Several years ago, when I was attending a national conference of outdoor writers, I was shooting clay birds with a representative of Remington, the firearms and ammunition company, who told me that more shotgun shells are expended on Sept. 1, opening day of dove season in most states, than on any other day of the year.

I found that interesting -- but not surprising.

That may be because I'm one of those guys who shoot a lot of shells on opening day. Many a day I've been into my third or fourth box of shells before I bagged my limit of doves. And I've been on hunts where companions shot five or six boxes without limiting out.

But I've always said that a good dove shoot is about as much fun as you can have with a shotgun.

I've hunted just about all of North America's upland birds and have even had the pleasure of shooting whitewings farther south and shooting driven pheasants in England and Scotland. But a good ol' Oklahoma dove shoot, when the birds are plentiful and flying low, is as exciting and challenging as any kind of bird shooting you can name.

Last year was very disappointing for many Oklahoma dove hunters. The local weather patterns throughout the spring and summer were just the opposite of what is needed for good dove recruitment. The spring and early summer was rainy, stormy and windy. Two pairs of doves nested in trees in my front yard and the eggs and hatchlings in both nests were blown to the ground, on different days, by strong winds.

Doves, as you may know, build the sorriest excuse for a nest. Their little tangles of twigs aren't very durable.

And the weather north of Oklahoma stayed warm and dry in late August, and so did not push big numbers of migrating birds down to the Sooner State in time for opening day.

I didn't fire a shot on Sept. 1. My son fired two shots at some birds only marginally in range. Of the 20 or so hunters who hunted on the 3/4-section of land where we were, only one party had any action to speak of. They worked at it. The three guys in that party set up blinds and had a couple of those motorized, spinning-wing dove decoys that seemed to draw birds within range.

I've hunted ducks with the aid of "wingers" on several occasions, but have not purchased a motorized dove decoy. By opening day this year, though, I may be the proud owner of one.

I talked with a dozen or more hunters after last year's opener. None of them had the kind of action they wanted. Most came home empty-handed or with only a bird or two or three.

That isn't typical of most opening days in Oklahoma. In the past 10 years, I've had at least seven opening days on which our entire groups got a limit within a couple of hours, and a couple of openers where we bagged nearly a limit in the morning and then finished it in the afternoon.