johng

Are badges still available please ?

ok thanks for the recommendation Den and for the advice Mice!

Pigeon decoying wanted; I am from Devon and happy to travel to get decoying. I am a BASC member and have insurance and have had my shotgun certificate for almost 52 years. I respect other peoples property and am agriculture wise ( I spent 20 years farming ) and do not leave empty shell, cans or litter behind. I am John and can be contacted by pm.

I agree, actually this week I have bought some new netting from A1 and have had excellent service. I have absolutely no complaints about their equipment sales, I have dealt with them for years and NEVER had a problem on that side of the business.

It took me 4 calls and now finally it should be resolved. Hurray.

Thanks and yes I am pleased that it is finally being resolved.

Well truthfully that is not how it was, and if necessary I have a witness who can verify MY FACTS. We did meet the guide on the way home at 4ish ( not 3ish )and he showed us some pigeons on some laid corn that was inaccessible as the field had not been combined. HE promised to ring me as soon as it was combined but has not rung yet. As far as contacting A1 I rang 4 times and was told each time it would be sorted out and until I posted on here NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. I hope this is the end of it and I look forward to my free day and some great shooting.

Hopefully it will be sorted soon anyway, as I said earlier in the post A1 put their trust in the guide as do the payers, I would have rather he said " don't travel up yet as there are no pigeons." Far better than saying they were there when they were not. I would never make a guide I am too honest.( reference to the guide on the day ) Like others have said undoubtedly there as some really genuine and efficient guides out there; and probably most put in maximum effort I would like to see a post naming them as it is probable I will have to pay again to shoot pigeons.

I will be sure to let you know a) if it happens and b) If I have a reasonable day.

I would like to thank A1 for finally replying and I will get in touch. Just to point out that I was promised another day but at no time did anyone I spoke to mention AFTER MARCH. If they had then why would I have started this post when I did ? I would have waited until after March to post it. Anyway I would like to thank all the members who have shown support and wished me luck

I will certainly do that next time, unfortunately apart from VERY rarely do we get pigeon numbers down here, so the only way to get a good day ( obviously not always ) is to travel and pay.

That sounds like an excellent idea; as you say it would help a lot of shooters and also the good guides.

As it happens one of us was not shooting and I am a BASC member so I have insurance; not that the guide checked either my shotgun certificate or my BASC membership card. It was this is the place, I will set everything up for you and I am off. He never rang to see how it was going and it was only by chance we met him on the way home at around 4.30 pm. By then we had totally given up the idea of shooting anything. Eight shots total : - two at pigeons ( Mr Digwood might have stood a chance at hitting them ) I had none but desperation had set in; the other six were at blacks and I did shoot two of them; again probably more by luck than good shooting as they were well out from the mess the guide called a hide.

I am still hoping to get some kind of reply from the agent; but so far nothing.

The guide provided the gear which he set up on the day, 1 magnet and 18 decoys, the gear apart from the magnet, was not special :- tatty plastic decoys, torn nets and plastic barrel seats ( with some padding ); but we found a couple of old shells which were starting to rust so it had been shot earlier.I have plastic ,shell flocked, full bodied flocked, FUDs, enforcers and even flexicoys; also magnets, floaters, flappers, peckers, several Denny's dippers, plenty of good netting and comfortable seats. All I need is pigeons, LOL.

Ha ha if I knew I would be there or at least try and be there.

Yes I thought either the booking agent or the guide might have taken the trouble to at least respond. Maybe they have not seen the post or maybe they are too ashamed to except any responsibility. Who knows ?

Thank you, having been shooting for many years I do know these days happen, but having spoken to the guide by phone and been assured there were good numbers there, myself and my friend travelled up. Many times before I have travelled and been told " no guarantees " and fair play it has been my choice to go. In this instance I was told they were there; that is the frustrating bit, and £150 is quite a large amount of money, to be basically abandoned with nothing to shoot at. Anyway it has happened and the purpose of this post was really to assure other " pay to shoot members " just be wary; don't get caught out as I did. There are those out there that will take your money and not honour promises to provide another day FOC. I did not post this to get offers of shooting, that was not my intention. However if someone does offer shooting I am not stupid enough to turn it down.

Yes I do and it would be B & B, hence not worth travelling for just 1 day.

Thanks for the good wishes.

Yes it was very disappointing, I have been decoying long enough to know nothing is guaranteed but 8 shots on a £150 day is worse than disappointing.In all honesty A1 is less to blame than the guide; A1 put their trust in him and not only did he let me down he let them down.

I am in Devon but happy to travel for reasonable shooting.

I would be prepared to travel up from Devon if there was several days shooting, BASC member with 52 years shooting experience and all the gear needed, ( magnets,flappers,floaters and lots of decoys. Regards John.

I would greatly appreciate any pigeon shooting even paid for, providing I get some shooting. I am happy to travel, ( maybe not quite up to Scotland ) so I will keep an eye out on here. There were 2 other combined fields of barley and a few rape, the shooting was so exciting my non shooting friend took my Landy and looked around. He did not find a single pigeon on any of them.

Yes it was early August 2017 and when we arrived at the farm there was not 1 pigeon on the combined rye field, my friend ( the non shooter ) like myself has shot pigeons for years and we very nearly did not stay or pay, but having driven up from Devon to just outside Marlborough Wiltshire I let him ( the guide ) persuade us that the manager had seen loads there the day before; so against our better judgement I payed and stayed ( bloody idiot ) I should have known better. Yes as someone who travels to shoot I would love to have a section on here where like minded people could check out GOOD AGENTS AND GUIDES.