Jerry,
Maybe you're talking about mainland Europe when you say that hunting wasn't allowed the common man and still isn't to this day. I've never hunted there so don't know specific details.
I know that in the UK most of the gunners are "common men" and I've shot with a bunch of them. Just like here, you can get permission and shoot on a farm, lease land to gun over, or pay for days on an estate. Everything below the high tide mark is public land and can be gunned for wildfowl by anybody with a shotgun permit. In England you have to be a member of a fowling club to do it, but in Scotland it's not even that much trouble.
I know plenty of plumbers, diesel mechanics, and greenskeepers that run their own gameshoots. A good friend leases some land from the forestry commission and runs a dandy driven woodcock shoot. He mows grass for a living during the off season, a "common man" all the way but a gentleman without peer.
Destry