JDog

Put the first two you shoot, whether they are crows, rooks or jackdaws on the rotary. This usually increases the confidence of the birds to come in. I have found that the normally very wary carrion crows are just too curious not to get a closer look and come in range to be shot.

Thank you for your reply. I watched for an hour this evening and there did seem to be birds going in to feed. If you have shot pigeons on oats there seems to be no reason why others cannot. I will let you know how I get on in due course.

I have no laid barley or wheat to shoot over but this evening I found three fields of oats which had gone down. Do members have any experience on shooting over laid oats?

My last two outings on peas and clover produced 102 birds with no young ones amongst them.

With the amount of sport you seem to have I am surprized that your shooting buddies are not knocking on your door raring to go rather than staying in bed.

That's the best I have heard of for a long while. Good for you. Despite the torrential downpours there are no laid patches of cereals on any of my land which cuts out a lot of potential shooting.

Good luck. I have watched some of my pea fields possibly fifteen days in the last month and there has been very little activity on them. Last year at this time on the same estate I had already shot good numbers. I believe that the pea growth is backward this year due to the cold weather. May be the pigeons will start on the soon?

Do you think that there is any chance that your evening session might have put the birds off the pea field for a while? Pigeons have been very funny about peas this year. I put 200 off a pea field before setting up at a time of day when they had been coming in to feed and only a small percentage came back.

Funnily enough I shot pigeons last Saturday in jeans and a pink shirt and wellingtons (not Gucci loafers) and it did not seem to worry them and they came strongly into the decoys and 52 paid the penalty.

Do members consider that it is absolutely necessary to wear camouflaged clothing when out pigeon shooting? When shooting from a hide surely the net and a decent cap will hide the shooter from the pigeons. I accept that will not be the case when roost shooting or shooting on a flight line.

On the Oxon/Glos borders pigeons are conforming to their usual habits of smaller groups (30 to 40) feeding in different fields in the summer months, never combining together to give one large flock. I suspect that numbers are roughly the same as in recent years. The first cut of rape will show the true numbers.

Both. Saw 200 on peas yesterday and had a good bag on clover yesterday afternoon.

Last year by 15th June the pigeons were feeding well on peas. This year due to the wet and cold weather the pea growth has been delayed and only now (30th) have I seen any reasonable numbers feeding on the new shoots. Never in recent years have I seen so many feeding on clover, either in clover leys or in old pasture.