The 2014-2015 dove season in Georgia opens on Saturday, Sept. 6. The season will be broken into three sessions with the dates of Sept. 6-21, Oct. 11-Nov. 3 and Nov. 27-Jan 15. Each year as the dove season approaches, I am reminded of the many trips I made to the dove fields in several states across many years.

When growing up in Alabama, the opening of dove season was treated like a holiday as all the stores closed at noon on Wednesday (opening day) and family and friends gathered at farms all across the area to shoot birds and have some good old country fellowship.

Even the folks who did not shoot doves enjoyed an afternoon doing whatever they chose to do as my hometown businesses closed for the afternoon. Unfortunately, schools did not close but Daddy always wrote me an excuse to get out of school shortly before noon so I could be in the dove field when the shooting began.

My high school principle, Mr. Cockcroft, always took the handwritten note with a smile and always told me to be safe and have fun. He knew my mind would not be on Mr. Franklin’s chemistry class on the opening day of dove season.

Once I was into my junior and senior year of high school, I had to cut short the dove shoot and be back for football practice at 3 p.m. Coach White did not accept any excuses for missing football practice.

I have hunted doves from Florida to Virginia and at each place I have hunted doves, some lasting memories were created. Some of my best memories were shooting doves with my Daddy at Mr. Kimbro’s farm and cornfield.

There I learned to properly handle a gun under my Daddy’s watchful eye and I also learned to hone my shooting skills. I began going to the dove fields when I was about 6 years old and for the first few years I was my Daddy’s bird dog or retriever and a good one at that I might add.

I would sit with my Daddy along a fence row and when he downed a dove I would run and retrieve the bird after he gave me the all clear. I was itching to have my own gun to do some shooting and when I was about 13 years old Daddy allowed me to begin shooting but still under his watchful eyes.

Times were tough back then so I got a small allotment of shells from Daddy to use. I got somewhere between 10 and 20 shotgun shells and knew I had to make every shot count. We shot doves for fun but also for the meat. Those doves provided many meals at our kitchen table.

Later when hunting doves as an adult, I would not enter a dove field without five boxes of shells. Some of those later dove shoots occurred in Virginia with several of my brothers. Two Amish brothers farmed several hundred acres of corn, and they allowed us brothers to hunt. Many great memories came from those dove hunts.

It has been several years now since I have hunted doves on opening day of the season. Dove hunting has become more commercialized today, and I just have a problem paying a large sum of money to hunt doves at a field that might or might not have any doves.

Opening day of the dove season also conflicts with the fall football season, and I just cannot bring myself to miss any of the action when the Alabama Crimson Tide takes to the football field. On the last dove shoot I attended with some Georgia Bulldog buddies, they could not keep their mind on shooting doves because they all had radios tuned in to their favorite football team.

I just cannot shoot doves and listen to a football game at the same time. I will just stay home on opening day and watch all the action on my big screen TV and I might even start the day with a little early morning fall fishing.

But in my mind, I will still be able to hear those now distant sounds and familiar words coming from the dove field. Sounds like dove coming in at 3 o’clock, birds behind you, too high, bird down and can somebody loan me a few shells. Good hunting and see you next week.

Bobby Peoples can be reached at brpeoples@windstream.net.