February 26, 2012
By Michael C. Bolton, AL.com
The rules about what is a baited field has caused some dove hunters to give up.
It was with great interest that many Alabama dove hunters watched the case of former Alabama legislator Preston C. Minus Jr. last week.
Minus, of Gainesville in west Alabama, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a Birmingham federal court to placing bait on his property to lure and attract mourning doves for hunters. He was socked with a hefty $5,775 fine and given 36 months’ probation.
The sentencing was made somewhat more complex by the fact that Minus owns a commercial hunting operation and he was charged with baiting a field for paying customers. State wildlife enforcement officials and federal wildlife agents say they observed the baited field for nine days prior to the pay hunt. On the opening day of the 2009 season, 37 hunters paid $100 each to hunt there. Officers rolled in after 84 doves had been killed.
I guess only Minus knows whether the field was purposely baited to entice birds to his expensive dove hunt. I imagine people who pay $100 to hunt don’t think too highly of a field that has no birds.