OJW

Well done, good write up. Good you dropped some tall ones, I am trying to engage them further out rather than waiting till they are well in my comfort zone.

To watch from a distance on a lead. Not work. Not quite as much of an obvious question as "Should I take him on a shoot" with an inference to working him.

Enjoyed that, great scenery and high quality. What semi auto do you have, the camo looked good.

Thanks for all the advice guys

Yeah this is true, thanks for the candid advice. He is good at home and when out in less exciting environments but he probably would find it a bit much. I would go there dog handling rather than shooting myself if I had taken him but even then there is a risk he could slip the lead or something.

Haha only just seen this and it made me laugh, you are too kind. Great result. My nest is full of poorly erected IKEA furniture and an angry woman at the moment! I still have the two fossils we found in that field in the spring. Still the best days pigeon shooting I have had. Glad to see you are using your new photo-bucket app!

Thanks for the replies. The dog is not fully trained and I have no doubt if he was off the lead he would run riot. He is going to be on the lead though so the trust issue isn't the problem. I want him to watch the other dogs and get used to the bangs, maybe it will help him when I start upping his training. At the moment he will sit / stay and retrieve a ball to hand. Will exposing him too early to a shoot be counter productive? Or will it be good for him to see it all and watch the other dogs? I am not contemplating taking him off the lead or beating with him at any point. He would just be watching on a lead. Thanks

Hi, I know you shouldn't try to work a young dog (9months) but can I take my cocker on shoots to stay on the lead and watch from a distance? Or would that do more harm than good? I've heard of other people bringing a pup up alongside another working dog and they learn quicker from watching. Thanks OJW

I love it that they put all the episodes up at once. I much prefer binge watching.

Good film. I watched it for the first time with a serving soldier, he got so wound up by her flapping throughout and arguing with the army guys trying to do their job.

It is very good!!

My Rottie passed away about 8 months ago. They only get fat if you over feed them and don't give them. He was very loyal and very inquisitive. He slowed down a lot when he got older. Only problem was that he wanted to eat other dogs. Great with all humans.

Very sad news, sorry for your loss. I only met him briefly but he was a real little character.

Fighter pilot

Wrote a bit about day 2 in post #19. Thankfully there are no pictures of us smuggling budgies.

I was impressed by all those involved, especially the deer stalker and by impressed by Jodie Marsh's open-mindedness. Classic that there were no pigeons about to shoot!

The below example shows the work and investment it takes to make a good shoot great, to keep it current and to keep it profitable. I hope more start to follow suit across the UK and less are forced out of business. Jdog took me to see a shoot that me and the PW team will be shooting in January. We drove up to a vantage point overlooking the estate and J pointed out some of the drives that myself and the PW team will be shooting. They looked excellent and the estate is beautiful. What was very interesting was that the keeper who took on the shoot relatively recently was given can't blanche to rearrange cover crops and drives. This meant that he was able to re-design the shoot with drives capable of functioning effectively and to a high standard no matter what the prevailing wind. The increased work load on top of all the normal end of season work and preparation must be staggering and it is brilliant that there are keepers willing to take on such a challenge. Not to mention going against the status quo and taking a risk changing an established shoot. In contrast some keepers seem to find it hard to be adaptable in merely moving a gun line let alone a cover crop and will treat pegs as set in stone, running the drive in the same way every time. Once or twice I have been placed in a line, the vast majority of which, even I can tell will see no action on the day in question, with birds spilling out the drive at all the wrong points and at best, the ones the guns do see not being quality birds as they struggle on a bad wind. It's always good to see a keeper who is not scared to be flexible in adapting the line on the day, and impressive to meet one who will take such steps to work with nature to ensure all his guns a good day to this extent. This made me think how sadly more shoots seem to be going bust, online more old syndicates seem to advertise they have places available. The increased competition and wide variety of shooting that is now readily available through sites such as Guns on Pegs may mean that shoots need to re-invest in themselves and syndicates need to re think their old drives to attract and keep members. If clients or syndicate members aren't happy, they don't have to make much of an effort to find alternatives. It was excellent to see a keeper taking a long view and taking the trouble to perfect his patch. I take my hat off to all those putting in the hard work that goes into producing a consistently good shoot and natural environment for the wildlife within.

Day 2 We set off bright and early and drove to the estate office to pick up a key to the aforementioned marked field I had seen on the OS map. We bumped into the keeper who Jdog had a long chat with. While they were chatting, a partridge flew right over the top of them and into a telephone wire, falling to earth stone dead. Into the back of the car it went. We began driving the 20 or so miles to the field Jdog had marked on the map, after about 5 miles, a car coming towards us hit a partridge which flew out in front and drove off. We stopped and humanely dispatched the partridge. Into the back it went, meaning we had a brace of fresh partridge before even pulling the trigger on a pigeon. We arrived at the fields and they were vast. I will leave Jdog to describe them as I would not be able to give their level of potential justice. As we arrived we met a policeman and, due to our proximity to a town, he advised us to call 101 and let them know we were shooting. A first for both of us (the discussion of the requirement of doing this has been a controversial issue on these boards in the past I believe). We watched the fields for a couple of hours and there really wasn't much in the air. There was a point in the far corner of the furthest field with two small ponds about 30m apart and surrounded by foliage with a very very weak flight line crossing nearby. The heat was so much that we had little choice but to set up in these areas out of the sun. Unconvinced, Jdog sent me into the bushes to see if there was potential and drove back across the field to watch from afar with his binoculars. Somehow, I gave the illusion that there was potential in the area by dropping three or so in about 15minutes. This brought Jdog back armed with some dead birds and bouncers. We placed one bouncer out to the right nearest the line, and two out between the two ponds. It started well with J dropping a high pigeon from a flock that as always, I would have otherwise considered out of range. We both had some varied shooting and managed to stay cool enough in the scorching heat. We only got a small bag, but it was good fun being out and "shooting light" only using a few decoys and some bouncers with natural cover providing our hides.

The only two promises Jdog made me when he invited me up was that today we would probably spend the afternoon just driving around the countryside and that tomorrow the weather would probably be far too good for us to go pigeon shooting and that we should go to the beach instead. Driving gloves on and swimming trunks packed I arrived and was greeted by a goatee sporting Jdog. We jumped into his vehicle and at first the promise of only driving around the countryside rang true. Jdog meant exactly what he said and we drove off road around his permissions looking for pigeons for a good few hours. The views of the Wolds were stunning and as always Jdog was very informative. Having found no viable decoying areas, Jdog the pigeon whisperer suggested we stand with our backs to a hedge looking out over a field with absolutely nothing in it, that for some reason the pigeons found very alluring. We had to stand with our backs to the hedge and shoot them when they shot over us heading into a this empty field into the wind. My shot / kill ratio has been between 2.5 - 3 recently, however today I floundered as it slipped out to around 6/1. I took the first bird to come over and was shocked at how fast they were and at how little time you had to react. Some of these birds were seriously high and even the low ones became very challenging as they got so far away from you so quickly as they burst over the hedge. Jdog shot consistently well bagging two birds that I will always remember having each been up at about 60 meters, the furthest out he has ever shot one. I wasn't even lifting my guns to birds that were even closer than that which I regret now I've seen them killed effectively at those longer distances. We finished with a bag of 22, 5 of which I accounted for with 28 shots! The rest all Jdogs. We only shot for about 1:20mins. Below is Jdog with one of his 60m pigeons. I have seen an OS map with shaded out fields marked on it, Jdog has acquired keys to a field that is clearly marked. I hope that the promise of a trip to the beach may well also be broken.

Well done Ollie!

Thanks for sharing, enjoyed that.

It wouldn't surprise me if, for what ever reason, there were a gun or two who couldn't take their own brace home and may well offer it to you if you were enquiring about taking an extra pair.

Good. Hopefully we will have a chance to catch up before then. The shoot will be great! I can't remember the name of the hotel I booked, I just did the one you told me to. I will have to ask you to remind me nearer the time!

Lloydie, Sorry to hear about this, it sounds like you did exactly the right thing. I hope it doesn't put you off going out on your precious permissions.

Beautiful dog, well shot.