Dove shooting is day and night from the days of my youth. When I first became an dove shooting addict, there were a number of soybean and wheat farmers attending the church I attended; and these guys would plant a few acres of millet every year for hay. Dove season was a social event then; men of the church and their sons would be invited. We'd gather about 1:PM for fellowship, then take the field about a hour later; old timers were always given their "spots" and the young folks like me would take whatever was left, but there were always plenty of birds. By the 90's most of these older farmers had retired or died; and since there seemed to be little profit for small time N. GA farmers, most just quit. The guys still farming saw dove fields as another cash drop; some charged for the season, and others by the day. Can't blame them for that as dove fields are an expensive and uncertain proposition; but dove shooting as a community social event died, and what few fields that remained were always too crowded. With so little farming now in the area I grew up, dove numbers are nothing like they once were. In my opinion the Clemson WMA shoot was dangerous; and since so many WMA deer hunts are limited, why not put people limitations on the dove hunt? Shooters were restricted to 50 rounds each by the rules, but I saw several folks sending kids back to the truck for more shells; so clearly that restriction was not being enforced. All of my dove shooting has been limited to N. GA (mostly) and SC; and unless I found doves feeding in ragweed or poke berries, was always around a grain field. My only other "foreign" dove shooting foray was while visiting in Oklahoma where the host handed me a shotgun and we headed out to his water tank. It was a slow afternoon; we saw two doves and I killed them both. Always wanted to try TX and AZ; and if I ever hit the lottery, take a foray to South America. Those trips will likely never happen, but man oh man was I ever privileged to enjoy some great dove shooting as a younger man!
