Nomispw

I have been watching a field on a local farm here in Essex and the pigeon numbers have started to build up now the Lucerne has got to about 3 inches high. I do not have exclusive rights and I was glassing the field on Tuesday having determined to shoot it on Wednesday when a guy turns up in his pick up obviously doing the same thing.. After a difficult start to the conversation it turns out that although we have never met we do have various mutual shooting aquaintances and that we both planned to shoot the same field on Wednesday. The field is big enough to shoot in two places but the flight line to the best place would get cut off and the second best place would have the wind and sun in your face. So after chatting for a bit we both agreed to shoot in the best place in hides 60 yards apart with one big decoy pattern in front. I have to say the plan worked a treat and we ended up shooting a hundred pigeons between us shooting from 14:30 and 19:30. Tim ,the other guy ,was very generous and it turned out I was in the best spot. For give this somewhat long post but I just wanted to say this was a refreshing change for me as I have been on the end of some fairly underhand tactics by other pigeon shooters and it just shows what can be achieved by a bit of mutual cooperation. Tim's very eager spaniel also proved invaluable in picking up at the end of the day. Thanks Tim.

Will Garfit, John Batley , Archie Coates , Peter Theobold , John Humphreys are some of the best and well known . A less well known but good little practical book is " A definitive guide to Woodpigeon shooting " by Eric Prior.

I sometimes put birds in cradles and then the cradles into bambo canes which will raise them up two foot or more. I tend to use it more for pea crops but I have used it for rape as well. I wil also put a flapper on a two foot cane to try and imitate a bird landing on the tall crop. Having said the above the pigeon magnet is probably the most important but in heavily shot areas it may not work that's why I have tried the other techniques above.

When I started many years ago it was with a single shot 410. With a tight coke and 19 grams it is perfectly possible to kill pigeons humanely but they must be fairly close to ensure a clean kill. I had very little money in those days and cartridges were expensive ( 410 still are ) and I wanted to make every shot count and soon learnt success rates for me went down as the range went over 20 yards.

I have already got a small cart that I use but even that is now starting to be a struggle that why I was looking for something powered to assist me. The prestige carp barrow has small wheels at the back how do they cope with soft mud ?

Hi having had to carry my gear over a 1000 yards today and then carrying my gear plus 28 pigeons back I am fairly knackered tonight. As someone who is starting to get on a bit I have been thinking about some type of electric powered trolley to carry my stuff. I know that there are a number of electric fishing trolleys on the market but has anyone used these for transporting pigeon gear ?

I have a Chris Green floater ,robust and works well but expensive ( especially if you get through the post ) but can buy in person at the CLA game fair and other shows Chris goes to.

At those ranges you do not need much choke cylinder and quarter would be ample. Also smaller shot size has enough energy to give good penetration so 7.5 would be good enough and 28 grams of 7.5 would give a denser pattern than 32 grams of 6's. However 7.5's do not in my opinion have enough energy once you get much over 40 yards. You also need to be aware that chokes vary quite a bit and are not necessarily accurate. The only true way to know what your gun is doing with the particular choke cartridge combination is to patten test it.