old'un

Perhaps I should explain why I think the Sparrow hawk should be removed from the protected birds list First there are too many of them, they take mainly song birds and unlike the Magpies they hunt birds all year round. Most song birds in this country have been used to a small numbers of Sparrow Hawks over the years but this last ten years we have seen an explosion in their numbers (thanks to the RSPB) a Sparrow Hawk needs to take a couple of song birds a day, just add that up over a year and you can see why song birds are on the decline. I presume you all would shoot a magpie if one came in range, so I have used the Magpie as a yard stick because the Magpie seems to be number one enemy when it comes to controlling vermin on pheasant shoot, Magpies only take eggs and chicks in the spring, but the Sparrow Hawk takes birds all year round so why have him on the protected birds list?

Why are magpies not on the protected birds list??

Should Sparrow hawks be taken off the protected birds list? My opinion is YES

Spot on, not used plaswads for 30 years

Yes Mark, unfortunately there are lots of people like that about, more than likely the same type that chuck beer cans and chip papers out of the car window

Perhaps they swept all the broken clays up, see they are not so bad after all. Or shooting moles maybe!!!

Maybe they had a clay shoot, that would explain the plaswads all being in a small area??

Plaswads!!!?

If we are honest pigeons do very little damage to winter rape, the exception to this is in February and March when it starts to heart-up. I have seen a field of rape that was so heavily grazed by pigeons that it looked like someone had run a lawnmower over the field, best thing is the farmer told me it was one of the best yields he’d had from the field in years. Now if you really want to-do some crop protection load your cartridges with slug pellets cus I have seen some real damage to winter rape from those little black things.

I agree with most of the comments from “Fisherman Mike” but I like “Over the Hill” have shot over winter rape on the same field for over two months with the average bag being 100+ the only difference with today is the next rape field was over three miles away. As regards pigeons being more intelligent than humans well here is my take on winter rape and why pigeons are more difficult to decoy. Most animals learn by association, like wild animals in Africa drinking at a water hole, there could be a predator hiding behind a tree stump or rock, the older animals in the group have seen their mates taken by lion or crocodiles when drinking this makes them very jumpy and easily spooked. So lets look at pigeons, you have your obligatory magnet setup and your 20+ plastic decoys laid out according to the manual, the pigeons start to arrive (with luck), you get a group of five or ten birds coming in nicely, your up and you take two birds out, now the rest of the birds have seen this decoy pattern and fly off, some new birds arrive and the same happens again, if this goes on for the rest of the day you have a large number of pigeons that will start to become very wary of this layout during the winter months, Think of how many pigeon shooters are out on the weekends with the same setup. I say winter months because it seems you can get away with it during the summer months. With regards the number of birds on any one rape field, its all down to numbers if you had ten thousand pigeons in say a ten mile radius and only one rape field then you would have a lot of pigeons coming to that field, now multiply the number of fields by 20, this gives them plenty of bolt holes to feed on and trees to sit-in on the other 19 fields. These are my own experiences over the last 40+ years and may not be the same for every shooter in different parts of the country.

I wondered when that question might come, I know that it’s not about numbers at the end of the day, but how much enjoyment you get from it, but if you have a good bag it makes it so much more enjoyable. The figures are my own and are for shooting over winter rape over the last 40+ years Late 60s if you could find a field of winter rape, average bag 100+ 70s average bag 150 Late 70s early 80s average bag 250 Late 80s early 90s average bag 200 Late 90s average bag 100 2000-2011 average bag 50 Must admit I have not chased them much this last ten years so it’s not much of a guide, that’s partly why I asked my original question of what was being shot by shooters in their 20s and 30s who would not of known what it was like 30 or 40 years ago.

Why under 40? Well I am in my 60s and was just curious as to how things have changed with pigeon shooting over the last 20 years, hope that answer your question

Hi I am a new member to PW and have found it quite interesting to here some of the comments on this forum. I am curious and have a question for those of you who are below the age of 40, what is looked on as a good bag for a days shooting on winter rape?

About 35 years ago I was parked in a gateway watching a large flock of pigeons feeding on beet tops the farm was near Penkridge Staffordshire, it was there I met I guy called Jeff Kirk little did I know at the time but Jeff was a professional pigeon shooter as was his father also called Jeff Kirk, to cut a long story short we ended up being good friends and shot together on a number of occasions. I can remember one thing he said to me and that was although he had shot thousands of pigeons over the years no one really knows what pigeons are thinking or what they are likely to-do. As I got older and wiser I learnt what he meant by this, and that was you could setup on the same field with birds flying over it for one or two days and not pull a single bird but then bingo for some unknown reason you setup on the same field, on the same flight line, and with the same decoy pattern and you cannot shot them fast enough. The only thing you can do is try it and see. The one thing I would say is I always got the best results with a small pattern of eight or nine dead birds.

I have been lucky that I come from a farming background and been involved with shooting all my life, I’ve shot pigeons for longer than I care to remember (50 years) I have killed a few in that time and still do, mostly over laid corn. I can recall shooting over winter rape in the late 70s early 80s when only the odd field was sown and it was nothing to see flocks of five thousand plus birds on fields and bags of 200 was the norm. But over the last ten years it’s got harder to find and shoot birds because there is too much rape, you go bang and they just move down the road and drop on another field for that reason and the cost of diesel I stopped chasing them during the winter months. Most of the farmers I shoot for are friends and I asked them to phone me if they get any problems a gas gun won’t sort out, I have had three calls in the last two years, on the first outing I shot 56 the second 9 and the third 49. Talking to the farmers I know there will be more rape grown so the situation will only get worse.