mikee

lovely looking pups mikee

i'm horrified reading this thread, i'm glad to see the little chap is doing well it could easily have been your wife or child walking your spaniel what would have happened then, would the chav **** hole have ran to their aid or stood and laughed. There are several staffs where i walk my dogs and all their owners know that if their dogs attack or even get to close to my labs then there will be hell to pay, I always carry a large walking stick and have beaten a couple in the past and have no qualms in doing so, if i was out shooting and one of these horrible dogs attacked mine i wouldnt hesitate to end its days there and then, they were bred solely for biting and in this day and age there is no need for members of the public to own animals like this or several other breeds and the sooner the dangerous dogs act is amended to include staffs and x's etc the better. rant over now mikee

hi ditchman, my magnet has got 2x4'6" arms and i like them to spin as fast as they can, i take a spare battery with me and swap when one starts to slow up, the pattern and the magnet have both got to be right for the birds to come in properly, i have never seen a 4 bird magnet in operation so cant comment as to their bird pulling abilities, seems like a possible way of manufacturers selling 4 foam coys where 2 would normally do. mikee

a couple of mates of mine bought escorts in 3.5" for wildfowling, they were both little better than useless, constantly jamming and being returned to the shop for repair one was replaced twice and never got any better, one guy now has an extrema 2 and the other a browning gold hunter and i dont think either has ever jammed, i have a gold hunter also, had it since they came out and it has never jammed even with my poor cleaning regime what ever i put through it 65mm 28g lead to 89mm 42g steel. Its official even a knackered old ford escort is better than a hatsan escort!!! mikee

hi cranfield i spent £43 on the "ultimate pigeon decoy" which if its as good as it looks on the you tube video should be brilliant. i bought 2 "pigeon plungers" for £10 each, these are what i'm altering , they flip over in strong wind because the mounting pole is fixed down wind of the deek the pole is coming out to the rear from under its tail, i'm trying to get it the other way round so the pole comes out forward from under its neck, then however strong the wind blows all it will do is waft up and down, will post pics when completed. £43 is a lot of money for a deek but i'm hoping to make something similar and this is a pattern which should make it a good investment. I used to do a lot of pigeon shooting until about 15 years ago and have only started again this year, there is so much more equipment available to todays pigeon shooter than back then, all i had back then was a sack full of plastic coys and if i wanted a floater i would impale a dead bird on a long whippy stick, its trying to sort the **** from the worth while gear available that seems to be the trick today, pigeons still seem the same though mikee

hi ditchman, i'm in pulham where are you? mikee

it is expensive for 1 but if its as good as it looks and not too complicated to make i can get 1/2 a dozen then its not so dear, started modifying the plunger today, just need a springy steel rod the same diameter as the fiber glass rod and the jobs done, the guy next door is going to manufacture the small steel tube with the grub screw and i can weld it to the end of the steel rod, whis should have the decoy facing the other way round mikee

Any body used these, for geese not pigeons but i guess the principal is the same and they would add plenty of movement to your pattern mikee http://www.reelwings.com/store/

been driving round this morning and about 2" of snow every where, saw 2 fields of rape with areas that are about 4" tall so the tops of the plants are exposed and both fields were blue with birds on the well grown plants, one of the fields had about 1 acre of pigeons on it, there must have been 10000+, unfortunately i cannot shoot either field and the main flight line in was over some one else's land. The birds at the end of the flock were only 20m from the road and paid no attention when i parked up to have a look. if the snow is still here i the morning i may well try several camo nets spread on the ground and see if this will draw anybirds. mikee

just bought one of those chris green bouncers of ebay for £43 +p&p, quite pricey but if its as good as every one says it should be worth the money, also bought some stick on foam wings and tails so may be able to make some copies, watched the clip on you tube a few times and it certainly looks the dogs do dah's mikee

A real pigeon is to heavy when fully extended but appeared to be ok when i shortened it a bit, the real problem seems to be that the bird is mounted the wrong way round (no smutty replies please) if the bird was front mounted a stronger gust of wind would just push the bird down a bit further rather than flip it right over. mikee

Hi guys, any of you tried the "pigeon plunger" I used my new ones this morning, they seemed ok but as the dead bird is mounted with the support pole behind and the very whippy rod every time there was a big gust of wind the bird would flip right over backwards, the mounting system is very quick and easy and on the whole not a bad piece of kit but it will definitely benefit from some DIY modification. mikee

Been out pigeon shooting and having a reccy for tomorrows pigeon trip, between 3-5000 birds working between 3 rape fields today, it was lunchtime before i found them so i kept to a corner of the field to watch how they moved around, shot 25 birds for deeks and built a hide under where i hope the flight line into the main field will be in the morning after they had all flown back to the roost woods, "the best laid plans and all that" going to buy a case or two of shells tonight which is sure to be the kiss of death for tomorrow. but a poor days shooting is better than a good days DIY MIKEE

1/2 choke in both barrels of the 32"687 or 32" mk70 for 90% of my shooting including pigeons, got an old remmy auto with a 30" full choke which used to be my hide gun, its getting a bit unreliable now but was deadly either stone dead or clean miss, most pointable gun ive ever had. mikee

bought 10 jack pyke fully flocked full body deeks today. fantastic things, these shouldnt shine in the sun or when they get wet, i will definatley be buying a flocking kit to do the old coys in the shed with, the white areas were quite dull so touched them up with a few dabs of brilliant white gloss paint, roll on friday morning. mikee

i tried the new load at some pigeons on saturday, only got 4 shots but killed 3 pigeons at about 30yds, didnt get to test with the chrony but they seemed deadly enough. mikee

ive always found the B&P gordon system cases good to reload, nice thick softish plastic that crimp well, thay are readily available at any clay ground and C&G do lots of data for these. mikee

hi guys, does anyone on this forum reload pigeon cartridges , with the cost of buying carts these days just wondered if anyone else reloads, i went into a local agricultural suppliers the other day and they wanted £5.30 a box for 32g #6 RC's, f@*k that!! A few years ago i was given some 56lb sacks of lead #6 which i saw in the back of the shed the other day so tonight i have reloaded a test batch of 28g loads from a c&g data sheet to test tomorrow. will post the results and data if anyone is interested, well unless they are either damp squibs or i'm unable to type anymore, i'll fire some at pigeons and some over the chrono. Are there any rules against posting actual load recipes on this site? I loaded 28g because ive been shooting express super comp 28g #6 lately and they are devastating, the best 28g load ive ever used, i shoot 1/2 choke through both barrels of my 687 mk3 and get big puffs of feathers if i middle a bird even out to 50ish yds. mikee

you may get some shooting on the stubbles if they are the type of plant that loose a few seeds when being harvested mikee

around here, in my part of east anglia about 25-35% of arable land is cropped with rape, 40-50 with wheat and barley and most of the rest is sugar beet. how is the land cropped in other areas? mikee

topgunner thats an impressive bag of birds on your avatar pic, how many?? mikee

i'm lucky in as much as i drive around a 150²mile area where i live and shoot for work and often take "not very short" short cuts between building sites so i can drive past any large blocks of rape in areas that i can shoot and any others that i cant shoot looking for pigeons and just ask at the nearest farm "are they your pigeons mate" and if not they soon tell who's land it is and where the farm is located. mikee

hi taff. i know what you mean about some shooters trying to hogg all the shooting but on a couple of occasions lately ive asked farmers and been told "sorry but i have a guy who shoots them" and to that i answer "well, he's not down there now is he and there's plenty of pigeons eating your crops " and have been granted permission to shoot that day and have been given permission to shoot when i like, as well as the other bloke. and once ive been back to the farm and told them what ive shot , you need to make yourself available, when ive explained that its difficult for one shooter to cover large blocks of rape etc and more birds can be shot by several shooters they all seem interested in letting you shoot, perhaps others should try this approach, just not round here lol!! mikee

hi guys, the pigeons around here in south norfolk have been on the rape for several weeks now ive had several short outings and bagged a couple of hundred in the last week or two, all the stubbles are long gone around here most of the rape and the winter wheat and barley are about 3" high now. i think the birds may become more difficult to get at as time goes by, there seem to be fewer pigeon shooters around here than there used to be, i've only started pigeon shooting again this year after a 15 year layoff, there seemed to be pigeon shooters everywhere years ago, i guess its the price of shells thats putting people off you used to be able to have a good days shooting for £10-15 of cartridges but now that amount of money only buys 1/2 the shells it once did, add that to the cost of diesel and it all gets a bit expensive. what do you guys think?? mikee

Had a good day today, invited to flight greylag geese of a large gravel pit this morning got 4 and a mallard then home and change of kit, decoyed pigeons on a 100 acre field of rape until lunch time and got 43, only used 1 magnet when i eventually shot a couple to put on it they poured in for the last 2 hours i was there. mikee