Hey guys, new to this part of the forum! Got a question for y'all. Buddy of mine just got some property over by Garwood and it's got a lot of potential for deer and dove. I'm a midwestern native and to be honest, I've never hunted over a feeder and don't really want to. First off, I wanna say that I don't think hunting over a feeder is wrong or unethical by any means. I don't care what you do as long as it's within the law, it just ain't for me. My question is, what can a guy plant in an area with pretty crappy soil that would attract dove and deer? It's pretty sandy. I'm used to planting in pretty good soil that just needs to be turned and seeded every year, and we'd usually do a mix of rape and clover. Any tips? I think the biggest focus will be on dove with some deer hunting (mainly meat hunting) thrown in. We aren't gonna be going crazy enough to worry about antler growth or anything like that. There's also a small pond on the property

Someone with more knowledge than me will likely answer, but the doves around here REALLY seem to like fields of wild sunflower. I've seen them growing in pretty poor soil, to that might be an option for you. Don't think it would do anything for deer, though.

Tecomate LabLab

Sunflowers are a good choice.

Thanks for the replies guys. How much care is required for sunflowers? It's about an hour away so we aren't gonna be able to water really frequently

And how big of a plot do you think a guy would have to plant to get good numbers of dove coming in?

How many acres can you plant and how many deer will use it? A good plot can support 3-7 deer per acre. Will there be livestock? If so you will need a fence. Sunflowers(not native) will be consumed by deer before you will ever see a flower IME if that is all you have. Browntop Millet, Sorghum Alum, Millets, Red Top Cane are all good for doves if planted at the right time and not planted to thick. Will draw a few deer. One thing about feeders. You may not want to use one but your neighbors will, they will draw deer off of your land no matter how many acres you have or what you plant for the deer. Just the nature of Texas deer. If it were me I would put up corn feeder(s) in locations that I did not hunt and hunt the trails away from them. Feeders act like planted crop fields in areas where you can not grow crops. Many areas of Texas don't have the soil or get the rainfall to grow crops and when they do the deer and hogs wipe them out ASAP(if you do not plant enough acres).

Well, I can plant up to about 15, but Wanna keep it to 4-6 acres. There won't be any livestock

Good heads up about the neighbors stealing the deer. Never thought of that. I guess I might have to try your plan of setting feeders and hunting them away from it. As you can tell, I'm completely new to this kind of hunting. I have a lot to learn

You can bait with a corn/protein feeder or bait with a planted food source. Both are baiting just viewed differently by different regions. Midwest farmers plant corn and hunters hunt over that before/after it is harvested, after they harvest they send it down to Texas for hunters to bait here with out of feeders here. Same corn just viewed differently.
4-6 acres will support around 18-30 deer depending on what/how much you plant. Cowpeas or Soybeans will work well for deer in spring/summer. I would look at some sort of millet or grazer in a separate plot of a few acres for doves only. Need to ask you local GW what you can do to the crop to make it more attractive to birds after it matures to hunt it legally. I would also make a separate plot of a few acres for deer only in the spring then planting it again in the fall for hunting. I would look at oats or wheat or combo of small grains with maybe a clover in the fall. We do not get cold enough to freeze brassica plants to get them palatable in time to hunt. Your rut is going to be very early (and more in archery season) for a Texas rut also. So you need to think along those lines of a hunting plot planting time frame.

it isn't so much getting deer into the area that bothers me about baiting. That's mainly what food plots are for IMHO, at least in areas that don't allow baiting. For one, ever since I was old enough to walk around the woods with dad, baiting was a taboo. It's hard to get past that mindset!! And I don't really hunt food plots unless I'm meat hunting, which is pretty much all I'll be doing in Texas. When I chase horns up Nort', it's all about figuring out travel patterns, scrape lines, etc etc. Again, I'm not here to judge anyone or say that one thing is better than another. Long as you love it and do it within the law, kill em however you like!

As far as food plots during archery, I've never really hunted em during the early season. In my experience, there's so much green in the woods, the deer don't really need to venture into an open plot to graze. They wouldn't really start hitting the food plots (during the day) until late Oct/early Nov. Nice bucks usually didn't pay attention to them until mid-late Nov, when rifle season and the rut were over. Is it different down here?

If your still looking for some info and ideas shoot me an email and I'll be glad to help you out. I'm the independent territory rep for Texas for Tecomate and we have lots of options to get you where you want to be.

Plant clover and rye in the fall around the edges of your plot

Plant oats... do a soil test and fertilize... or may even need to lime... oats love growing in sand and unless its packed down cracked sand ground usually sand plots are minimal effort... but if the ground is as your saying the soil sample and choosing the right steps to make the ground usable is a must

oh your planting for dove too... id just do mainly a deer plot and then put strips of millet or sunflower in it... but usually if you have a lot of deer they will destroy the flowered plants first... imo doing the deer plot will be more beneficial.. there are other ways to find good dove hunting.... if you got a good pond with a few brush trees around it doing something as simple as cleaning the banks back about 10-15yrds can produce good dove hunting