marsh man

Nearly every year despite the changeable weather during the growing period , our estate start between the end of the second week in July and the end of the third week. One year they started on the 12th , but most years , it around the 20th. I dare say the further South would be a bit earlier , and the North a bit later , one way or the other , it wont be much longer.

Great video M + M , who would want to be a Wood Pigeon on there patch , I certainly wouldn't , far to dangerous . Excellent shooting from both of you , a pleasure to watch , THANKS for sharing. Far to damp today to shoot pigeons on the barley so had a ride around to check out the cereal fields , as you say , a fair bit have been knocked about or gone down by the heavy rain , not always a good thing as far as pigeon shooting is concerned , as we have more places for them to go and not nearly enough pigeons to go on all the places they can feed on. I dare say , Wheat will take over from barley as the no 1 crop over the next 2 or 3 weeks then closely followed by Rape , the pigeon calendar is now moving fast forward .

Now the dust have settelled on Mr JDog fantastic bag , I wonder how many members would be capable of getting a bag like that even if they had that quantity of pigeons , three that springs to mind who have got the know how are motty , Muncher and P C , although there could be several more who don't post vey often. First of all , how many would take that volume of cartridges , lets say you shoot 1.2 , that means you are talking about nearly 19 boxes of shells , if you are a tidy shot and can shoot 2.3 , then it is close on 350 cartridges . On top of that you need to be pretty fit , and I mean fit , you go out and bend down to pick up 232 times , come back , lay them out and then bend down again 232 times to sack them up , if you are any distance from your motor this is where the hard work come into play When I was middle age I could carry 50 at a maximum , then as the years rolled on it dropped to 40 , now it is down to around 35 if they are good pigeons , so for me to cart 232 any distance it would mean 7 trips with the dead pigeons without the gear I took , And then when you get home they have all got to be laid out again before you can put your feet up. So although a lot of members would love to shoot a bag of that size , I can assure you it is not for the faint hearted , although if you keep aiming to beat your P B , one day you might get close to it and by then you will have a rough idea what it entails .

That is a very big bag of pigeons for two or three guns Mr JDog , and for you to get them solo and in that time frame is quite an achievement , well done sir.

Entertaining report as per normal Mr JDog , You need to be very lucky to get everything right on the chosen day after leaving a field till everyone is ready , well done to you and aga man for overcoming the problems , excellent bag and pick up. Barley must now be the number one choice in most areas although there are some getting back on our peas now they are beginning to drop and are in full pod , just need a bit of rain now to bring them on for vining .

Seventy Five on one of the less favourably crops at this time of the year is pretty good going P C and to get 20 odd in the first I would imagine they had been going on there for a while without any disturbance . By the way where is your co partner lately ?

Nice report on your day after the Crows ect , hope you do as well , or even better on your next trip out , and last of all , hope your dog make a good recovery and is soon back 100% , GOOD LUCK.

I fully agree with you both , well I would, as I have only shot with a s x s for over half a century and I tell yer the truth , I couldn't care two monkeys what people think , I am the one using it , and I am not likely to change now . As a small instance , this morning me and my brother got invited to a clay shoot and b b q on the shoot we both help on in the winter , he is 73 and I am nearly 70 and both of us use a s x s, we both shot a round of what you would class as sporting , I am not saying we hit them all and came top because we didn't but we both held our own and shot as well as all the ones using o / u . When it was over and we were enjoying a bacon roll , several of the guns asked us if we minded if they looked at what we were using and then the punch line , would we mind if they had a shot or two , certainly not , go ahead and help yourself , afterwards some said they were like drain pipes and how on earth did we hit anything and others said they enjoyed using them and as they were cheap they would seriously think about buying one . So although we will never be converted to a o / u now at our age , we might well had converted one or two to a s x s , lets hope so and I bet they wont regret it.

THANKS... O B ..... All my guns are English apart from one s x s which is German , the workmanship on that gun is first class and is a sound gun , the only thing I am not keen on is a cheek piece on the stock but I can put up with that and I am sure it has got more years of service left in it than I have got . One of my guns that wont get any more use is a Charles Osborne, n / e, s x s , this I used for a number of years until the top rib started to come loose , I enquired on here about how much to put right , one of the members kindly got in touch and said to do the job how it should be done would cost around £200 , this includes removing the rib, cleaning any rust that normally builds up inside , relaying the rib and re blueing it , that's not to bad if you intend keeping it for sentimental value , but you can now pick up a sound n/e for not much more than half the cost of the repair . So apart from the memories it hold , I am afraid one day the steel on it will be melted down and put to other uses ,

I think the s x s trade has been in the doldrums for several years now and now it is rock bottom , at the moment I have got six in my cabinet , the gun I use all the while is a B S A ej , s x s , I use it for wildfowl , game and pigeons . I bought it from our local auction about ten years ago , it was like new and looked like it had never had a shot fired through it , I gave £170 for it and with the fees it was just under £200 , I use on average 4000 shells a year and the only thing I had to replace was the top lever spring which cost £23 and the gunsmith put it in for nothing as we buy a lot of cartridges in the game season . So in ten years and having fired around 40,000 shells that gun don't owe me a penny and I will be using it again later on today .

You might well be right there motty , I packed up around six pm tonight , taking the hide down and putting the nets in a sack I was more or less in the open and I had pigeons dropping in to the decoys , were they stupid, or were they clever knowing my gun was in its case , although having said that, I was on the Norfolk / Suffolk border

THANKS.... P C....... Good to hear from you , when I first read your reply I thought you had a market for your corvids with your local population of Asians , although having said that , they might welcome them with open arms I think the majority of us who shoot pigeons on a regular basis will only shoot corvids if they had to , purely to keep the land owners happy , in the past I mainly shot them for practice , now at my age the peak was reached years ago and I doubt a few boxes shot at Rooks now is going to make much difference to my little skill with a shotgun , in the pre magnet days when the gear was basic we would put two rubber ones out with a dead pigeon a few feet away with half his feathers pulled out and scattered about , this was more than enough for a start , then the dead ones were propped up like we would do now. Two places where I go now had invested in a Crow cage and I am sure they account for more than I will ever shoot.

THANKS to the above replies , First of all I am not knocking those chaps who mainly shoot corvids , to shoot constant good bags you would need a fair bit of field craft and be able to shoot reasonably straight , and good luck to them The advantage I had , or disadvantage , whatever way you look at it was this field hadn't been touched since we had storms here about three weeks ago and walking around the flattened patches you could see a lot of Black feathers , empty ears on the barley stems and plenty of White droppings under the trees in the middle of the field. Putting dead Rooks on a magnet was something I hadn't done before and I wasn't sure how they would react , well , weather this is the norm I couldn't tell you, but at 5.30pm the breeze we had had died down to nothing and the corvids were keen to inspect the set up, with the majority calling away and hovering over the magnet and landing amongst the few dead ones I had laid out . like I say , if this is the way they react on a normal day , I cant say , as this was a one off and something I don't make a habit of . Anyhow , I will go back later on today and put some of the dead ones out on sticks to show I shot a few and hope that will keep them off , which I think will be wishful thinking .

Unlike P C , I very rarely get a call from a farmer , farm manager or keeper telling me there are pigeons on the peas or whatever takes there fancy for the simple fact I normally see them before they do . Well yesterday I did get one of those rare calls , the farm manager asked the tractor driver to give me call about pigeons and corvids giving a field of winter barley a bit of stick and can I have a go sooner than later , with it being early afternoon I decided to look first instead of rushing about for a couple of shooting , so off I went . Pulling into the gateway the first thing I noticed was the field was more knocked about than being laid and the pigeons and corvids were used to going on there undisturbed as they paid no attention to me walking about to see if there were any area worth setting up under two trees that are ideally placed in the middle of the field . the area around one the trees was shootable and had the added advantage of shelter from the sun and to shoot in any wind direction , by now there were birds flying about in all directions and under the tree will be where I will greet them Unlike P C again , I am not a great lover of shooting large amounts of corvids , ( a ) I don't like throwing away what I shoot and ( b ) I cant afford to shoot large numbers of shells on something I cant sell. Time I made two trips across to the tree with the gear and the liquid refreshments it was around 2pm , and within a minute of setting up the first pigeon was accounted for and not long after the first Rook was laying on the barley , I now decided to concentrate on the pigeons as my shooting would keep the corvids off without using to many of my hard earnt shells. Pigeons came in nicely throughout the afternoon and my young dog was marking well , I was picking up after I shot 3 or 4 and managed to pick up all bar a couple that dropped out close to a main road , A few weeks ago I was asked if I could supply the estate up to 40 fresh pigeons a week , this I have managed to do , although some smaller bags have had to go into a old fridge in the garage until the number have been achieved , well today I managed to get them by about 5 30 and I thought for the last hour I will put two Rooks on the magnet and limit myself to one box of shells . I know there were a lot of young uns about but to tell yer the truth , they were not as hard as the pigeons and before I used the box I got fed up and stopped shooting them as they wernt the hardest birds in the world to shoot, So how do you find shooting Corvids compared to Pigeons ? , and maybe a silly question ,but what would be your choice.?

Don't despair M2 Shooter things will improve , or I hope they will ........., Up until last week , Peas were the number one crop but now it is Winter barley , our Peas are 2 to 3 weeks away from vining and the pigeons have deserted them to go on the near by barley fields , also I noticed today pigeons dropping in on the flattened rape which is now changing colour . We have got a nice lot on estate land , but a lot of the surrounding farms are having a lean time , good for the land ownesr but not so good for the pigeon shooters .

Excellent bag of pigeons on barley for you and your dad . Looking at the height of that crop you done very well only losing a handful of birds . Hope your headache is on the mend and your dad didn't have any heat related health problems

Quite an achievement Dave , Well done and I hope you get all the financial benefits it deserves .

That what friends are for , although I take it , Motty provides the tea , plates and chocolate Hobnobs on a day out .

THANKS to the above replies . If anything , today was hotter than yesterday , sat in my garden at 6am having a cup of tea in warm , still conditions , perfect start to the day , then went up Norwich to see P W member Blunderbust , ( a lovely chap with a mainly scotch , added with a small amount of Norfolk accent , top guy and a pleasure to meet ). later on when we were in the garden centre it was 31 degrees and with no breeze it was very hot and uncomfortable . So , if anyone went shooting today they are either mad or deserve a meddle , I would have thought the former

You should be used to the conditions Mat , working outside all the year round on the fields around the lovely Kings Lynn area , I know exactly what you mean , there isn't any need to go out in that heat if you don't have to. You picked a nice day for a wedding Mr JDog , even at a wedding you still managed to scan the sky , that is dedication at the highest level . Well done P / S for giving it a go , I know the time when I was working I would have been out all day and thought nothing of it , the suntan on my face used to look like a camo net , but now I can pick and chose when I go , so on hot still days I leave shooting well alone and just enjoy doing nothing.

Good to see you back , apart from getting the odd Crow to put on sticks , I no longer shoot any large amounts of Corvids but I know it is still an achievement to shoot a three figure bag by yourself alone in the hide , take in account your lay off and not being match fit I for one think you done well.,,,,,,,,, very well in fact.

After going three afternoons on the trot on the Peas during the week I decided to give shooting a miss today and look over ground I haven't been on for a while , not that I have given up going on these farms but purely because the crops grown don't attract any pigeons in numbers until the grain crops get knocked about or after the first fields have been combined . Well after taking the dog down to the river to let him cool down a bit with 3 or 4 water retrieves I headed to the first farm , there was a big field of winter barley on the left hand side of the track , the telegraph wire that run across the full length of the field held around 100 pigeons , these just sat about doing nothing as there were very few decent size laid bits and if anything the grain in the ears seem small , mainly due , I suppose to the dry conditions we have had down this way for a fair while . Driving through the farm the irrigation was going on the spud fields and beyond them was another winter barley field that looked more promising , the trees were full of pigeons but again there were only small patches that had been knocked about , the difference with this field was at one end where the trees are there is a large area of game cover that had just been recently drilled , with the right wind I will decoy the cover and some sport is certainly on the cards , not a big day but there will be more than enough to keep me happy . Time I watched them for about a hour and walked around the field to see what really was about there was very little time to go and look else where , so although I didn't fire a shot in todays heat , the time spent doing next to nothing was certainly not wasted . So back to the title , Did you go today in the hot conditions ? , and if so was it worth it ?.

Very good report from one of N / Norfolks ( A ) Team , reading between the lines , your boss sound like a very good guy to work for , one who understands the needs of a pigeon shooter , well done that man. What stage are your Peas that you were shooting over ? , ours are in flat pods now , maybe three weeks away from vining .

You have got more stuff in your house than our local army surplus store , a very tolerant wife. Very impressive collection after one year , well done and THANKS for sharing .

THANKS Jimmy ....... Look forward meeting up with you.