodied... I'm also going to build a portable tree... but Im sure all I will use is the mojo's.



Im looking forward to reports!

I have never used the mojo dove decoy. Do they really work? As you can see in the background of my picture I had 3-30' light poles put in the ground and had 5/8" stainless cable put up that stretches 300 yards. I will from time to time use hard decoys using and old fishing pole and some small test line and throw them over the cable and tie them off to the ground with a brick. They work really well and look very real.

Gary wrote:I have never used the mojo dove decoy. Do they really work? As you can see in the background of my picture I had 3-30' light poles put in the ground and had 5/8" stainless cable put up that stretches 300 yards. I will from time to time use hard decoys using and old fishing pole and some small test line and throw them over the cable and tie them off to the ground with a brick. They work really well and look very real.

Well I can tell you when I hunted in California the doves came to the mojo
like it was crack... I have had several doves stop and hover next to it, I've
had a Eurasion fly up and try to sit on it.

The dove lease I hunt here in Texas is full of hunters that know about the
mojo dove and almost everyone has one...after the first week the doves avoid
flashing mojos like the plague.... So instead of using them to attract, I use
them to funnel the birds... I set one Mojo about 100 yards to either side of me
creating what the dove sees as an escape route... BAM!

Since you're hunting private property I'm guessing you will get the "crack"
reaction. Mojos are best used in pairs because the profile of a mojo dove almost disappears... so a second one set perpendicular to the first covers any angle a dove might come from.

I have had great success putting Mojos next to a snag, then putting several
clip on doves all over the snag and on the ground..