motty

My point was about “old pros.” Without having seeing the OPs decoys, I thought this “old pro” was talking rubbish. Now that I have seen them, I KNOW he was.

An old pro, eh? Funny, I’ve met some similar “old pros” in the past, who knew very little about pigeon shooting. Your decoys, for instance, would be way down the list on importance for me.

Ant Poolman very often uses 7.5 steel on pigeons. Being as he is one of the top pigeon shots in the country, I would imagine he wouldn’t use them if they didn’t produce the goods.

Nice. My first "proper" gun was a s/s Baikal which my Dad cut a couple of inches from the barrel to lose the choke. I still have fond memories of the old thing, including shooting 2 pigeons for 1 shot whilst sat next to a bush intercepting a flight line to peas, several double discharges (!), and beating my dad's work mates in a skeet competition. Now my only s/s is a kestrel 10 bore. I wouldn't mind a nice new Beretta s/s......

Nice report, Jules. It was a nice few hours. We shot some lovely birds, too. Marshman, we have loads of farms to shoot, spread over Cambs and Norfolk. A lot of the farms I shoot are next door to each other, but some of the others are a bit further afield. I picked most of them up whilst seeing pigeon activity from different sites I work at. Moving can be a pain, especially when you haven't long been set up, but it can pay dividends. I am glad we stayed where we did, because I reckon we may have only got 20-40 on the other piece of rape I had in mind. I expect the rape to attract yet more interest in the next few weeks, along with some clover that I will be watching.

Yes, plenty of farms drilling at the same time. Part of the challenge is picking the right spot. And yes, 50 good birds beats 100 real easy ones, though I like a mixture sometimes.... Thank you. I felt it was about time I wrote a little report, J. Absolutely!

I covered a fair few miles on Friday afternoon scouting for birds. I found good numbers of pigeons on a few drilled fields. However, on checking again, they were absent, with nothing flighting to them. A couple of other farmers were drilling other likely fields, but alas too late for a Saturday shoot. I phoned another farmer to ask if he had been drilling, as time was getting on. He told me that he had drilled some barley, and that a "gang" of pigeons were on there. This became my focus for the reconnaissance on Saturday morning. I arrived around 9am to watch. Jules was checking the fields I had looked at yesterday, just in case. He found little. I watched a couple of weak lines heading across my field, following some power lines and then into the distance. A decent number started to drop in where I was, and by the time Jules arrived, a couple of hundred were down and things looked half promising. It wasn't until we had set up that I began to feel like we would struggle, especially as the line following the power lines had got stronger and mostly completely ignored our set up. We persevered, though, and decided to stick it out. We had to put up with strong winds yet again, made worse by unforecasted showers that made shooting tricky. I was shooting like a one armed Stevie Wonder to start with, which frustrated me, considering I have been shooting pretty well lately. Jules was shooting just fine. I turned it around, though. We knew a big bag wasn't on the cards, but we were enjoying a mixture of decoying birds and some nice flighted ones. No easy shots. A couple of times during the afternoon we spied a cloud of perhaps 2000 pigeons that erupted from the fields in the distance. I had a slight sinking feeling, as I thought I knew where it was - a farm I have shot in the past. I should have checked those fields earlier...... I won't know for sure if we might have had a real day to remember had we shot there instead, but I felt like maybe we missed out. Never mind. I consoled myself with the fact that I still had a good day out with my mate and we had a good craic and shot some good birds. The final pickup was 51 pigeons and 1 jack.

Nice bag. I also wouldn't have sent my dog for them all, either. I pick most birds myself, leaving the dog to get a runner or outlier. Far too much time for the dog outside the hide, spooking incomers.

I had passed that field several times over the past few months, and there was always plenty of pigeons on there. I didn't think we would shoot too many until we sat watching the lines coming in. I am lucky at the moment, as I am back in an old job which means I am round and about a lot of the farms I shoot.

A good write up, Jules. I really enjoyed some of those birds zipping past from behind. It was great snap shooting. We all shot some good ones, and you still surprise me with how competent you are now as a lefty. I didn't think we had shot as many as that. Hopefully we will have some more drilling to go at during the week.

Form is temporary. Class is permanent.

A nice bag, sir. It is refreshing to take little kit. It was certainly a bind to carry all of our gear and 20+ pigeons each, back 400 yards into a strong head wind yesterday.

A lot of our land is still very wet. Some farmers have finished drilling here, while some have not even started. It will be am interesting few weeks ahead. I anticipate some decent bags for us in certain areas, if the amount if pigeons we are seeing is anything to go by. There were clouds of pigeons around yesterday. I think Jules' language was worse than mine. The man can be grumpy! 😃

I totally agree that there is shooting to be had if you ask the farmers in the right way and perhaps know a little bit about what you're doing. I was lucky today, in that I phoned up a farmer friend that knew the "new" farmer's name and number. I was only granted permission for the day, but this would likely be given again if I asked.