What Is Your Quietest Month ?

[marsh man]

I will admit corn/barley can be a bit hard on the dog but they soon recover, I shoot a fair few crows, rooks and pigeons on corn as they can strip large areas in no time if left undisturbed,

What I find with wheat is the black'uns bring it down bye flying into it then the pigeons find these patches, biggest bag on corn was a mix of black'uns and mainly pigeons 426, I guess there is always the question should we be shooting them at this time of year.

 

For some reason we get large numbers of pigeons during the summer months on corn so someone as to keep them off it

We had a Barley field last year with a grass margin around the outside , none it went flat but the Rooks and Crows snapped the stem about half way up to make a platform to stand on and then started to work well into the crop on a nigh on dead level base , when they cut the grass they even took the ears of the Barley on there to take all the bits of grain out , now how clever is that ?

[old'un]

We had a Barley field last year with a grass margin around the outside , none it went flat but the Rooks and Crows snapped the stem about half way up to make a platform to stand on and then started to work well into the crop on a nigh on dead level base , when they cut the grass they even took the ears of the Barley on there to take all the bits of grain out , now how clever is that ?

 

Yep a real smart bird, it amazes me just how good their eyesight is, but for some reason they are suckers for decoys.

[kenholland]

I remember George digweed said once they have fantastic eye sight but can be so stupid to decoy's.

[Wilts#Dave]

All depends on the cropping year on year, for me anyway. This year for example, all the farms that have been growing peas/beans have not done so and Spring rape is out the window these days....it's no coincidence in my opinion that it's what's reduced my number of outings, used to have a lot more to look on throughout the quieter months.

I've no doubt that it will be a lean run up to the laid corn now, sadly!

[anser2]

Is there no corn in your area?

As marshman has said there is plenty of barley and wheat grown in my area , but on my farms laid corn is a rareity . The corn is all short stemed and very resistant to being laid. But in any case I like to give the birds some time to breed , pigeons have declined big time localy. 15 years ago I used to shoot 2-3,000 pigeons a year mainly on rape, but today I am struggling to shoot a couple of hundred a year. The birds are just not in the area, yet just 15 miles away on the coast the farms are full of them. Indeed its been hard to find any on the rape for the past 4 years and if you do get a hundred or so on a field , one bang and that is it for the day. Almost all my pigeons these days are shot on stubble, clover or when roost shooting despite having several thousand acres covering 5 farms to shoot over.

 

So a summer break allows them to rear a few youngsters and a chance to forget about pigeon shooters and decoys until the harvest making the chance of making a bag or two higher.

Edited May 13, 2016 by anser2