LG,
In the southwest, quail hunting is alive and well...well but for the drought here that has kaboshed just about everything this year. I know the quail are very popular in states from Texas, NM, AZ, and Calif. Calif also has a very hearty chukar hunting segment. Most of the quail & chukar hunters probably carry 12g guns just due to it's sheer numbers of production out there. But there are many smaller gauge users for quail & dove. It's not uncommon to run across a guy with a 28g gun in Yuma or Blythe while hunting dove or quail and 20g guns are fairly common. Dove hunting in the lower Colorado river valley is very much alive and well. I think you'd find quail hunting to be very popular in better rainfall years. Quail population is so dependent on rainfall that it tracks with the rainfall.
