OK to hunt AZ owned but leased to ag. Producers?

[HuntCA]

Going dove hunting in Yuma and noticed a fair amount of AZ govt. owned but leased to ag. land. Is it OK to hunt over that land as long as you respect the crop and clean up after yourself(empties)?

 

[Zach]

I don't ever remember this scenario when I went over the border. I know as a rule of thumb, don't hunt wet fields.

Not going to hunt Imperial Valley?

 

[HuntCA]

I was, but an old friend who lives in Havasu led me to believe he and all his long time friends who always hunted Yuma were going. I booked a hotel and started prepping and then he backed out. I have a CA license too, so if for some wild reason I can't find birds there, I'll come back over to the IV. I'm using OnXmaps and it is crazy how detailed you can see what fields are private and what fields are leased by the State. With out this technology no one could tell who owned what standing on the ground. I'm going to call the AZ FG and ask them what the deal is. There is still lots of State land that seems to look good. I'm really impressed with the OnXHunt maps for the desktop. Hope the app works just a good since it will be what I'm going to use to determine where it is cool to shoot. I've only been using it for one evening and so far I've been able to locate quite a few potential spots. They are just guesses at this point since it's impossible to determine what is planted in those particular fields.Hard to tell at that resolution, but the blue bits are AZ State, while the light yellow is BLM. Dark yellow is indian res.

 

[HuntCA]

Update: Well, back from the opener and it was good...and crowded too! The problem in Yuma is that NO one farms grain anymore. I literally drove 300+ miles on Thursday the day befor the opener all over every part of the greater Yuma valley. From Mitry lake to the N, to the border in the South all the way out to the feed lots 50 miles E and did not find any grain crops at all. The AZDFG does plant some fields in grain crops for the specific use of hunters, but the rub is that they will not tell you where they are. I happened to stumble on a fairly good sized one(but the word was apparently out and about 150 other guys showed up opening Friday) Upon leaving I found a small narrow plot they set aside for their special youth hunt.

There were plenty of birds, so everyone was cool, but I lost many a bird to someone claiming the "community bird". Moved over to the orchards North of the river and South of the reservation and had good evining shooting with morning doves to round out my 10 ww and 5 morning dove limit.

The next morning I assumed would be about the same, but boy was I wrong. They basically dissapeard...poof. Weather was just starting to move in, and they are hyper sensitive to pressure changes and will move en mass if they think it's going to rain. The euros and morning doves will hang around, but Saturday was very poor. I think I picked up only 3 or so that morning.

For anyone wondering farmers leasing land from the state CAN NOT keep you from hunting on that land. Row, orchard, cotton, etc. if you are legal to hunt, you can hunt in those fields. In practice, about the only way you can tell for sure you are standing on the correct legal ground is to use OnXmaps. They are close to real time and have GPS coordinates. It is worth the cost in my opinion. You more than likely will have more accurate information than the game wardens.

Not sure if I'll go back next year. For a solo "never been there before noob" hunt, I think I did ok.

link to some pics:
https://goo.gl/photos/nMUB8eWzaba35YY26