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Last Day of the Game Season


pigeon controller
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Friday saw us heading out in the rain looking for our quarry , because this weekend was the last one of the game season we decided to look at our none game farms. The first is one hundred acres , not one bird in sight. the second is a block of approx fifty acres with five birds in the trees. Now the third has its rape split by a heavily used bypass , it had about eighty birds down with more joining , so we decided to set up with twelve birds on cradles above the rape around the eaten areas. After an hour we had another twelve and all the birds had gone over the bypass to the other rape which is next to an old peoples home and the farmer will not let us shoot . We thought of scarecrows but decided to move on. We did look at our game shoots and they all had pigeon on them so we are looking forward to next week . The time was getting on by now and it was 13.00 before we found another field with approx one hundred and fifty feeding hard in the far corner of the field , phone call and ok carry on. So we loaded ourselves up and walked to just short of the end of the field which was hard work but thats the place that the birds wanted to be. We set up the magnet and ten stand ups towards the corner that the birds were feeding. Two birds in , two in the bag . Then it started to rain again and it was now 14.00 the wind became stronger and then decided to change direction so it was now in our faces and the birds had to come over the hedge from our backs, which kept you on your toes. We finished shooting at 16.00 and picked up fortynine birds which were hard won .

 

Saturday started by looking at rape we have not looked at for two weeks to see if birds have started to use them for feeding. Blank. We looked at other areas we had looked at on Friday, still no birds. We then drove for twenty minutes to totally change the area we are looking at only to find pockets of birds of approx fifty to eighty on rape but when you walk them off the just disapear into the distance , not returning. We had seen a field the day before as we packed up with birds flighting across it to roost in an ancient monument which you are unable to shoot. Now the field in front is rape but very tall with a small amount of grazed edges. The farmer is astute enough to realise this flight line and has positiond a gas gun to spook the birds. I phoned the farmer and asked if we could shoot it and turn off the gas gun while we were there which would save him some gas ????. So we set up with the birds on cradles above the tall rape and a magnet above the rape. The idea was to shoot the birds passing over us and drop them on the eaten edge of the rape and the conservation strip. some of the birds actually decoyed and we had to delay the shot so they were over the drop zone otherwise they would be lost. At the end of the day we only lost one bird we shot till 16,15 and picked up fifty eight birds , so the plan worked but we are not sure why we are only finding smaller groups of birds to decoy they all seem to be split into smaller flocks and just up and leave and area as soon as you start shooting. We had travelled in excess of one hundred and thirty mile over the weekend looking for the right flock.

 

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