kitchrat

Lead from a rifle is OK?? Where's the sense it that - Oh silly me, expecting the Laws to be sensible! You can shoot a rabbit/rat/pigeon over the foreshore with lead but not a duck over farmland or woodland. If you trap 2 Canada geese at once you can't release them (invasive species) so you can kill, humanly but not allowed to kill the 1st one in front of the 2nd one and not with lead shot. So, if you don't have non-toxic (or a rifle) and the gun shops are shut, what do you do? Take the 1st goose out of sight of the 2nd and ring it's neck, humanly - have you ever tried to ring a goose's neck?

Sorry Dave, I wasn't being sarcastic, I genuinely appreciate that you didn't just say "You must be useless" or similar, as others on this forum might, sadly. On the flightlines point, I really find it hard to identify one down here. The pigeons have a multitude of woods and hedges to hang out in so can appear from any direction according to where they have been hiding/resting up. Sometimes you get a reasonable supply from one large wood or a town but that is the exception rather than the rule. I spent all yesterday afternoon looking at new drillings and old bean and wheat stubbles, the most I saw in one place was about 40, with no real traffic and none returned in half an hour after I put them off. They are all spread about in small numbers and I can't pin them down. Must try harder as my teachers used to say! Cheers, JK But your are still doing it, fair play to you, and an inspiration to me as I am not far behind in the "getting less able" stakes. Cheers, JK

Nice of you not to put all the blame on me! Peter, without doubt, is a better shot than I ever was (getting slow and stiff now) and his field craft will probably be in a different league too. However, I don't even SEE as many birds as you and he shoot and I spend most of my time looking! Cheers, JK

I don't know about decoy shy, from the numbers you shoot they must decoy well but here in Essex they wouldn't come near your hide, except in times of extreme hunger. Even permanent bale hides don't really work. If you can see it, they won't have it, I know Peter Theobald shoots 1000's not far away from me but they are really fussy round here. An upside down bird is a massive NO-NO for example.

Recently I saw the price of driven grouse on some fancy estate, and working from that, my best pigeon day this winter (150) would have cost about £16,000 plus ammo (200+@ 50p each) plus tip...... Not such good sport and no fieldcraft needed either.

AS you say MM, on the bean stubble round here, they didn't show much interest when freshly cut and it didn't build up much when wind and rain exposed/softened them up. Then it got cultivated, twice, and there were a number still on it but widely scattered. Funnily enough, now the beans are sprouting, numbers are building to the point that I may have to shoot it! Just goes to show that there are no hard and fast rules about pigeon shooting, except that there are no hard and fast rules. PS NO interest at all on cropped maize!

Ok then, are you sure no one else shot them after you left? Like a farm hand after work? OR, they found a better offer up the road. I agree with MM, they do seem to be fickle with beans and don't seem to hit them as soon as they are harvested. However, they do hit them when drilled, when they are still hard, however there may be less other food sources available then. I had a wonderful array of bean fields to play with this year, at 1st there was little interest, then we had some wind and rain which exposed the lost beans very well and interest grew. Then, the next door wheat fields got cut and they moved there (I got quite a few off it), now they have gone to being widely scattered over both crops with nothing to concentrate them and are hard to decoy. However, just across the road is OSR, with companion-sown buckwheat. Last year I had a good day in early November when they were going mad for the buckwheat. The farmer thought they were after his OSR, so I was doing a great job!!

Time of day problem? Around here, nothing has been happening in the morning, except a bit of courting etc. Feeding is a afternoon thing. (well it was, I expect it will soon change)

Is this because the fields without bales have been cut by combines with chaff-cutters, which in my opinion, covers most of the available grain with chopped straw? All my decent bags of late have been on fields that have been baled or, in the case of rape, in areas where the crop has been so poor as to fail to produce enough chopped straw to cover anything. In addition, I think we often see that rough-cultivated fields can increase pigeon interest, is this because the "roughing up" of the surface uncovers previously hidden grain?? Bales, of course, can provide cover mid-field, which is nice but round here they are "here today - gone tomorrow". My "super bag" was on barley stubble once the bales had gone. Cheers, KR

Keep at it, well done. I also give a lot away, this time of year my recipients are getting full!

One way I offset the cost is to eat lots of them, thereby saving on food costs. I de-breasted a few I shot yesterday and got about 2kg of lean, free range meat. 2kg of beef at Tesco is £24. Cook it up in a casserole with some onions and veg, maybe add a tin of chilli for additional flavour and it will feed me and 'er for 3 days. Result all round.

Fully agree, especially for someone who shoots as many cartridges as you do! If I get enough birds to do the 30-mile drive to the nearest dealer, I get 20p each. So I need 50 to cover fuel costs. If it took 75 shots to get that 50, when a Clear Pigeon costs 30p, that's still a loss of about £22. However, that is good value for a few hours of sport, cheaper than golf for example. If you scale it up to an operation of your size, my pension soon won't cover that!

Yes, part-time shooters only interested in the cream of the pickings. This winter a "Pigeon Shooting Club" approached the farmer asking if they could roost shoot the best wood on the farm in February -real cherry picking. Fortunately he discussed it with me and I explained that as my pal and I had been out protecting his rape 15 times between us, in all weathers over the winter and had shot nearly 150 birds (average of under 10, only), it would be fair to let us shoot the prime wood. He agreed and let the others go in other woods across the road which are not so good but where they would then keep the birds moving for us. Good result!

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Well, it didn't go as planned! I got there early (12.00) because rain was forecast.The cultivator-concentration hadn't happened. There were less birds there than hoped for. There was quite a strong wind, which let them swirl about. The pigeons had learnt something and didn't commit well. Rain stopped play about 4.00pm However, on the bright side: quite a few turned up in a little dribble of visits. I didn't miss any absolute sitters!! (because there were NO absolute sitters to miss) I shot reasonably and got 45 from just under 80 shots, which I'm satisfied with. Farmer was happy so a well spent afternoon!

Usually my problem too!

They are starting to rip up the rape fields and the pigeons' favourite will be the last to go, so I'm on it again tomorrow. There seem to be even more about than last week. Hopefully they haven't learnt too much and will be concentrated where I am. The farmer understands that a dead pigeon today will not eat next year's rape later on, so is happy to see them get knocked down and he doesn't want them to see his farm as a favourite dining room.. They have not been on the standing crops (crows are) The release pen problem will soon be upon me so strike whilst the iron is hot. Cheers, KR

Agreed! Cheers

Got a message from the farmer the other evening to say pigeons were back on his block of rape stubble, which I had shot last week. Went over about noon next day, sure enough, a couple of hundred about. (Not a couple of 1000 but it's quite a lot for round here) Watched for a bit and determined that their field of choice was the middle of the 5 fields, so I set up there. This time I had a better wind on my back and could set up in a deep ditch so I could shoot standing up without being seen too easily. To my left was a nice tree they like to sit in. (I swing the gun better to the left these days - too much racing dirt bikes has left me stiff and battered!) Inspired by Bunny B's shooting a million with no decoys I decided to use just the magnet with real birds and my 5 best full-bodied, flocked plastics - no shells. I need the magnet because with 5 fields and no luxury of defined flightlines, I need to get their attention or they will just play follow-my-leader. Anyway, it worked much better. Those from behind curved round to have a look in front and gave me a good shot. Those from other directions had a look but tended to drift towards me or the tree, rather than away. In 15 minutes I had 5 or 6 and put them out. For a while, things were quite brisk but it slowly quietened down and dwindled until I was only seeing 1 bird each 15 minutes. However, with getting better chances, (although none would have landed in easy air rifle range, Clangerman,) I got my confidence back and shot quite well (for me) and after 3 and a bit hours picked up 60, with a few lost in the standing wheat behind, for the same, nearly 90 shots as last week. The extra 15 hits equals 15 less misses so I thoroughly enjoyed myself! Still had the question of why pigeons will commit to and land alongside an upside down dead bird that has crashed 400 yards away but they will not land in my pattern when it's clean and will veer away from any upside down body. Stock doves will fly straight in! Just a combination of small differences made a huge difference to my day, I wish I could determine which had what effect! Cheer, KR

Ah yes, another example of slightly ambiguous posting by Kitchrat!! Sorry!!

Ooopps! I should have put a health warning in it!!

Yes, it looks a bit like that but the hedge was maybe 8ft thick, no way they could see the hide or me if coming from that way. I choose the gap so I could get some airflow through! (and to see what was going on behind, with a bit of crawling) The field behind was another rape stubble, hopefully my magnet pulled them over to my field. I think they had been resting up in the hedge during the midday heat. After reading Bunny B's post of starting with no decoys and getting nearly 500, today, I'm going to try just the magnet with real birds, no plastic shells, build up a pattern as I (hopefully) shoot real birds. Maybe my Essex birds can spot a plastic shell from 50 yards...??

A buzzard pinched one of my dead birds the other day, it had flown about 400 yards before dropping dead in the middle of the field. The buzzard took it away, for which I was grateful, as incoming birds were tending to decoy to it and I was considering have to trudge over there in the blazing sun to get it.

Ha ha, I fell for it!

I had about 90 shots, but some of the misses were awful! The hide, incidentally is almost flat, just filling a hole in the hedge. The one thing I'm sure of is that incoming birds were not seeing it, or me, unless I stood up to shoot. Then some did power-swerve away, sometimes that actually helps because they are then committed to an escape route that you can anticipate, rather than just flopping about in a random fashion. Some came from behind the hedge and I was just too slow to check they were not stock doves, by which time it was too late. As I often say, there are no set flight lines round here, they just come from whichever wood/hedge/tree that have been sitting in and there are loads of suitable places all around.