Shootin' Doves and Pigeons in town By Law!

[Railroader]

Back 40 years, it was an annual event in my town for everyone to turn out and kill off as many pigeons and doves as possible.

If memory serves, it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The men and older boys, a couple hundred strong, would line the roofs of the taller buildings, and let em have it. The amount of gunfire was astounding.

The little kids ran wild in the streets with buckets, picking up dead birds and shotgun hulls, with prizes for who got the most.

The ladies would have a covered dish potluck buffet in one of the parks or churches that had to be seen to be believed.

I had the distinct pleasure of a couple years each, on ground and roof duty...

I'm sure you could still find a hull or two in some of the nooks and crannies.

Anyone else's town do this??

 

[JustUs4All]

Interesting story. Where was it?

I grew up near a small east central Georgia town and nothing like this was done. We had some pigeons but they were not a problem for us and the doves migrated through and they were not a problem either.

 

[Railroader]

Interesting story. Where was it?

I grew up near a small east central Georgia town and nothing like this was done. We had some pigeons but they were not a problem for us and the doves migrated through and they were not a problem either.

This was Waycross, in the '70s...Slow moving grain trains thru the middle of town kept them fat and hanging around pooping on awnings and cars...

Used to have shoots at the rail yard, too. But you had to work there to get in on that one.

We've always had a healthy population, due to all the grain on the ground that leaks out of hopper cars.

There's a couple thousand flying around out there right now, and if you get caught with a gun on the property, tsk-tsk...

Times change, and seldom for the better..

 

[Ruger#3]

Best pigeon story I’ve heard was the Arkansas Game and Fish success with falcons. The AGFC noted some falcon pairs nesting on roofs and ledges of downtown buildings. This was due to easy hunting from a large pigeon population. There was much food for the pigeons in a nearby rail yard where grain was transferred to river barges. The AGFC built spots that would encourage nesting. It became common for these faint hearted office gals in the high rises to be looking out their window and POOF, what was a pigeon flying by becomes a cloud of feathers.

 

[Railroader]

Up until recently, we had a federal USDA employee with a .gov supplied F150 4x4, and one of those tank filled 3000$ air rifles, whose job it was to kill pigeons...

Saw him kill one, once...

 

[gobbleinwoods]

The city of Nashville used to shoot the pigeons with graphite bullets which would just shatter if they missed.

 

[Redbow]

Occasionally the town I was raised close to had a pigeon shoot but only selective people got the chance to participate.. Yeah I remember the rail yards having them as well only railroad employees could shoot though.. The town pigeon shoots were back in the 50's and its probably been 30 or more years since the rail yards had them around where I was raised..

 

[basstrkr]

I told this story before. Dublin Ga used to do this on a Wed afternoon when most local businesses had a tradition of shutting down for the afternoon. My friend here showed up on Thur afternoon and started blasting. It didn't go so good.

 

[NE GA Pappy]

I have been involved in a pigeon shoot in downtown Lavonia Ga. It was back in the 80's after a slow morning of dove shooting in the field. Lavonia Roller Mill was right downtown, next to the school. We would put shooters on each side of the silos and when the pigeons would fly in, we would shoot them. They would circle the group of silos and the shooters on the other side would lite them up. Then they would circle back around to my side.

We killed hundreds of them that day

 

[Jeepnfish]

Sounds like something that should be adapted at the next Antifa protest.