kitchrat

WOW!! This confirms my theory that the Wolds are in a different universe, pigeon-wise, compared to my patch in Essex. Since my return from Canada (2 weeks) I have spent 3 whole days driving about looking for them. On day 1, I saw a hundred or so cleaning up the last of a late drilling, but there was game cover all about. By the time I had that sorted, they were gone. I have studied stubble fields, rape fields (even poor crops) and a bean drilling where "the beans didn't go in well" NOTHING!! A dozen or so on well germinated wheat, presumably on weeds is my top sighting. Handfuls here and there in paddocks. As for JDog's picture, are you sure they are not my geese from Canada? Move to the Wolds?? or back to Heathrow??

Bear tracks in the snow in the garden this am, 6 ft from the front door. Yes I know you have bears in The City...........

This year, in the wilds of Canada I have seen otters several times at my wetlands. Once, during a summer reccy, 2 otters were after a young duck which could not yet fly (it got away), last week my buddy had them after a wounded duck but this week there were 2 pairs sliding about on the ice. The day was a non-event, after leaving at 3.00 am and fighting my way over the 2 passes, I was horrified to find a 4-inch snowfall in the valley. All open water was either slush or ice and the birds were elsewhere. Not a shot was fired but I did get to see the above otters and some huge wolf tracks. Any of them in Norfolk??

I have a holiday home out here in rural Canada (property is almost free compared to the UK) I used to be a ski freak but a hip replacement has taken the fun out of that so now it's a fall (autumn) hunting lodge. This is one reason I am returning to the UK, 3 in of snow overnight, I might not be able to get over the passes for my final goose hunt. Then of course there are no pheasant shoots here to beat for and no pigeons to decoy. Hunting is stopped by snow and hunting seasons end (Goose ends 23 Dec) PS The snow geese in the other picture were about 50 yards up and didn't decoy much better than that.....

And this one is a flock of snow geese, taken on a previous trip to Saskatchewan

OK, I think I've managed to attach a piccy of the days bag, including 3 geese my buddy shot...

I'm not THAT clever!

Yes, they are Greater Canadas, about 12lbs each. It was a great day but I forgot a couple of things - It was really scenic out there, after the mist cleared it was blue sky, Cottonwood leaves going yellow/orange/golden and snow on the mountain peaks either side of the valley. Flocks of swans passing on migration, one bunch of Sandhill cranes (very melodic) and sometimes long streamers of pelicans drifting by, so slow you can't believe they ever get anywhere! AND, how good did a couple of cans of Old Speckled Hen tasted!! Brewed in Bury St Edmunds, $3 for a pint can in Western Canada!! Brilliant!! Stalking, yes, once you have passed the gun safety tests you can buy up to and including semi automatic rifles, then do the hunter training course and you are good to go. I could hunt Whitetailed deer, Mule deer, elk and Moose (Moose if you are lucky in a Limited Entry Draw to get a "tag" which lets you shoot one). The others you just buy a tag for a few $$$'s and give it it a try. I don't bother because none of the above fly well!! Cheers, JK

Agreed, there is a school of thought that says too much speed "blows" the pattern of steel shot, another says that really fast steel shot (starting out at 1700ft/sec), which is hard compared to lead, goes straight through without doing much damage. I dunno..... Back to reality next week, searching for pigeons in Essex and chasing pheasants for others to shoot......

I thought you people might be interested in my duck/goose hunt at the weekend, here in Canada. There is a "Wildlife Refuge" some 80 miles away from me, where you can hunt for $10/year. Don't ask me why, I'm just pleased I can! The Refuge is at the bottom end of a huge lake and consists of several lakes and lots of wetlands, separated from the farmland by a raised dyke. The dyke has lots of cottonwood trees on top, about 90 feet high, so the birds are quite high, but also has brushwood for cover. However, it is 3000 yards long and getting under a skein is a lottery. The fall migration is in full swing and although it's not on a major flyway, I know from an earlier visit that there are 100's or 1000's of ducks and geese, which fly out to feed soon after dawn, then back a few hours later. (repeat evening) They were feeding on a field quite near the dyke, so didn't get up too much height, in either direction. So I set off at 4.00am, drive for nearly 2 hours over 2 mountain passes (not too much snow yet) and get to the end of the dyke soon after 6.00. En route, I have to avoid 2 elk, 1 black bear, 2 Whitetail deer and 1 skunk! Since there are both ducks and geese I load one barrel for geese (acting on your advice) with 3 1/2inch Remington Hypersonics, 1 3/8 ounces of No1 steel shot, said to go at 1700ft/second, with Modified (1/2) choke. The other "duck" barrel has Kent (Gamebore) tungsten matrix, 1 1/4 oz, No 5, 1525 ft/sec through Improved Modified (3/4) choke. The chokes are tightish because I expect the shots to be rangy and I want good pellet density. It's 1000 yards to the 1st corner of the dyke, where the early duck go over, so I'm there by about 6.40, 1st "Legal Light" (1/2 hr before sunrise) is 6.57. It's misty and there are less ducks but one "greenhead" (Mallard drake) shows up at what I consider a reasonable range and the duck barrel drops him stone dead. Then it goes quiet until the geese start making a noise further along, so I move another 1000 yds along, to my 1st "best guess" location. As I move along I am quite exposed and 2 coyotes in the farmland see me and run over barking at me from 150 yds!! The geese start to fly, in family and multi-family groups!! As usual, I have guessed mainly wrongly, several groups pass about 50 yds away on either side but some 40+ yards up to get over the trees, I have to them leave alone. Then, 1 group heads straight at me, say 45 yards up! I pick a bird out and give it the goose barrel. Clearly a hit but it continues to fly and in despair I try again with the duck barrel. Falls stone dead!!! WOW, lucky escape. (Moves the coyotes too!!) This same scenario is repeated twice more, with the duck barrel cleaning up!! (plus the odd clean miss at not-so-close birds) What is going on/wrong??? Then it all goes quiet for and hour or two, during which time I find a few genuine Heavy Shot rounds (1 1/4 oz at 1625ft/sec) in my "Fanny Pack" (Bum bag), AND see a couple moose move out of the swamp! I use these shells for the return flight and drop 3 out of 3 geese, stone dead, 1st shot. I can kill sweet FA with steel!! The evening repeat flight does not work, the birds head to a distant field at great height and do not return before the end of legal light (sunset + 30mins) I do get 1 nice high hen mallard, which was just a bit lower, it had been ringed, as an adult, in 2014 at Bonner's Ferry Idaho USA, some 35 miles south. Now, like the Liberal Goverment here, I am punished for my success and have to drag 6 geese and 2 ducks over a mile to my truck. Drive back home, arrive 8.30pm. Sorry it's a long report, but quite a day!!

I've just had a great day, see my report just posted, had to buy a bigger freezer....

We are not getting on top of the snow geese, even with a spring season, for a number of reasons: The percentage of hunters who live in the migration routes where they could do some good is tiny, so most hunters have to use an "Outfitter", which is expensive, $2000 up for a 3-day excursion, (plus "cleaning", plus tips, plus licences, plus ammo, plus travel costs). Without an outfitter, an "outsider" has very little chance of finding where the birds are feeding and getting permission to hunt. Then, you need 1000+ Silly Socks and full-bodied decoys, lay-out blinds, electronic calls and a trailer to transport that lot in. Then, they are very hard to decoy, you see 1000's fly over, they take a look but do not commit, some birds have done the trip 20 times and know the score, in any case, they can probably see another field 3 miles away with 10,000 real birds on it, why would they go to you? Finally, when you are successful, you can't eat/get rid of all the birds you kill. People "say" they are not that good to eat, which of course is rubbish, you just have to cook them right. The spring hunt is seen as second best, you cannot shoot other geese or ducks, it is regarded as very hit and miss as timing etc is less predictable, so very few people do it.

I don't know how you would take game back into the US, but to move wildfowl inside Canada you have to leave one wing attached to whatever you carry, to allow identification of the bird if stopped by Conservation Officers. That makes de-breasting tricky and takes up a huge amount of space in your freezer - so you now need a large freezer (and therefore a truck to transport it) as it is a 2-day drive for me. However, motels do have external power points you can use overnight to keep things cold, usually used for engine block heaters in the -40C temperatures encountered mid winter. It all gets very tricky. The Hutterites used to take whole birds from you for free, they ate the meat and collected the down to make goose down pillows, which they could sell for $100. Now, they have wised up and charge you $10/bird on top.

I've seen this in the past (but not in such numbers, maybe several dozen) and if I managed to shoot one, it was always a young bird, so I assumed it was like teenagers when 1st allowed to drive - racing about in all directions, just because they can.

I'll take your advice, Gambore Mamoth No1,s sound as though they should work, then be conservative with respect to range. 45 yards sounds enough (I hope)

Yes, you cannot sell any game, (unless you are 1st Nations, in which case you can do what the f u like). FARMED salmon, elk etc are OK but game harvested under the framework of hunting regulations cannot be sold. In fact, you cannot even pick up roadkilled game! And Yes, if you were lucky enough to get a load of Snows (and they are not easy to decoy, some birds have made the trip 20 times and know all the tricks and a flock of 2000 sets of eyes are difficult to trick), you have to eat them, give them away or get them into the food chain somehow. The "outfitters", guides who run hunting trips on a commercial basis, with over 1000 decoys, electronic calls etc, have the facility for successful hunters to pay to make them into sausage for the food bank. It should be noted that many of the hunters are Yanks and it is difficult to take dead birds back over the border, especially by plane!

Sounds like Tungsten Matrix, which the Gamebore website says is still available but is almost impossible to find. They do not reply to my email inquiries. Also, only available in small shot sizes, which would be great for ducks.

Over here in Canada, snow geese are becoming a problem in that the the numbers are such that they are damaging the environment in their breeding areas and therefore damaging populations of all wildfowl. The environmentalists have asked us the shoot them in the spring migration as well as fall to keep the numbers down, bag limits have been raised in some provinces to 20 or 50 per day, with a possession limit of 3 time that. BUT, it is illegal to sell game in Canada and all "harvested" game must be put into the food chain. So what could you do with up to 150 snow geese? In the flyway areas, all the local have as many as they can eat, all you can do is pay $10/ bird to make sausage for the food bank. Not thought though legislation??

What ammo should I use for "pass shooting" geese? Steel isn't much good at any reasonable range (35 yds+?) and the other non-toxic loads don't appear to be available in shot size bigger than No3. so what's the answer? I have a 3in chambered gun but no 10 bore or 31/2 inch gun? Many thanks Pigeon "Kitchrat" John

What ammo should I use for "pass shooting" geese? Steel isn't much good at any reasonable range (35 yds+?) and the other non-toxic loads don't appear to be available in shot size bigger than No3. so what's the answer? I have a 3in chambered gun but no 10 bore or 31/2 inch gun? Many thanks Pigeon "Kitchrat" John

Rape is almost a thing of the past in my part of Essex, poor prices and Flea Beetle being blamed, but I suspect farmers are a bit "lemming like" and follow fashion. Things like tractors with big rubber bands instead of wheels, big round bales then big square bales, John Deere combines etc have all gone through the area like an infectious disease. Beans are on the up, so I still have hope for shooting....

Lucky you!! Is fen shooting as different to Hertfordshire as I imagine. I've not seen 142 on my patches in years, let alone shot them!!

Fully agree! This post has wandered a bit from the original questions as to whether 1oz loads are enough to cleanly kill a pigeon. Of course it is, if you can get the 3-6 pellets into the bird, that should do the trick. No one has discussed chokes, a skeet choke at longer ranges with light loads would result in less pellets hitting the target. "Killing range" is another question, well decoyed birds can be nailed with almost anything. Once, many years ago, we had pigeons "on a string" and ran out out of ammo. A chap was sent out to get more but could only get No 9 shot. At 25-30 yards, there was no noticeable difference, dead birds. What concerns me is this "Macho" trend of " I was knocking them down at 60-80 yards", as perpetuated sometimes by the internet videos. At this range, Mr G Digweed, with his full/extra full chokes can do the business but simple physics says that a 1/4 choke, 30 gram No 6 shot (which some people post as their ammo and range of choice), only the odd pellet or two will hit the bird, even if it's in the centre of the pattern. If you are lucky and hit a vital spot, it's "great shot", if the bird flies away "shame, you missed it" even though it's probably wounded. Over optimistic opinions of your own ability is the saddest aspect of our sport, also true at driven pheasant shoots.

John Deere is the combine of choice in my area and too dammed good a machine it is!

I suspect your skills with a shotgun are as well developed as your skills with the English language, which are well above average!!