Mightymariner

Well, I haven't been shooting for months due to work commitments and other issues, so I finally had a few hours free last week and was determined to get out. We have had lots of drilling recently when the weather has held up so I thought there might be somewhere. In my head I was heading to one farm but I had a text from a local pigeon shooter telling me some fields very close to home were "blue over", so I thought I would look on my way. He doesn't have permission on this land so I knew no one would beat me to it. For info and JDog (who shot this field with me when it was peas), the field is beside a busy road which takes traffic to Skegness but it is big enough to shoot safely. It borders a large block of woodland on its far edge, and there is a good stand of trees alongside another edge which birds often flight up. When I got there, there small flocks flitting about but only a few on the ground (it's beans by the way). I decided the best spot was the hedge dividing the larger field from a smaller one behind, with me facing down the large field and the northerly wind at my back. I thought this would allow me to walk to the stand of trees and shoot any flighting pigeons if they didn't decoy. There was little action to start with, though I did manage to down one bird for the flapper. I had a couple of very large flocks head my way but most traffic was heading along the stand of trees. So, with my cartridge bag and gun I walked down to the trees. This paid dividends immediately, with birds battling a 20mph wind over the trees. I shot quite well, amazingly, and had six down fairly quickly. More followed and when I had 12, I decided that was plenty to carry back to the hide. Back at the hide, I spread the dead birds around and thought I would have an hour to see if any more would come. The attraction of dead birds worked well, with plenty of birds peeling off their flightline and coming to investigate. Some decoyed, some didn't. I shot pretty well, even managed a couple of left and rights. By about 5.30pm it was all over, which was fine by me as I had it all to carry back up the field. I lumbered back to the car with exactly 24 pigeons. A lovely afternoon all told.

Thanks. It's still wet, though they were drilling on Sunday and yesterday, but it rained again today! I think they are a month behind.

I haven't done any shooting recently for a variety of reasons. Anyway, I did manage to stick my wildlife camera out last week after some beans had been drilled on a local field. As usual I captured trespassing dog walkers, pigeon shooters without permission but also a few nice shots of pigeons in flight (which is quite unusual). So I thought I would share them.

Well done, the old silver tongue works again😄

Looks like a cross between a G-Wagen and an old Defender. Cheapest is the two seat utility starting at £66K! It might have won more friends had it been built in the UK. As it is, it is ridiculously expensive. The cheapest Defender starts at £61K and I would argue is a far superior vehicle. For that money you could buy one of the latest old style Defenders and a used new Defender.

🎣 Well done JDog. So easy.

I saw an advertorial in a Land Rover magazine about a company who convert series Land Rovers to electric... it was over £65,000! I don't see the point apart from people/businesses proving it can be done, at a price.

Yes remember it well.

Good video as always. I am trying to picture the field, is it alongside the A18?

Sounds like me! Fair play to him for sticking at it. I would have given up. I hardly do any game shooting but I am not very good at it, especially when I have plenty of notice of birds approaching and can see them coming from a way off. I much prefer pigeon shooting, especially if I can set my hide up so I am 'surprised' by birds and have little time to think.

That was kind of you. So, none of your shots were caught on camera....hmmm!

Nice video chaps - did Johnny get a shot?!

My kids bought me a wildlife camera for Christmas. I have to admit, I have had a lot of fun with it.... captured all sorts of animals and birds in various locations. With the harvest underway I have tried a couple of timelapse videos. This one is of the pea harvest, which is in full swing here. I had to reduce the quality to upload it though. I thought members might like it. NEWONE.mp4

...and did you run out of cartridges....again?

Well, old boy. There are hardly any pigeons around here. We have a lot of pea fields but no pigeons on them yet. I have one area of about seven fields in a large block, and as soon as two pigeons appear a couple of fair-weather shooters appear. There are some up on the Wolds near your old place which may yield some shooting but they have only just gone in. There is a hiatus in drilling now as they don't want the crops all ready at the same time. So when my marsh peas go in it may improve. The only pigeons I have shot are ferals, which I shot from a barn as a favour for a farmer.

My kids bought me a wildlife camera for Christmas. I've had a lot of fun with it, placing it in all sorts of places. The results have been mixed. Sometimes I catch nothing, sometimes a farm worker, sometimes the wind blowing a branch! Recently I left it for a week at a field near home. It's OSR and I thought I might see how many pigeons were visiting the field as a way of avoiding a recce. Anyway, this is what I caught on camera.

I can see you are back in the field. Well done old boy. On winter rape I think the early morning outings are most profitable, catch them as they head out from roost. Couple of hours. Done. Far better than chasing them all over during the day time.

So I gave them a trial run on the weekend. Well, they are quite hard to use. I don't know how you control 30ft pole! I couldn't really manage all the sections so tried 4 out of the six, and after a while managed to get three decoys up. Mind you, the bar it came with to lift the decoys up was nearly impossible to use as the decoys with their balance thingys just kept sliding off. I abandoned that and just inserted the decoy and lofting accessory into the pole and put them up. And then I lost the bar in the grass! I have modified the end pole now so it has a sort of funnel in it, in which the decoy goes. I will be out on Saturday, so will try and take a pix. Despite the teething problems the decoys did look effective in the branches.

Yes, I did thanks. A set from A1Decoy. I've not tried them yet, maybe this weekend. I think they could make the difference at a couple of places I shoot, as they head to sitty trees before dropping in.

If I was closer I would take the lot.

Thanks for all the advice etc. I still plan on getting some as I think the pros outweigh the cons during the winter with sitty trees.

So I am interested in getting some lofting poles and brackets to use with a set of full bodied decoys I have. Lofting poles seem quite expensive so I was wondering if any PW members had come up with other solutions? Any ideas welcome. Thanks in advance.

Didn't like the noise, didn't want people on her land, but also said she didn't like pigeons! Go figure.

JDog and I haven't shot together much this summer so it was a nice surprise to get an invite to shoot Saturday afternoon, and as luck would have it, I was free. As always he had an option, a flightline out of the village to and old bean field (which we couldn't shoot). The field was rape and the birds were flighting over it to get to the distance beans. We pulled into the gateway to assess the situation. The initial plan looked good but watching birds slipping across the field in the strong wind it became evident we might need to tweak it. Driving around the boundary we came up with a new plan, both of us on the brow of a hill in halfway down the field with a tall hedge behind us, the village to our left and the intended destination to our front. That way we would hopefully get birds entering the field on the way out and also on the return after filling up on beans. Setting up, we used plastic shells and a rotary between us. The action was almost immediate, in fact Johnny was popping away when I trudged back having parked my car. In the early stages we were shooting at birds coming from the village to left and from behind us, swooping over our hides and away in the blink of an eye. Later, things hotted up and we were getting birds on the return journey, coming for a closer look at our set up, and some paying the price. As we built a pattern of dead birds, we were able to pull in more returning pigeons, a few even decoyed. JDog shot a few very, very tall birds, I think even he was impressed with his own shooting. I managed some after a slow start and gradually improved my average. We did drop a few behind us in a grass paddock. I picked a couple of mine and the plan was for Johnny to return with his dogs later to sweep the area. Unfortunately, a visit from a lady who lived in the house behind (some way behind down a hill) curtailed that as she declared she didn't want him to pick any birds up, even the wounded ones. By 3.30pm it had tailed off and we decided to call it a day. We picked 37 and Johnny returned with the dogs later to check the rape field, picking another 8. So, a nice session. Most of the birds were stuffed with beans and there were plenty of young birds in the bag.

Yes. Good man to know. Already have him lined up for some welding on my Series 2!