While the general consensus around here is no serious drinking until the guns are cased, there is an exception made for dove shoots. Drinking beer at afternoon dove shoots is pretty much accepted.
Not here, and by here I mean that I've shot doves over a large hunk of Ga. and S.Carolina. In the past 54 seasons of chasing doves hard, and shooting with every class of folks from po' white trash to filthy rich plantation owners, I could count the number of fields where alcohol has been consumed, while shooting, on one hand. And it's not that the shooters won't imbibe at all. I could probably count the times that it wasn't broken out immediately after the shoot one one hand, too.
No one has mentioned it, but there are other reasons besides safety to not drink while shooting. One, it is illegal. And two, it affects your shooting, for the worse. Anyone who doubts this is just fooling himself. I'd love to shoot against anybody that has had two or three beers, for their money. They'll be buying it on credit. I'll just stand behind their pickup and watch from a safe place until their through trying and put their gun up.
Cold beer is not the way to handle extreme heat on an early season dove field. Cold water is.
Maybe it is a regional thing.
SRH
