OJW

I would be happy with 27 Jdog! Congratulations. That was such a good days pigeon shooting last year, really good memories. I'm sure you enjoyed being able to work down there as well so I would say it was a success all round. Good things come to those who wait.

I can hesitate to shoot a pigeon when it's further out because I don't want to risk losing a bird that would otherwise come in closer and be in the bag. I don't notice the signs as quickly as a more experienced pigeon shooter does to suggest that the bird isn't going to come in and that a long shot is needed. The extra seconds it takes me to realise and decide can often mean the shot is lost. I never hesitate on game birds and I find it much easier to judge distance and the limits of my gun / cartridge when shooting into the sky as opposed to many of the other angles pigeons present themselves at.

Whats worse, the majority of climate change scientists being wrong but we act anyway, or climate change deniers being wrong and we don't? Ignaz Semmelweis was the doctor who first said that washing hands before examining or treating woman in childbirth drastically cut deaths. He couldn't explain why (it was before we knew about germs ect in mid 1800s), but all the evidence in his hospital pointed to it. He therefore enforced it in his own hospital and deaths dropped dramatically, but as he couldn't prove it, no other hospitals followed suit. Lots of women and children died. This isn't the first time some have been on the forefront of scientific thinking (the earths core, the earth being round, the earth traveling around the sun, the list goes on) but it is quite possibly the time where we can make the biggest hash of it through not listening.

Glad you had some luck in the end!

It seems like these days pubs make their money on food and restaurants make their profit on drink. Big move towards gastro pubs rather than boozers.

Most pubs I go to have big outside areas and heaters.I don't go clubbing a lot but if I do it's queuing to get out onto the street to smoke that annoys me. Sorry if I block your path when I get up there, we are being herded like animals.

My other half just got hers approved. Prior to this she had some lessons, her own peg on a game day and a genuine interest in shooting. However, she doesn't have her own gun and I don't think it matters to the police whether you intend on buying one or not when they decide if you are fit to have a licence. Anyway, the police approved it without any problems, we had to do it across two forces. It was the MET that came over to interview her at our rented flat in London and two days later the licence arrived. I'm not planning on dying and needing someone to sell my guns. But jokes aside it will make things much easier now that she can transport mine if necessary. We are always between London and the Midlands and I often shoot at weekends. If she wants to drive up early it's not a problem as she can take the guns and I can get a train on Friday evening. Previously I would have had to transport them in the car myself.

A news provider researched what would happen if NK hit the button against the USA. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/korea-bomba

Any tips for the final day!? How is everyone getting on? Hopefully better than I am!!

That looks like great shooting ground, like the first partridge drive we did on the shoot (perhaps the same field?).

Brilliant day, the pigeons do look funny with the sticks. They look like they are feeling very proud. Well done

Not nice to see when you had two of them (Neon Wolf and Douvan) in a treble with Altior.

I've always been on that slope, love racing and been a member at Sandown Racecourse for years. I gamble responsibly.

I'm not presenting these as tips but so far I've placed (some ante post) A treble on Horse Race Altior Arkle Douvan Champ Chase Neon Wolf Neptune A reverse forecast on Djakadan and Native River, not sure what the odds will be yet Wonderful Charm - win - Foxhuters Chase (on the Friday needs good ground)

Thank you, very impressive and very handsome animals.

I'm not really in a position to buy a dog for the next few months at least, but if you have the time I would really like to see a picture of the parents.

Thanks for the advice guys. Very kind Digger, I will keep that in mind. We are a few months away from buying at this point.

This is something a private company should do and owners could choose to install or not to install. The company would make it as safe as possible to avoid being sued for killing someone and the users are all willing. Otherwise it's a bit big brother if the state have the power to immobilise cars en mass like that. IMHO.

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate that investing with friends, mixing business with pleasure, even lending friends money, is often a disaster. There are good reasons behind the decision, each person brings something to the table the others need. Importantly in Surrey property is not cheap and non us of can afford to buy one as a development on our own. If the market crashes, we have a 4 bed house to live in or rent out. During the last recession the market in this particular town was more insulated than the extremely hot London market, with only a 14minute direct train to Waterloo, greenery and good schools in the area. I just want to have a good contract in place so that everyone knows where we stand and where we are going to stop arguments that could potentially arise down the line.

Planning on buying and developing a house with two friends. I work in property and have a law degree so am familiar with the larger legal framework but I would be interested to hear from others real life experience developing (particularly with friends) and any particular areas of conflict that arose. I am particularly interested in any additional contract terms we could draw up to protect ourselves and our friendship. Terms which lock things in place and will stop someone trying to get their money out early or forcing a sale in a poor market for example. Thanks, OJW

Nice day!

Haha, as long as they tasted as good as the girls in there looked they were worth every penny! I don't think we would have been quick enough to have shot some of the birds we did without the skinny cappuccinos we stopped for to wake us up ... Us southern folk are a hardy bunch! Glad you and everyone else enjoyed the read. They really were like that, performance birds! What I find amazing is that the same ones would have decoyed just like any other bird (or Moris Minor), but the difference in making them into Ferraris was purely Jdog's knowledge of them and the local area.

Cheers. Jdog was down for work during the week so had to leave jasper at home unfortunately. Had we had him, we would have had a bag closer to 60.

Jdog kindly invited me down to the Cotswolds for a days pigeon shooting yesterday. I set off from Surrey at about 7:30am and had an easy drive up the M25 / M40 to get across in 1hr 20mins which I was happy with and only arrived 3minutes late. Jdog - please add details of any technical bit I have failed to explain properly. Or indeed anything else. Decoying We split up and watched for pigeon movement before setting up one main hide on the top corner of a block of woodland. The wind along the top edge of the wood was good, around 10-15mph at this point and Jdog used two magnets carefully placed to guide the pigeons into our decoys as they struggled to get in. Jdog encouraged me to shoot them out as far as I could rather than hoping they would make it in to the decoys struggling in the wind. The set up worked well and we had a few good flocks come over us, shooting about 20 in a couple of hours. The picture is the view from one side of the hide, in front was a hedgerow and the main set up was in the other field to the right of the picture (out of shot). We decided to move on to a second rape field, it took a big slog across a couple of fields with all the kit but it was worth it. The wind began to really pick up and the birds decoyed well. It was great watching them commit and pull of their flight line along a hedge from a long way out. We got another 15 or so here and then decided to go to a flighting wood. I don't have a picture of the second location unfortunately. The wind was even stronger by this point. (one of the magnets - doesn't really show lay out very well) (hide view) Flighting We went to a small wood with tall trees and by this point the wind was really fantastic. Jdog had some great snap shots with birds swirling in out of nowhere only giving us a seconds notice to react. We put a couple of crude nets between some trees and this was about all the cover we needed. It started raining hard and we witnessed a couple of brilliant rainbows (Jdog pictured walking back to the car under one). The good thing about the showers was that it kept the birds moving, in that almost as soon as one shower stopped, we could expect a small flock to take advantage of the pause in rain moving on into our wood for their next pitstop. We only counted what we could pick in this wood and left with about 7. (view from the wood) Roost Shooting I thought that the trees in the last wood were high, but these ones took the biscuit. The wood was on a steep slope and all of the trees were at least 60ft high, lower on the slope shooting at anything above them there was some serious distance involved. Jdog put me in the best spot in the centre of the wood and he went off to the bottom to keep them moving. I can only describe this as the Ferrari of pigeon shooting. Within minutes birds started screaming over above or circling into the tree tops. It was like being on a driven shoot with the most amazing birds being pushed across the tops of the trees on a woodland drive. Instinct took over and within the first 10 minutes I accounted for the 3 best pigeons I have ever shot (for 7 shots!). They kept coming and I finished with another two or three. Jdog came over to stand near me (dropping 3 or 4 dead bird from his last position by his side) and I watched him shoot some more great birds. We stood in the wood for about an hour and finished the day on a bag of just over 50. The wind and conditions were good to us all day and I was lucky to be able to shoot all three of these disciplines in one day. It got dark so I couldn't take any pictures of this wood. I forgot at the start. After the shooting was over we went to a stunning and very classy local gastro pub, literally full to the rafters of beautiful women, where Jdog was greeted by on a first name basis by the barman. Must be a local haunt . After a good chat and fully appreciating the local talent we departed. A fantastic day. Thank you J.

That was a spectacle. Wow.