motty

Totally disagree. I believe first light is the best time at this time of year. If you choose the afternoon, there's a good chance the pigeons will have had enough food and don't need to return.They are hungry first thing in the morning and it's possible to shoot the birds before they turn into a flock for the day, providing they haven't turned up en masse. To the OP, i would suggest if it's one shot and they're off, then you haven't enough pigeon traffic to that field.

I don't think pigeons come any better to peas or beans. The only difference being that pigeons are flocked up less at the times of year that you would normally shoot over them. I have had some really frustratng days on both peas and beans. Also, i would like to see closer to 1000 feeding on winter rape before i would think i might shoot a good bag. 26 from seeing a lot of 200 is a decent return, really.

Not for experienced shots.

I'm fairly certain that an old wash wildfowler nursed a winged pinkfoot back to health and it lived over 30 years.

I am interested in both.The cheapest 28gm 7.5 i can get now are £4.10 a box. At that price (£3.75) i may get a couple of thousand. Whereabouts is the shop? Cecil at Whaplode normally has a good load of cheap carts but i haven't been for a while.

I don't judge lead like that. I see daylight between every bird i shoot and the barrels - all except very close birds that you can shoot basically straight at. Alot of the time i shoot by instinct and the built in library of sight pictures, but on a long range bird i might take my time and 'weigh it up'.

I have set up before first light on winter rape and finished with over 100 pigeons on several occassions. Obviously,that doesn't happen every time.

Shot 5 on saturday while walking round for pheasants. Total - 19074

I have seen plenty on rape in certain areas, but most birds are to be found in woods still. I don't know why people are worried about not shooting pigeons at the moment.It gives a chance for all the younger birds to mature, plus when they do come onto the fields to eat, they will be more likely to decoy, having not been hassled for a while.

The length of a pigeons neck has to be taken into account?!!!!

Any 28 - 32gm 7.5 - 5 shot will tackle any pigeon to 40odd yards. If you shoot a pigeon at close range with any shell you are likely to blow it to bits.

I think too many people are blaming cartridges over their own poor shooting. I chop and change cartridge brands fairly regularly and my standard doesn't really alter. If i send a bird away wounded, i only have myself to blame. As for steel loads, i wasn't convinced when i first used steel 8 or 9 years ago. Now i would happily use most brands for most targets. I've converted steel haters who actually now rate the stuff highly. A 32gm steel load in 3 or 4 will do the trick on pigeons at over 40 yards as it is chucking a hell of a lot of good sized pellets out there. Doubters, try it!

Putting bangers out on the day you are shooting is the way to do things. Pointless putting them out all the time. If there were 300 birds on the field when you arrived, i'd suggest you turned up too late.

I thought it was jan 31st.

I would say the opposite. The less gas guns etc,the better.

Spending an hour crawling to get a shot at rabbits!? Jesus, that's commitment!

A general rule of thunmb is that if you haven't seen pigeons feeding there, it probably isn't worth setting up. For me, i would like to have seen the birds feeding in the same field/spot at least a couple of times before committing to a decoying session. Sometimes pigeons will come into decoys for a look, even if they haven't been feeding there, but i would only normally set up where i'd seen pigeons feeding over the last couple of days.

Yeah, i certainly won't forget that flight. I'm still getting visions of me in torrential rain, up to my knees in water and trying not to drop any parts of my gun. All the while watching the wigeon going past and shouting to my mate 'my ******* gun's jammed' repeatedly. I can see the funny side.

I've been out after the pinks since, but i'll tell of a flight i had on the 25th of last month. After an unsuccessful morning flight, me and a mate of mine (who had a day ticket) headed out to one of my favourite parts of the marsh for evening flight. We were there early and were hoping bag a duck or two, as well as being in a decent place for the pinks going out to roost. We hadn't seen much activity 'fowl wise, when the tide started making the edge of the green. Then the brent started flighting the tide's edge, followed by packs and packs of wigeon. We downed a couple straight away, well retrieved by Shandy,my lab bitch. Then things started to go wrong. First, it started hammering it down. Then the brass separated from one of my homeloads and jammed up my xtrema. I took the gun apart but the empty case was jammed in the chamber. I couldn't find anything to dislodge it - i will learn to carry something in future!! Eventually, i took a battery out of my torch and it dropped down the barrel and knocked the shell out. With a lot of time wasted, i decided to take it out on the wigeon. I missed out on so many chances before, but took out some real high birds with 36gm 2 steel homeloads. The next problem was the wind. It was so strong it carried a couple of the wigeon too far out on the tide making it very difficult for the dog to retrieve, so we ended up losing them. I hate not picking birds but there was no way we could get them. With the light escaping fast, we called it a day. We could still hear the wigeon whistling away as we walked back. We heard the pinks come back in total darkness. We were quite happy with our 7 wigeon, it had been an interesting flight.

Do not worry about natural cover. Too many people think you need a hedge or tree to set up next to, to blend in - you don't!. I am confident in setting a hide out in the open- even a colour that doesn't match the surroundings - and getting pigeons coming in. That way you can get closer to flightlines. Use natural cover if you can and the situation calls for it, but think more of flightlines and wind direction etc first.

Fair enough. Would probably be ok with a 7ah battery and hypas.

I would be very surprised if you had any kind of success, especially if the birds play follow my leader out of the woods. I too have got excited seeing numbers in 4 figures feeding on a field. It usually doesn't return big scores at this time of year.If there is a lot of rape in the area, your chances will be reduced further. Give it a go, but i reckon you'll have far more success around next Feb/March.

I know the pictures are often the same but the articles are not stories. Peter theobald and his mates shoot a lot of pigeons and don't need to make stuff up.

I would be surprised if it would last anywhere near 10 hours. It may do if you weren't then attaching arms with dead pigeons on - excess weight will drain battery. A tip for people who keep dead birds for the magnet, is to debreast birds to save a bit of battery life. I personally don't use a speed controller anymore. I also use nothing less than 20ah batteries - that way i KNOW they will last all day.

I've had several big bags by shooting from first light. Sometimes the first hour or two can be really hectic.