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Lincolnshire Wolds with Jdog day 1 - Broken promises


OJW
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The only two promises Jdog made me when he invited me up was that today we would probably spend the afternoon just driving around the countryside and that tomorrow the weather would probably be far too good for us to go pigeon shooting and that we should go to the beach instead. Driving gloves on and swimming trunks packed I arrived and was greeted by a goatee sporting Jdog.

 

We jumped into his vehicle and at first the promise of only driving around the countryside rang true. Jdog meant exactly what he said and we drove off road around his permissions looking for pigeons for a good few hours. The views of the Wolds were stunning and as always Jdog was very informative.

 

Having found no viable decoying areas, Jdog the pigeon whisperer suggested we stand with our backs to a hedge looking out over a field with absolutely nothing in it, that for some reason the pigeons found very alluring. We had to stand with our backs to the hedge and shoot them when they shot over us heading into a this empty field into the wind. My shot / kill ratio has been between 2.5 - 3 recently, however today I floundered as it slipped out to around 6/1.

 

I took the first bird to come over and was shocked at how fast they were and at how little time you had to react. Some of these birds were seriously high and even the low ones became very challenging as they got so far away from you so quickly as they burst over the hedge. Jdog shot consistently well bagging two birds that I will always remember having each been up at about 60 meters, the furthest out he has ever shot one. I wasn't even lifting my guns to birds that were even closer than that which I regret now I've seen them killed effectively at those longer distances.

 

We finished with a bag of 22, 5 of which I accounted for with 28 shots! The rest all Jdogs. We only shot for about 1:20mins. Below is Jdog with one of his 60m pigeons.

 

I have seen an OS map with shaded out fields marked on it, Jdog has acquired keys to a field that is clearly marked. I hope that the promise of a trip to the beach may well also be broken.

 

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Edited by OJW
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Today I drove over forty miles before OJW arrived and I never saw a pigeon. It was the same after he arrived, more aimless driving trying to conjure up a flight line from somewhere.

 

The field he described where we stood was a late crop of peas. No peas were spilled, there is no green haulm left so why they wanted to be there is a mystery. What I do know about the field is that pigeons will not decoy in it which is why in desperation we stood along a hedge and waited for a flight to start.

 

OJW started with a cracker then his range finding let him down and he passed up several perfectly good opportunities. The two long birds I shot were both flukes.

 

The beach it is tomorrow then, budgie smugglers and all.

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Today I drove over forty miles before OJW arrived and I never saw a pigeon. It was the same after he arrived, more aimless driving trying to conjure up a flight line from somewhere.

 

The field he described where we stood was a late crop of peas. No peas were spilled, there is no green haulm left so why they wanted to be there is a mystery. What I do know about the field is that pigeons will not decoy in it which is why in desperation we stood along a hedge and waited for a flight to start.

 

OJW started with a cracker then his range finding let him down and he passed up several perfectly good opportunities. The two long birds I shot were both flukes.

 

The beach it is tomorrow then, budgie smugglers and all.

 

please god nooooooooooooooo

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Day 2

We set off bright and early and drove to the estate office to pick up a key to the aforementioned marked field I had seen on the OS map. We bumped into the keeper who Jdog had a long chat with. While they were chatting, a partridge flew right over the top of them and into a telephone wire, falling to earth stone dead. Into the back of the car it went.

We began driving the 20 or so miles to the field Jdog had marked on the map, after about 5 miles, a car coming towards us hit a partridge which flew out in front and drove off. We stopped and humanely dispatched the partridge. Into the back it went, meaning we had a brace of fresh partridge before even pulling the trigger on a pigeon. We arrived at the fields and they were vast. I will leave Jdog to describe them as I would not be able to give their level of potential justice. As we arrived we met a policeman and, due to our proximity to a town, he advised us to call 101 and let them know we were shooting. A first for both of us (the discussion of the requirement of doing this has been a controversial issue on these boards in the past I believe).

 

We watched the fields for a couple of hours and there really wasn't much in the air. There was a point in the far corner of the furthest field with two small ponds about 30m apart and surrounded by foliage with a very very weak flight line crossing nearby. The heat was so much that we had little choice but to set up in these areas out of the sun. Unconvinced, Jdog sent me into the bushes to see if there was potential and drove back across the field to watch from afar with his binoculars. Somehow, I gave the illusion that there was potential in the area by dropping three or so in about 15minutes. This brought Jdog back armed with some dead birds and bouncers. We placed one bouncer out to the right nearest the line, and two out between the two ponds. It started well with J dropping a high pigeon from a flock that as always, I would have otherwise considered out of range. We both had some varied shooting and managed to stay cool enough in the scorching heat. We only got a small bag, but it was good fun being out and "shooting light" only using a few decoys and some bouncers with natural cover providing our hides.

Edited by OJW
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