Manymissedpigeon

The cost of a motor alone is a big item these days! In the past a old discovery with a four cylinder engine and second hand off road tyres and a mate with a welder was all that was required whereas ive just found a lower door trim I knocked of my current four wheel drive while travelling down a, not that rough, grass margin a week ago which would have cost over a hundred quid! Very few dealers round here will take pigeon unless ‘steel shot’ and I can’t use steel in a fifty year old trap gun ( full and three quarters) and ok I know, I could pick up a cheapo pigeon gun! Strangely enough there does not seem to be the same reduction in numbers of clay shooters, with any shooting ground which closes usually due to local noise problems and not lack of shooters so I’m at a loss to understand why no one seems to be new to pigeon shooting apart from the dozen or so lads I’ve taken along every year who then go on to game shooting at anything from £350 to a grand a day ( obviously not ‘on the moors’ at those prices)

Laid up at the moment after an eye op. So not getting out on pigeon at the moment but had quite a decent last few weeks mainly on beans. This includes harvested beans and , as a new development for one of my farmers, drilling winter beans. Although the newly cut bean shooting only lasted around two days on each of three fields ( only one out of three of my usual bean planting farmers managed to get any in this spring) as the farmer was desperate to get his next crop in before it was too late for the soil to be warm enough to germinate the seed, he did a full plough and till of the fields which for some reason left a fair few beans and pod laden stalks on the surface. This resulted in repeated decent shooting days over the same fields ( there are some massive partridge shoots in the area and each barrage in the distance sends a few pigeon over between twenty seconds of and maybe a minuit later) Sadly yet another farmer informed me he would’nt be growing any o/s/r this year so that’s four out of seven farms who used to grow it giving it a miss ( usual reasons being flea beetle, wet weather and even pigeon!, although I hope the last reason was a joke!) said farmer announced he was trying winter beans for the first time, this was after not putting in any spring beans this year. The first field went in a couple of weeks ago by direct drilling over cross disc’ed stubbles and immediately attracted the pigeon, again the problem being the amount of nearby barley and wheat drilling going on giving the birds some where else to land and nibble without being disturbed. I’ve noted before that, although there are cannonades ringing out in the distance from numerous ‘proffesional’ four days a week game shoots when in game season, I never hear the sounds of the past, pop pop in the distance of a fellow pigeon/crow shooter ( or even three shots from those who don’t mind scrabbling around in nettle patches to collect their empties!) Now I reckon that last bit might raise a few comments if anyone bothers to read this far😂

Sorry everyone! I won’t be trying to put a video on here again😩 And yes, I know, t’were wheat not barley

Out on Friday last to try out prototype pigeon magnet. It’s actually designed to take a dead bird flapper on the end so I waited and waited over laid barely to shoot my first bird, nothing, not a pigeon in the sky. If I’d have had my specs with me I could have passed the time reading of all the good days that were being had elsewhere! Eventually packed up and drove two miles and guess what? Combine hard at work with birds nearly landing on its hopper! But had to be home so went home, did my duties then went to bed dreaming of ( tomorrow actually) when I’m out on the new cut stubbles and hoping……….. hoping IMG_2187.mov

Excellent days shooting b.b. I’ve been out today with not a sign of pigeon on the osr but a few on some smelly spuds on a recently lifted ‘tatter field’ I shot exactly 127 LESS than you did. Two! But it was so sunny I kept nodding off so might have missed seeing the odd one. Well done again👍🏻

One of my shooting pals lives in a ‘Park Home’ ie a caravan. He has no problem with a cabinet bolted horizontally to the floor ( it’s actually half length so he has to remove the barrels etc to fit his two guns in. As regards the loft fitting cabinet, Christ, anyone could rock up in a look alike roofers van with a pair of ladders, handful of tiles off and you’re in and I doubt many folk will have an alarm sensor up in the loft!

For Steve 505 info I’ve been shooting pigeon for forty years and have many acres on many different farms to shoot over. It used to cost me a bottle of whiskey a year to each farm. That dropped to a bottle of port a year and now I’ve retired its nowt! I have a couple of regular pals who I shoot with and not one of them has ever bothered to search for land of the’re own because they “ don’t feel up for asking” or “ don’t know how you just walk up to a tractor driver in a field and ask” etc etc Yes you need a bit gumption to go knock on a farmers door after being directed there by another farmer or, more usually a contractor you’ve stopped in a field ( and please at the end of the spraying/drilling line when he’s turning, not half way down the field) and you have to recognise the farmers need for YOU. If he’s drilling Oil seed Rape etc then he’s likely to have pigeon problems sooner or later. If he’s grazing sheep or intensive cattle fattening then he’s oops sorry, he or she is only going to have crow trouble. Another way is to find a quiet spot and just listen for crow bangers or gas guns in the distance. If they are on a rape field then from time to time the farmer is going to check the gas canisters etc.THATS when he’s likely to be interested in your presence ( even if he already has maybe someone shooting pigeons they may have moved to better pastures) What you must do is keep in touch once you have permission and don’t loose interest if the pigeons are absent. Keep popping in to see the farmer as he will most likely be happy you shooting at harvest time. Maybe some folk drop lucky and find a farmer who’s got some laid barley ( happened to me only once and that was word of mouth from the adjacent farm I shoot rape over) but generally you have to put a winter of sitting in a bloody cold hide staring at a barren of pigeon sky over o/s/r at least once a week to get to the situation where you can rock up at said farm without any phone contact with the farmer ( but keep texting them from time to time with amount of birds you’ve shot/ kept off his crop) At the moment I am managing maybe a dozen pigeon a trip over o/s/r but waiting for beans to go in at three local farms ( again one of which I obtained permission on via a farm worker from another farm telling his new boss about ‘ this bloke who turns up every week whatever the weather and shoots pigeons/crows’ in our neck of the woods there is a pigeon protection club you can join for a very modest fee per annum. Maybe you have one similar in Kent? But pigeon shooting very rarely comes to you. You have to actively look for it as any established crop protection agent who contributes to this forum will tell you

Afternoon ‘kitchrat’ My neck of the woods is not that far from Harewood house where red kites were released a few years ago, indeed, whenever you go to an outdoor function there, then you can count them by the dozen as the car parks empty and they start scavenging plus we are inundated with buzzards as well. On an occasion last year I had to leave a field with quite a few dead birds still out due to an emergency and when I returned a couple of days later there were a good dozen buzzards circling around with the remains of the pigeon showing as piles of feathers here and there. My point is, maybe you lost a few birds in the woods whilst roost shooting on an earlier occasion and the kites were either still feeding on the carcasses or had maybe tied in someone shooting with free food later?

Evening all, just a pennerth from up north. I find a magnet with foam wings on full body decoys and remote speed control nearly useless on osr ( apart from an extra bird scarer to save farmer’s gas guns) Now a magnet works wonderfully for me on laid barley/wheat in early summer and pretty good on peas once they’ve started vineing but again, no use on drillings. Dead birds on timed flappers ( preferably high speed ones) or medium speed on the flapper when the timer goes ‘pop’ even though I carry spares! For drillings I find a couple of peckers and a couple dozen shells work best with the odd occasion where a flapper ‘can sometimes’ pull birds that are intent on visiting another field. You’re really lucky ‘kitchrat’ with beans going in as my three farms that drill beans aren’t due to start till at the best, the end of this month, weather permitting as the ground here in Yorkshire is still drying out and simply clogs up the modern drill. Birds are visiting some rape fields but still have crops half full of ivy berries with very small amounts of rape leaves in them plus hardly any signs of the massive winter flocks of birds we used to see. One other thing of note is the absence of crows on intensive cattle feeders around beef farms that I shoot on! Although the farmers ( some anyway) think it’s down to me and a pal shooting them from time to time, it’s not frightened them off in previous years! Anyway, if we see every pigeon that comes near enough, if we shoot at every pigeon we see AND, if we hit every pigeon we shoot at, then some of us would nearly always have a good day! But pouring coffee, answering the phone and chatting on the radio to a mate in the next field saves the lives of hundreds of pigeons a year. And that’s only ME.

Just a idea, but, when asked by any countryside police officer when pigeon shooting in the field ,if you have ‘read the general licence’ then I think the obvious answer is “ yes I have officer” . ( even if you haven’t which seems to be the attitude of most of my pigeon decoying mates) as I doubt said officer has read the GL 42 anyway. Also if it’s the firearms department who have either been called or, as in my case more than once, just heard the call about someone in a field so thought they’d just ‘pop over for a look’, then they haven’t the faintest idea ( well up North they haven’t anyway) about the GL 42. But if you state, when asked, that you haven’t read the licence throughout then that’s the simple answer that the attending officer needs to investigate further. I also would like to hear of any pigeon shooter who is going about his ‘job’ with permission from the farmer/ landowner, having been taken to court, let alone found guilty of any offence. Incidentally, all, I mean all police officers who have been called to my location over the last thirty years ( including armed response) have all chatted in an amicable manner and at the worst have asked me to “ do us a favour and move another hundred yards down the field,” then there’s no chance of the wind taking your, say vertical shots over a footpath ( which is usually at least two hundred yards away anyway) so I find North and East Yorkshire police biased TOWARDS the shooter with little time for the moaning ‘offcumbdens’ who’ve made the complaint.

I have noted one or two very thin birds in my area but I see this every year anyway. Hardly any of the oaks between York and Bedale have a single acorn on them that I have seen ( contrary to reports on here from other areas of the country) . A large beech tree in my drive which normally drops beech mast onto the road to be run over by passing cars has not had a pigeon near it as, again, no beechmast! I’ve just been out today to check on a few farms that have game shoots to ask about last shoot day of the month and suddenly here are the pigeons in their hundreds so next week I and a friend will be out on two farms which finish their small syndicate shooting this weekend. I will be looking around for signs of sad looking birds but the odd ones I’ve shot recently have only ivy berries in the crops. Still not many pigeons in the York area, at least not over the last, be it still wet, weekend.

Hi all, Up north we seem to have better days on bean stubbles than most. I have three farms who drill beans over a three week period and consequently combine over a similar spread. One farm pulls pigeons when drilled but nowt much when combined with the other two pulling birds after cutting until disced and re drilled. The main fields I shoot yielded a plus hundred day for me on a Tuesday and a sixty on the Friday. The following week again I picked thirty and, after a discussion with the wife over how much my carts were costing, did quite a few on the Friday again. This last field has only just been disced in on Monday this week ( drilled a bit damp I reckon) with visible ‘treated wheat’ seed on the surface and not a pigeon in sight although a few rooks floating about. We have a few farms that fatten beef and, once these are on intensive indoor feeding for the winter, we have hundreds of crows in and out of the feeding troughs and storage farms eating and fouling the cattle feed and the farmers don’t seem to be bothered if we simply sit in the motor amongst the buildings with a few deeks out on the feed bales and knock the birds down. Much better than my little gas heater in my hide! I found one farm yesterday hauling in ‘whole cut maize’ and that is the first of the maize to be cut round here so due to the impending heavy rain due this week, I’m hoping for a few good days on the maize stubbles as they usually pull both pigeons and crows. My only disappointment this year was the peas with only one farmer putting in around twenty five acres, no pigeons when they chitted through, no pigeons at any time in their growingmonths and a totally empty sky over the field after they were harvested. I’ve never had peas that didn’t pull pigeons right through their growing cycle!

Maybe it’s the very light colour of the fallow that had the birds scared? I’ve recently had a small herd of roe trundling across an o/s/r field which didn’t seem to bother the, very few, pigeons that were on it. Incidentally the herd numbered 15 which is a heck of a lot more than I normally see when pigeon shooting. Did you notice if the fallow were grazing the rape as, a couple of years ago, I found a full stomach of rape leaves in one roe deer.

Been out twice this week up here in Yorkshire.plenty birds about but only showing intermittent interest in the o/s/r Didn’t even bother setting up yesterday ( Saturday) as the only decent numbers were in the wooded areas around some decimated maize game crops, and I know the local shoot beaters, and one or two game shooters, roost shoot these woods every Saturday evening from early February through till mid March so I keep away. One point of interest maybe, on the newest gas guns , usually mounted on tripod legs and using wi fi remote control, DONT disconnect the battery, only turn off the gas. Had one farmer had a moan at me and seems that it totally ******* up the memory and can’t be reset from his phone and he was away on his holidays!! Anyway, the beans are ‘supposedly’ going in early this year so maybe in the next couple of weeks for the pigeon attraction then a couple of weeks following that for the crows.

If anyone wants a ‘well out of date’ dive bottle that, at the last check, had around 220 bar in it they are more than welcome to mine for free ( I’ve been looking to get rid of it for five years) No one will, obviously, fill it nowadays and I have an in date second hand one ( bought ready filled from Aaron Wheeler gun shop in Brighouse in West Yorks) Sorry but no gauge or fill pipe included and not sure of capacity ( it’s about two feet tall with neck fitting)