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Thread: Top Sowing Wheat for Doves

  1. #21
    jwilliams's Avatar
    jwilliams is offline 2th Doc's Fishing understudy
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    BTW...most who have hunted doves this year are saying, "boy, you should have seen the dove shoots that we USED to have."

    I have hunted over some of the best looking sunflower fields in the state. Not near as good this year.
    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
    Does Elton John know you have his shotgun?

  2. #22
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    I truly would like to see dove population numbers on the last several years of allowing wheat versus the last several years of not allowing. If the sampling is correct and not skewed in any way, it would be interesting.

    Anybody know where to get these population numbers?

  3. #23
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    CLR,

    Top sewing wheat as a cover crop, not necessarily for harvest, is indeed a normal agricultural practice. For that matter, so is planting for wildlife with no intent to harvest crops.

  4. #24
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    If you have access to a field to top sow for wheat then why not just plant that field in November and just before the next dove season cut it and burn it. Same or better results and you fit in the current guidlines.
    My field is in Darlington Co. and I have seen more dove this year than I have in recent years.
    I don't see a problem with the current rules!!
    Even if the rules get changed I will not change what I do in my field because 90% of the fun is putting the field together.

  5. #25
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    Originally posted by BrownDog:
    My field is in Darlington Co. and I have seen more dove this year than I have in recent years.
    The man knows what he is talking about. Top notch field all the way. [img]graemlins/thumb2.gif[/img]
    "Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration" -Izaak Walton

  6. #26
    tradorion Coots

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    Lots of interesting thoughts here... I for one would PERSONALLY love to see top sowing wheat be allowed again. And from a LE perspective I'd be just fine with it as long as a few adjustments were made (such as SOLID fines for over-limit, unplugged etc)... hell, you can throw more legal bait on the ground right now that you were ever allowed under the "X grains per square foot" idea that was often used...

    The damndest thing to me is people saying its NOT "Normal Agricultural Purposes" as a way to condemn top sowing wheat and then they go out to their field of staggered rows of corn, millet, sunflowers etc and bushhog/burn/silage cut etc etc and NEVER HARVEST A DAMN THING (or harvest a little corn to put on their deer stands and open up some clean ground for doves) and call that "NAP"- to that i just have to say [img]graemlins/bs.gif[/img]

    I too would like to see the federal numbers on doves for the last 5 years of top sowing and then the last 5 under the new rules... I don't see any booming increase in dove numbers on the fields i have hunted or worked.

    T

  7. #27
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    You should (if you don't live in Florence) contact your state Rep., There is a new caucus in the GA called the "Sportsman's Caucus" that will be bringing the issue forward.

  8. #28
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    Mergie Master is offline Dedicated Tamiecide Practitioner
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    I agree with Trad..finally!

    The limit is 12 birds per day per hunter, if someone kills 12+ bust dey ass! I know double dippers can be hard to catch, but with stiff enough penalties they'd soon see the light! Simple concept, enforce the law to the hilt, drive it to the bone!

    Laws were made to be broken in some people's minds...so lawbreakers were made to be examples in my mind.

    And I too would like to see the bird numbers. I know from what I've read over the years the national flock stood at around 80 million. It fluctuated some from year to year due the weather ect, but the average over the years held at 80 million. And the flock has never reached a critical low or anywhere near it, again according to what I've read.

    Average life span of a dove was, when I used to keep up with such things, considered to be 8 months. More research may have changed that number, I don't know.

    But if push comes to shove, go back to top sowing, and go back to afternoons only. I'm good with that, did it that way for many years. It's actually good management for a field. You can keep the birds longer by not hammering them all day long. Or take another approach, cut the limit back to 10 birds.

    I'm sure old Joe Sixpack wouldn't mind a 10 bird limit. That's if he were allowed to top sow his 8 acre field instead of spending thousands on equipment, fertilizer, herbicides and man hours in preparations. And all this for a field that may not give him and his sons, buddies, cousins, and bro-in-laws a chance at a 12 bird limit but on one shoot a season.

    If oil magnate Idryll Deapuli and Hilton owner I.M. Richer want to spend thousand of $$$s to prep, plant, and harvest a field for doves, it's their money, no one is stopping them. They have all the rights in the world to do so. Some guys just enjoy riding a tractor and playing farmer, it's their hobby. But don't make Joe 6-pack have take up that expensive hobby so he can get together on his little 8 acre plot, that he struggles to pay the taxes on, with family and friends, and kill a few gray birds for the grill.

    If Joe 6-pack balks at a 10 bird limit, give him time, he'll get used to it. I balked when they went from 18 to 12, but it don't bother me now.

    Just my 2¢

    Edited to add:
    I guess my memory is getting bad. I just looked up the national mourning dove numbers and the national flock is 400 million bird
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  9. #29
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    There was one main person that wanted it stopped - Duck Tape and DUCKMAN know who it was - he pushed Clemson to write the regs that would stop it - and as long as he wants it this way it won't change - we are getting screwed - Duck Tape there are many ways to help dove pops that would still allow for the tow-sewing of wheat and you know it.
    I always thought a website was a selling tool, not a product repair manual!

  10. #30
    tradorion Coots

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    I was a student at Clemson (for the second time LMAO!!) when this thing went into effect and was always curious (from many people's point of view at that time and still from average folks i talk to today) why the method chosen to reduce the number of doves killed in a year was NOT to change the bag limit and NOT to change the number of days hunted in a year and NOT to get rid of all day hunting...

    The method chosen to "save the dove numbers" was to effectively cut down on the number of hunters in the field by (in)directly limiting the number of prepared dove fields- a crazy thing to those of us who were looking at it when it occurred...

    I have never understood that.

    T

  11. #31
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    Palmetto Bug,

    While wheat could be used as a cover crop I know of no commercial farm operations doing this in SC. Rye is the norm. for a small grain cover crop in here. Given the cost of seed you will not find many, if any farmers looking to throw wheat seed on top of the ground, walk away from it, and call it farming. Even so production guidelines would specify a mid oct. planting date at the earliest to avoid freeze injury and the crop would be drilled or at least covered with soil in some manner No true agronomist would advise you to pay good money for seed stock and just throw it on top of the ground and walk away from it. As for planting for wildlife, wheat is great for that, but that is not an agronomic endeavor either. I am not condeming sewing wheat for doves. I believe the same as CLR and Traderion, Obeying the game laws should resolve issues of overharvest. I would be all for top sewn wheat for doves, just don't call it farming!

  12. #32
    tradorion Coots

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    According to DT:
    To have this discussion you have to believe there was a need to harvest less. We were told decreasing to a 10 bird bag would not work. It would take 6! That was too few.

    Then we are free to have this discussion- I fully believe that the reported numbers recommended a decrease in overall dove harvest-- so why not REDUCE THE SEASONS as a means of reducing the birds killed rather than REDUCING THE HUNTER NUMBERS ???

    Also- you note that reducing the limit to 6 birds was "too few"- according to whose rules?? What is better for our overall hunting heritage in the long-term:

    A- Keeping a smaller number of hunters happy b/c they are still able to kill 12 doves??

    B- Keeping the largest body of hunters still in the field able to hunt??

    It used to be illegal to do 65 on the Interstate... and then they changed the law- I don't think the bloodbath that some said would happen occurred on our highways or we'd be back at 55. Changing laws happens all the time. So referring to "illegal bait" IE- Top Sown Wheat and "Legal Bait" IE Manipulating a Grown Crop-- it is nothing more than splitting hairs. As the umpire once said in discussing his favorite pitch to call "That ball ain't nuthin til I say it is!!"

    Someone answer me this-- when the GW used to come on our family field and often do the "handkerchief trick" and count grain under it (late 70's and early 80's)-- at that point in time when you allowed "X grains per square foot" while top sowing wheat were you allowed a different amount if it was grown in place?? Or in other words- when the grain standard for top sowing wheat was in place were you allowed today's standard for loading the ground with grown in place crops or were both kinds of fields "Top Sown" and "Grown In Place" held to the same standard??

    Asked by DT:
    Do you think anyone is planting wheat by top sowing it for any real ag purpose?

    Nope- but i take that back to a Normal Agricultural Purpose being poorly defined if you have ever seen a farmer (who raises crops to harvest and sell for his livelihood) grow it and cut it and leave it laying on the ground. Sorry but planting for wildlife is an "agricultural" purpose only b/c this "strict interpretation of the law" that was discussed earlier.

    Asked by DT:
    Do you think there are more doves today than 25 years ago?

    Nossir- judging from traveling about the state as a hunter and my current position I do not PERSONALLY see an increase in bird numbers although I will readily concede that is simply my observation and number studies could prove differently (or maybe our doves are short-stopping like our ducks due to weather and feed north of us and the Fed Numbers are increasing while the State Numbers are ...???)

    I wouldn't mind top sowing wheat staying a banned practice if the definition of Normal Agricultural Purpose was TRUTHFULLY employed to stop the current pouring of "Legal Bait" onto certain fields- lets all go back to hunting over TRULY NORMAL AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES AS CLEANLY DEFINED BY CLEMSON- without the manipulation BullSnot such as a normally harvested cornfield without leftover rows chopped into legal bait OR fields of staggered feeds sunflower/corn/millet etc etc.

    Truly level the playing field- no certain field is then a huge draw for concentrating doves- and see what happens.

    T

  13. #33
    jwilliams's Avatar
    jwilliams is offline 2th Doc's Fishing understudy
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    It boiled down to the absolute fact that no one was planting wheat. We were using it to bait. Baiting is illegal. Manipulating a grown crop is perfectly legal.

    DT-How can you say that planting impoundments and NOT harvesting the crops is a "normal agricultural" process....because the feds made an allowance for it, right.

    Don't call that farming, right? This is Bull hockey all the way around. bull hockey. Don't let em get you. It sounds like they already have.
    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
    Does Elton John know you have his shotgun?

  14. #34
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    if youve got enough land to disc up and spread wheat on, youve got enough land to plant sunflowers.

    the problem lies in the fact that most rednecks that wanna spread wheat arent thinking ahead of schedule enough in april or may and or are not willing to put in the necessary maintenance work associated with sunflowers.

  15. #35
    jwilliams's Avatar
    jwilliams is offline 2th Doc's Fishing understudy
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    Perhaps there is cost involved, little E? I have hunted nothing but sunflowers this year (some with cracked corn)which I am sure is a normal agricultural practice.
    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
    Does Elton John know you have his shotgun?

  16. #36
    tradorion Coots

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    And then there is still the discussion that there are some states that still deem hunting over top sown wheat a legal practice...

    Wasn't it that Ole Southern Redneck Billy Bob Shakespeare who once said "Bullsnot by any other name is still BULLSNOT..."

    Or maybe it was his English cousin who said "A rose by any other name is still..."

    Either way-- if the feds think its OK to kill doves over top sown wheat in one state then its kinda screwy to say its not a legal practice in another... the duck regs are at least consistent in that regard.

    But again this all comes back down to that thing of strict interpretation-- and of course who is doing the interpretating.

    T

  17. #37
    jwilliams's Avatar
    jwilliams is offline 2th Doc's Fishing understudy
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    no, it goes back to where the money is [img]graemlins/shakehead.gif[/img] and what kind men we have as legislators.

    I think the english writer said, "a rose, by any other name, would smell just as sweet."
    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
    Does Elton John know you have his shotgun?

  18. #38
    tradorion Coots

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    Ahhh- true sir. It was their inbred cousin Gertie who did the Rose is a Rose is a Rose thing.

    My most deep and humble apologies for confusing these three literary greats!!

    T

  19. #39
    jwilliams's Avatar
    jwilliams is offline 2th Doc's Fishing understudy
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    no sweat. Gertie is easily confused. He wasn't much of a writer, but he sho could tell a story.
    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
    Does Elton John know you have his shotgun?

  20. #40
    tradorion Coots

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    You Sexist Pig... Gertie was a SHE-- although SHE may have liked women as much as a HE...

    But we digress from the topic at hand.

    T

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