Anyone else getting excited for Dove season? (2025)

Travis Thacker said:

The trouble I have been seeing the last 5+ years now is a total lack of shooting skills mixed in with no respect for the land owner. Trash, hulls, wads, cans, dead birds of multiple species laying about. It's why the land owners wont lease out for the price that is offered. People go into the field way to early.....11AM is about the time the birds roost up to digest the seed. They don't fly in high noon sun much, other then from tree to tree or pond to pond. When 20+ people shoot at them before they ever hit the field to feed it's a bad sign. 100+ shots by 3 or 4 or 5 different groups shooting 12 gauge guns it's no wonder the birds learn to tail trim set flaps for 40 meters elevation and cruise.

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I have a field and I have had zero problems. I find piles of hulls but rarely find any trash .
I don't care what time hunters enter my field on opening morning , I would not care if they camped out the night before but F&W dove guide says no one is to be in the field prior to September 1st and there is to be no shooting until 11:00 am opening morning. It is a first one there first pick of a shooting spot.
On September 1st the field belongs to F&W and any one in the public can hunt and that is the way it should be.
I will drive by my field but stay on the road . If I see a hunter leaving I may stop and ask them if they killed very many just so I know things went ok.
I won't go in the field to bother any hunter and all the hunters I have talked to are happy and the first thing they ask me is If I am going to plant a dove field again next year.

Now for loosing fields ,Cattle and Grain prices are up and it is a lot easier, more profitable to grow grain crops or turn them into hay fields than a dove field.
Dove field are impossible to keep weed free and with all the rain we have had fighting weeds is impossible.
It also take a lot of time to make a dove field.

Travis Thacker said:

The state is offering 10,000$ as the top pay out for private Dove field leases. KDFWR and UK wants the farmers to plant Hemp rather then sunflowers or millet so they can kill two birds with one stone. There is an article about it online. Hemp does attract Doves and it does have seeds on it but there are problems involving the time of cut and harvest vs hunting time for Doves. The state has lost lots of private lease fields since the early 2000's. ( BIGBONE ) was correct about the cost vs profit margin for a private lease field but there are plenty of land owners with acres to spare galore in KY that have nothing but clover grass growing on them and they get mowed weekly. If those land owners knew they could make another 5000$ or 10,000$ profit for simply growing some hemp and sunflower and continuing to mow the fields I believe they would go for it.

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It takes 31 acres to get the $10,000 . They pay $300 per acre and $25 per acre hunting rights. Farmers don't receive their checks until the first part of December.
Grain prices are higher and at $14 a bushel X 40 bushel AVG that makes it $560 per acre that is for soybeans . With 31 acres = $17,360. Farmers receive their check in a few days after delivery of grain. Growing grain is a lot easier than a dove field.
There may be a lot of land out there but most of those landowners don't want strangers setting foot on their land and most of the landowners have enough money that they don't need the extra money and would rather let the land sit idol.

bigbonner said:

It takes 31 acres to get the $10,000 . They pay $300 per acre and $25 per acre hunting rights. Farmers don't receive their checks until the first part of December.
Grain prices are higher and at $14 a bushel X 40 bushel AVG that makes it $560 per acre that is for soybeans . With 31 acres = $17,360. Farmers receive their check in a few days after delivery of grain. Growing grain is a lot easier than a dove field.
There may be a lot of land out there but most of those landowners don't want strangers setting foot on their land and most of the landowners have enough money that they don't need the extra money and would rather let the land sit idol.

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TRUE. Id raise crops before a Dove lease. I raise cattle and hay on my place. Next year looking at putting in couple more acfes of millet milo and sunflowers for Dove shoot. But Hemp isnt a money maker. Mitch McConnell and a few others pushed Hemp few years back. I know a few farmers around here that raised it. Then couldnt sell it. Buyers said they have warehouses full of it. So after awhile farmers here took it out of their barns and burned it. Said wont raise it no more.