muncher

The now usual Friday call from the Mottster. I have a freshly drilled bean field that’s covered, we should be good tomorrow. We arranged to meet up at 9 o’clock at the said field. I arrived early as near this field, is a nice butchers that does lovely pies and sausage rolls and I couldn’t resist buying us one each before we started. I watched the field for a while and there was plenty down, but they were moving over the field at a rapid rate and this for me didn’t bode well. This to me said they weren’t finding any food to keep them there. Motty arrived and we watched as the pigeons departed and didn’t come back. We decided to have a drive around and check out other fresh drilling and then return to the field and see if we had just been too early. We went back around 10 o’clock and it was devoid of pigeons. I have a rape field that has had a lot of attention but just as they build up another shooter has a go and makes it hard to get much success on there. This was the only option reasonably local so we drove the 10 miles to the field and found several down feeding on a very well mown patch near an old copse. The wind was from our left so we had some dead birds from last weeks outing so we put them out and a single rotary. The first customers came quite soon and we had 5 down quite quickly, then it went very quiet and I started getting the feeling this would be hard work, but we said we’ll give a couple of hours and see. After about 1 and 1/2 hours we had 12 , so now it was either stick or twist time, the other field was over 30 miles away and we would be going blind as we hadn’t scouted that area. So we decided to stick. The flight started to increase with all the pigeons coming from in front some would decoy, others come to the trees and other swerve away presenting all the shots in the book. We would have a flurry of activity then long spells with not much happening, by 3 o’clock the flight line had dried up and we decided it was time to pack up, we picked 71 for a very respectable afternoon pigeon shooting.

Looks like maples

Congratulations, that’s amazing.

We had a good time , that’s all the matters.

That’s a nice flight. Well done. 👍

Absolutely brilliant, I’d love to do that.

I think it was probably chickweed or seedlings.

The normal latter week conversation by phone on Friday, making arrangements to meet up on a bean drilling that looked ver promising. My brother asked to come along and we obviously said yes 🙄. We looked at the bean drill that had been covered the day before, only to find a few down. This prompted us to look at other possible fields we had earmarked as back up ones. The first of which was only a couple off miles away. This was an old onion field that had been left all winter due to flooding in the middle , which has now dried up. We watched as a good line of pigeons came steadily to it and drop in from some height. After a few calls to check if it was still ok to shoot on this farm, we got the ok, it was going to be ripped up and potatoes planted in the next couple days. The strong wind was with the pigeons as they came and they curled back at the far end of the field, near houses. This wasn’t ideal so we looked to set up on the far side with a cross wind in a shallow dyke. I wasn’t happy with the proximity of another house to the rear of us, so we looked at the side the pigeons were coming from, but there was a house quite close with a husband and wife cutting a tall conifer hedge. My brother went to speak with them to see if it would be a problem. They didn’t mind at all just if any fly and die in our garden come and pick them up. Motty and my brother set up in the open to my left and I set up under a large pear tree. I had 5 shells and two dead birds for the rotary, Motty and my brother 50 yards away set up similarly with more shells. We got going about 11.30. The pigeons came over from behind and some would curl around into the decoys, the others would fly around the field and some would then come back and decoy. I couldn’t see behind me but Motty could and he and my brother had some fantastic fast high birds coming with the wind. Later I had my phone on loudspeaker and Motty would let me know when birds were coming my way from behind so I didn’t miss out on some high fast birds. The time at 4 o'clock we packed up as the birds had stopped coming. We picked up 121, not bad for an old onion field.

I’m a change man now I have to shoot from my left shoulder. I have the perfect excuse if I miss.

😘👍

If we could have gotten hidden in a dyke etc, we would have probably shot 3 times that amount or more. A hide in the open isn’t my first choice either, but needs must.

Myself and Motty met up to try and locate a few woodies to have a go at. We met at one of Motty’s possible permissions and after several calls we couldn’t get hold of the farmer to check we were ok to proceed on another harvested beet field. We decided to drive around and find alternative possibilities. We looked at some rape fields, drilled barley but nothing looked worth setting up for. After 3 hours driving around different places we decided to go home. I had gone about 2 miles down the road and the phone rang. I’ve found loads!! But I don’t know whose field it is. Several calls by Motty later I arrived at the field to hear the end of the conversation, permission granted. The field was a sprayed of old stubble field that had been direct drilled with barley. The only problem was the only option was a hide in the middle of the field in 45 mph winds. We had a rather long walk due to locked gate, but we soon got set up with a few shell decoys and a single rotary. The pigeons were in incredible numbers but we struggled to get them in due to the high winds and a rocking hide. Most shots were birds rolling back on the wind creating some very testing shots and at times Motty’s language was quite blue🤣 At 4 o’clock we packed up and picked a very memorable 45.

Pm sent

Yes he did some filming, hopefully he’ll post it on here.

You’ve certainly been having some good sport, but you also have put in the time to achieve it. 👍