When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I got to go hunting with a man named Jim, who was probably in his 40's. He was one of those guys who never shot anything he couldn't eat, and never wasted a shot he could keep from.
We had been walking across a field at my grandads farm, when suddenly a quail ran down a cow path in front of us. I threw my .410 up and almost immediately, Jim pushed my barrel down, and said "Don't shoot that bird".
I thought that was kind of strange, because, that was what we were hunting. But I started running with Jim, down the trail, chasing this bird, and he stopped again. I again started to shoot, and Jim stopped me again. We chased the bird down the trail some more, and all of a sudden, it ran into 6 or 7 more birds in a bunch. I remembered what Jim had said about not shooting the bird on the ground, and did not even try to shoot. Then all at once I heard Jims 12 guage go off, and there were 5 birds, laying dead in front of us.
I guess I looked pretty suprised, and Jim turned to me and said "There ain't enough meat on one bird for all of us, so you gotta wait till they bunch up".
This happened back in the 50's when there was a lot more hunting going on for the meat rather than the sport.
I don't bird hunt and haven't for 40 years, but I guess the point to my story is, those quail sure did taste good, know matter how we got them.
