angrymallard

I was coming off the foreshore on friday and the local hunt club had been targeted by "Hunt Saboteurs Ireland", an apparently peaceful protest in which theyentered club grounds and took photos of members whilst wearing scarves and balaclavas on their faces. Drove straight through them in camo rather chuffed with my 5 wigeon.

Got out yesterday myself, set up in a stubble field were that i had been watching on Sunday with a few birds about it. 30 mins in the farmer came into the field to fix fences so moved to a new field that hadn't had anything on it in a while as I didn't want to go home, set up the magnet and flapper with shot birds and by about 5.30 they were decoying lovely and managed 37 pigeons and 13 ferals. Starting to think about the ducks now, need to get myself some new waders and a new coat and sort the decoys out, shooting Strangford for the 1st time this year, so going to have to do some homework before Sept.

Just got infinity installed this month, took many hours on hold with customer service, and 8 weeks just to get an order placed, they kept coming into errors with our line. Another 3 requests for a renumbering to secure my old phone number, every time i called they issued me a completely new number. The engineer who came out for installation also said it took him 9 weeks for them to set up his connection using the excuse "none of our engineers are available in the area", even though he was the head engineer for the whole area and was doing it himself. I reluctantly had to leave virgin media when I changed address, the package itself is great however the level of customer service offered by BT is the worst I've ever experienced.

Cheers Mike and Tom picked up a 3.2 ah battery from screwfix this morning. I'll order a charger online, wont be using it until the summer anyway, counting down the days.

I've been meaning to buy a flapper for a quite a while now so just ordered the one from aadecoys, can anyone recommend a good cheap battery so I dont have to use the one from the magnet.

Another one for leaving them at this time of year until August, earlier if they are hitting the laid cereals and im asked too. Moving onto the clay variety for a change.

Maybe i'd shoot more pigeons if I use my Mojo Mallard and wind powered decoys too.

Might get to go to a small flight pond i started feeding last month, but theres alot of floodwater around at the moment so not sure what it will be like. Apart from 1 pigeon and a snipe,teal have made up my entire bag in the last month, im shooting them every week not that im complaining. Haven't seen any good numbers of pigeon around so haven't even bothered to go after them and will be out of action with uni work until the end of the month.

Good shooting, you shooting over a flight pond or splash? I'll hopefully get out at them over the weekend but swamped between uni and work at the minute.

Each model varies brand new for a silver pigeon 1 is just under £1400, going over £2100 for the silver pigeon V.

Hollow Farm in comber has an olympic skeet stand and is much closer to you. Theres also DTL and compact sporting. Thinking about getting a new silver pigeon after Christmas and start shooting more clays. Also there's plenty of ducks around, lots of water laying in the fields so they are just spread out.

It's not an increase in Brent that have caused the decline in wigeon wintering on Strangford. Yes they do eat the eelgrass but the competition is second to the fact that the birds just simply aren't turning up. Milder weather associated with climate change is reducing the ranges which birds are migrating south, so populations which would have once been destined for strangford are settling on the mainland. I don't see any real benefit to adding them to the quarry list.

Keep at it, it sounds like he is showing some potential. I have a 5 year old lab which was very lively, headstrong and easily excitable. Training started of well but being a student I was away from home alot and training sessions were few and far between and he was also spoiled rotten by my parents. But he was always keen to retrieve and with only a couple of hours every couple of weeks I was able to get him under control and retrieving well. Now he's a bit older he has settled down and I wouldn't have any other dog. He is fantastic on the water, sits patiently in the hide when shooting pigeons and i'd never go out without him. As I said, keep at it, he'll settle down and will know what is required of him and you'll have a shooting partner for life.

Teal seem to be arriving now, seen quite a few on Lough Neagh last Thursday. Managed 4 with 3 shots, shot 2 with one shot then a left and right a few minutes later. All in all not bad for an hours flight.

I currently shoot up at Lough Neagh, was gonna try and get into Strangford Wildfowlers this season but left it too late too apply. More than likely will join next season as its closer to home and want to get some "real" fowling. What are peoples experience? I know that there's good numbers of pintail now but as with a lot of places wigeon are seriously down.