motty

Bought my mate some 28g 7 1/2 a couple of years back as he wanted some fairly cheap carts for some pigeon decoying. We killed 138 and he was knocking them down left, right and centre at good ranges. He was quite impressed with them. I don't know why anyone would worry about dirty barrels, though.

4 to add from me Total - 141

10 on saturday roost shooting. Total - 2337

I sympathise with your situation yd, i was in a similar position to yourself about 10 years ago. Now, through a lot of hard work and asking alot of farmers, i have several thousand acres to shoot on. If you were a bit closer i'd invite you on the peas in the spring. I hope you remain committed to the sport and i'm sure you will get the permission you require, soon. I introduced a neighbour to pigeon shooting last year, and he has 3 farms to shoot on now.

My speed controller has gone tits up so for the last 10 or so decoying sessions i have used the magnet on the fastest setting. I've had little trouble getting the birds to decoy on any of those occasions. I may not now buy a replacement speed controller.

No,no no. Magnets are great pieces of kit. It is only on the odd occasion that i don't use one. I live in an area where lots of people use magnets, so there are plenty of chances for pigeons to "get used to them". I conducted a little experiment over a standing sugar beet field a couple of weeks ago. I had a fair few shells decoys and dead birds in the pattern plus a magnet to the right of it and a flapper to the left ( both shootwarehouse products).The wind was at my back and i was shooting under a tree in the middle of the field.I used a fairly standard u pattern in front of me. Most of my pigeons were shot as they fluttered over the magnet. I swapped the positions of the magnet and flapper and still the birds were drawn right to the magnet and ignored the side the flapper was on. I shot a reasonable 55 birds. I never have the magnet much further than 25 yards out for the reason that i get so many birds coming straight to it.

That could affect me alot as i have around 1500 acres of peas to shoot on each year. Haven't been able to get hold of the farmer as yet to check if this affects him. Hope not.

Another 45 to add from me. Total - 2025

I will be out at first light tomorrow. The last time the field i'm shooting tomorrow was rape, i was consistently shooting 50 birds in the first hour of being there. This can often be the busiest period of the day (this time of year) but i find it can be just as busy from 1pm onwards - if you stay all day.

I've only ever paid for pigeon shooting once. I may do it again one day. I shoot my fair share of pigeons (around 2,300 last year) so i don't really need to pay for it now. I went shooting with Peter Theobald on a rape stubble around 6 years ago. My cousin and i paid £50 each for the privelege. I might have felt a bit short changed had we not shot over 250 birds between the two of us. Knowing Peter though, he would have not been happy if he hadn't found a good enough situation for us. Now, Peter isn't a commercial guide but if you can find a knowledgable guide who can get you on to a field with a reasonable degree of certainty of a bit of sport, then it may well be worth it. I suppose it largely depends on if you'd feel ripped off if you only had a few shots.

Shot a nice little bag of 55 yesterday morning on a standing sugar beet field. I'm hoping for a good bag once the beet has been lifted, which should be within the next couple of weeks. I shot 140 the last time the field was sugar beet tops. Total - 1794.

Shot 12, roost shooting yesterday. Total - 1131

Your magnet must be a corker. None of mine would last more than about 3-4 hours with a 7ah unless i set the speed control to almost stop. Unless of course you're using hypa flaps, in which case the charge will last a fair bit longer. I wouldn't go out with less than a 12ah, and even then i would make sure i had a spare battery just in case.

I used to have about 6 or 7 different types of pigeon decoys until i sold most of them. They all looked slightly different- some completely different, but i didn't ever notice a problem with decoying pigeons with them. These days though, i only use flocked shells or full bodied, with dead birds when they're shot.

No, i've shot several hundred+ bags of pigeons on winter rape from mid-march to mid april with the temperature well into the teens. I've also shot decent bags in november when it has still been fairly warm. I don't think temperature has too much to do with pigeons and their desire to eat rape.

My advice is to practise on the skeet range.You will be shooting at targets around 20-30 yards. If you can hit over 20 consistently on the skeet range, you should be good enough to kill decoying pigeons consistently.

Despite the cold and snow, pigeons appear to be ok in my area. There's still plenty of food around - it's not as if we've had three feet of snow and all of the fields are covered. Alot of the birds i've shot and checked have had a decent layer of fat on their breasts, with crops packed full of berries, maize, rape and wheat.

Got 14 today on a sugarbeet field. Total - 157

In my experience gas guns are pretty much a total waste of time and money for a farmer.

Shot 115 on unharvested sugarbeet yesterday. Total ( including Fenny's again) - 20282. I'll look through the diary and add the others i've shot recently, soon.

Well done on getting the birds to decoy, Yates. I am one that certainly doesn't agree that birds are wising up to magnets and the like. Just yesterday i shot 115 pigeons on a field of unharvested sugarbeet using 2 magnets in my pattern. I have shot around 8 100+ bags on this field and several 50+ bags in the last 3- 4 years on various crops all using magnets in the pattern. I have also had some poor days when i've only shot around 10. Yesterday, the birds decoyed superbly most of the time and homed in on the magnets. My last big bag in september( different area) of 246 was killed using 2 magnets. I don't think it's pigeons getting used to anything, some days things work and other days nothing works. The bloke UkPoacher mentions may have shot just as many or maybe more if he'd have used a magnet or electric flapper, maybe he'd have shot none. I've had days when changing the pattern a few times, moving magnets, removing magnets and still not had birds decoying properly and still shooting decent bags. A friend of mine regularly shoots big bags with just dead birds, but that's not to say he wouldn't shoot big bags using other aids. Saying all of this, i do believe that in places where pigeons are continuously harrassed they can be almost impossible to decoy, no matter what you try.

Yes Cranfield, there where plenty of young birds, perhaps more than a quarter of the bag. They were all of a decent size though, and the game dealer was happy to take them all.

Shot canadas and ducks with beretta extrema and a mixture of gamebore mammoth 42g steel 3's (geese)and rio royal steel 32g 4's(ducks)

326 for me since last post, including 246 on a bean stubble yesterday. Total - 17,783

I'll get some pictures on when i can find the lead for my camera.