Everybody in my family loves dove hunting so this year I decided to do major improvements to my properties for dove habitat. 4 properties- 100 acres of sunflowers. The outcome truly exceeded my expectations.

Saturday morning 3 of us hit the smallest field. 45 birds and eating breakfast in a hurry.




Saturday eve we had 30 shooters hunting in pairs on 60 acres of mixed sunflowers and water holes.

Great mix of friends, family, bidness folk. Even got couple of friends on their first dove hunt.


Ended up with 325 birds and a lotta empty hulls.

Sunday eve 8 of us set up on a water hole that always produces for a quick 120 birds. My youngest and ole lady always take these pics when they hunt.




Usually shoot my affinity 20 but that eve I broke my sxs 28.


Mon 3 of us tested the 3rd farm. Despite the rain we 45 in a hurry.


Went back Tuesday eve with my dad, sister, boys, wife, and friend. Smoked em.


First 4 days- 630 birds. Resting it all through Saturday and doing a big youth hunt sat. Looking forward to having one of our local “Lonestar law” wardens out to talk to the kids before the hunt.

Is it all worth it???

I figured up roughly 4 hours/acre for mowing, plowing, spraying , mowing and $30/acre in costs. Yep!!!

Wow, that sounds like a great weekend and a huge return on your investment

That is some fine dove shooting. That's a lot of birds.

Well done! Too bad I'm not in your group.

brazosboyt,
I've been thinking about doing the same thing at our farm so I have a couple of questions:

How was the hunting before you planted sunflowers?
Are there normally crops in the area?
Do you have a constant water supply there, tanks, ponds?
What was the seed cost per acre?

Great job there and thanks for any help.

Dang, thats a smack down.

That is impressive and awesome. Buddy planted 5 acres and not a single one came up due to no rain.

Last year I had no sunflowers on these properties and we shot maybe 150 birds the whole season and that was at the two properties that have permanent water. So 2 have water and 2 don’t.

1/4 is in a bag crop area. The other 3 are inside the city limits which is why we have so many white wings.

Options on seed: rates are based on drilling seed.
1. Giant sunflower- 5 lbs/acre at $5/lb.
2. Peredovik sunflower(mid size hybrid)- 8 lbs per at $1/lb ish. This is what I plant.
3. Native sunflowers- free once you establish.

At each farm my goal is to have the fields 80% native sunflower with adjacent peredovik plots. This year over drilled all of my field with peredivik. It’s the second year of working on the negatives and I’m probably 50% established. Next year I’m not planning on over Drilling Fields because I feel like they will be 80 to 100% coverage with natives and I’m going to do for the 5 acre adjacent plots of the peredivik.

Had an earlier post a month or so ago talking about application rates, spray rights, and timing.

Doesn't get much better than that!

Well done as usual sir; the efforts you put into habitat pay off each year

Well done. You earned those limits.

Well done sir. Congratulations on your work paying off

Thf outing

What kind of sunflowers do you plant and when ?

Peredovik drilled in late March /early April. Spray grasses 2x over next few months

Very nice!!

Is it round up ready ??

No. I’m not aware of any round up ready SF.

Rain really slowed down the second weekend. We had a great time with our youth hunt and greatly appreciate our Bell county Warden Brandt coming out and talking with the kids.




It’s easy to get lost in “limits”. We had several kids shoot their first dove and it brings back the true excitement of the hunt.

Still grinding. Couple more hunts this last week.

Awesome! Getting the kids hunting is what it's all about!

There are Clearfield Hybrid Sunflowers that you use Beyond Herbicide on. Works really well, but get your wallet out for the Beyond.

Yessir. With almost 100 acres planted- it’s a little rich for me.

50 more this eve with the family.

I know guys that do this and if you do it right, it’s $200/acre +.