“This past winter, wheat was planted in the former dove field, and two new smaller dove fields will be created on both sides of the old dove field,” Gregory explained. “A portion of the wheat will remain fallow in the field, hopefully drawing and retaining resident doves throughout the summer, yielding better production for opening day. The two new fields will be planted in millet and hayed prior to the season.”

J.L. Lester WMA, a small property south of Cedartown in Polk County, has two dove fields -- one behind the hunter pavilion, the other alongside the small lake on the area. “Both fields were planted in sunflowers last year,” Gregory offered. “Unfortunately, with last summer’s drought, and plenty of deer grazing the area, the sunflowers were pretty much a bust, resulting in an extremely disappointing Adult/Child hunt.

“The deer-hunting program has become more aggressive to continue to try and reduce local deer densities, but whether enough progress can be made in time for summer’s plantings remains to be seen. Browntop millet is not as likely to be destroyed by deer, so that be what we have to go with on J.L. Lester.”

Moving on east brings us to Pine Log WMA, northeast of Cartersville in Bartow County. Wildlife biologist Adam Hammond oversees the WMA’s dove field preparations. “Pine Log fields are continuously evolving,” he remarked, “due to changes associated with the construction of the new Toyo plant nearby, as well as the farming practices of the landowner, since Pine Log is a leased WMA. Last year it was planted in a mix of browntop and proso millets as well as benne (sesame), and with Egyptian wheat cover strips for hunters to hide in. The millet did well, but the sesame not so well.

“For this year, we have wheat out and we’ll have some combination of browntop millet, sesame, or sunflowers in preparation for opening day. Pine Log gets a significant amount of hunting pressure, but can be a fair shoot. Hunters need to be courteous wherever they go, but particularly on Pine Log. Make sure and pick up all your litter, including spent hulls, in order to keep things looking nice -- to show the owners that hunters respect the property and are interested in keeping the property open in future years.”

Wrapping up our tour of North Georgia’s public dove fields is McGraw Ford WMA, near Ball Ground in Cherokee County. “McGraw Ford is a pretty small field and was planted in sorghum and browntop millet last year,” Hammond said. “The field is less than 10 acres, and is located along the Etowah River. There are plenty of doves in this area, but getting them to come to a small field in large numbers has been a bit of a challenge.

“I don’t expect our results out there to change significantly anytime soon. Its small size means it won’t produce that many doves -- but it should produce some action.”

Although doves are classified and managed as migratory birds, much like with Canada geese, some birds have found the Peach State so much to their liking that they just ignore the migrating part and stay here throughout the year. David Gregory was able to shed more light on this subject.

“We have been banding doves over the past three years to learn about reproduction and survival characteristics as well as migration patterns,” he said. “One thing that is becoming quite obvious is that on opening day, an extremely large percentage of the harvest is made up of resident birds. This highlights the fact that a successful dove field should be planned for and managed year ‘round, not just providing attractive conditions right before the opening day, hoping to draw in birds that are migrating through.”