Manymissedpigeon

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)

Not been on this sub forum before but if it’s any help, I have a Daystate air ranger in .25. This weapon comes as standard with 82ftlbs muzzle energy but mine ( using a cheapo clip on measuring gubbins) is constant around 78/79. I bought it years ago as I shoot rabbits over a few local golf clubs as well as for various farmers and I was having too many audible ricochets using a .22 rim fire ( I use a .17 out on the farmlands nowadays) The .25 Daystate is extremely good at dropping rabbits stone dead at up to fifty/sixty yards and especially so at very short range when lamping from a buggy as opposed to rim fire subsonic unless head shot ( I suspect this is due to the pellet imparting more energy whereas a rim fire at short range can pass straight though a ‘fisty’ rabbit) The one problem I find is when shooting ferals around the factories I shoot ( where the bird droppings can contaminate many hundreds of pounds of machine parts simply by being on the packaging) Here I have to use a subsonic otherwise I would punch a hole through the insulated metal roofs!. The main disadvantage of the Daystate is its enormous length and weight as it’s not easily possible ( or safe) to shoot from one side of a vehicle then pull it in and shoot from the opposite side. The other disadvantage is the poor trajectory of the heavy pellets needing quite a lot of hold over using guess work on, say pigeons, when on out door roofs and wires where one can easily see the pellet drop through the scope if against a cloudy sky

I’m out at least once a week, during the week, and the odd Saturday if there’s no clay competition on that weekend. As I’m knocking on a bit I use a wind proof hide, heated jacket and trousers and have one of those mini, gas aerosol powered heaters in the hide ( obviously my camo over netting gets scorched regularily) Even have a heated car seat cover that I clip onto a car battery and put over my seat when I can drive up to the hide. I think I’ve already mentioned in the past that I NEVER hear another pigeon shooter in the distance although plenty of game shoot barrages especially on the Saturdays. I would also be interested in ‘old uns’ replies reference the number of shooters dedicated to pigeon shooting, be it from a hide or flighting. I think maybe most roost shooting is done by the smaller ‘walk one stand one’ shoots at the end of the game season ie February? I agree with ‘ marsh man’ about the massive acres of o/s/r being planted but at least here in Yorkshire there are again masses of pigeons all of which seem much better fed at this time of year than in previous years. If anyone’s daft enough to travel the miles from the Midlands or further for a days pigeon shooting for ‘ nowt’ then post their interest BUT, although they’ll see plenty pigeons, most are gone after one shot!

For attention ‘old ‘un’ Yorkshire. Then out again yesterday (Tuesday) and hundreds sat around osr field facing the sun but little interest in dropping onto the rape. moved to an acorn wood around lunch time ( said wood had dried up for pigeons two weeks ago) and lo and behold, hundreds broke out, so set up and did 21 returning to the wood in next two hours. First three were stupid and easy to pick with the later birds mostly overshooting into the trees when hit. I opened the crops and found one had only ivy berries, next was a mixture of ivy and rotten acorns ( all black) and the third just rotten acorns even though the rape fields are all around. I’m sure they get high on the acorns as they ferment ‘ cause they are proper stupid compared with birds feeding on osr!

Quick update, on Wed last week (January 11) found loads of pigeons dropping into a field of o/s/r from trees surrounding a retail park so set up and had a few hours banging away for a total of 11 birds due to the gusting wind ( my excuse anyway) so it looks like the birds are returning to the rape leaves.

If this is any use, my missus bought me a used pair of ultra vids from a posh camera shop ten years ago. I have bashed them about ever since while pigeon shooting, thrown them into the between seat box with two way radios and all sorts of crud in there and they are absolutely bullet proof. Well, apart from when I reversed up to my hide and squashed them into the ground! Sent them to Leica at a posh address in London with a letter of praise etc. man rang me and said he’d never seen such a badly treated item, then replaced the broken centre cover panel and one of the extending eye cover bits( I don’t know the proper name) rang me later and said “ I suppose where you live means you don’t want to pay ( Yorkshire)” Anyway, these are Lecia and WE give proper service so no charge!!” I find them perfect for pigeon spotting without even feeling the weight round my neck and would buy exactly the same if these ever went missing. ps, I’m 77 so no idea how to send a pic of them.

Evening everyone and a happy new year. I was out this Tuesday (north yorks) and saw my first pigeons on the osr of which there are many many acres planted this winter. None were shot as it was constant drizzle but I had just left a large spinney with lots of proper mature oaks and have shot between 15 and up to 35 on regular visits since September. This week the flow of pigeons seems to have now dried up although there are plenty of rotting acorns on the ground still. I will admit to firing anything up to a hundred carts to hit around one in four as they come in very high ( and sometimes out of a gloomy sky and hard to see with old eyes. I also note 5hat, although I hear quite a few big game shoots going on in the surrounding area plus one or two gas guns, I NEVER hear another pigeon shooter any more! I recently met up with a land owner who had purchased quite a few acres of arable from someone I know and his actual words were “ do you know you’re a dying breed, I haven’t talked to a pigeon ( and crow) shooter for a long time” He took my number AND checked it rang my phone and said he would certainly be ringing me at the end of January. Hmm, maybe I should have mentioned the cost of cartridges?

From a previous read I noticed someone mentioning barley was on the menu for pigeons in his area. We’ve been on a couple of pea fields about four miles apart, on and off for the last month taking around 50 to 75 birds each visit. Yesterday I noticed quite a few pigeons overflying the pea field to an adjacent farm’s barley fields but couldn’t actually see them landing. Two of us set up around 11.00 am ( pensioners so no way we’re up early) but things were quiet till mid afternoon when the pigeons decided to ‘have some greens’ so I finished on 75 with the seventy fifth bird taking an embarrassing three shots to down! I had dropped some highish going away birds that were out in the fairly tall peas and when collecting found the crops near full of pretty green barley fruit so they had been on corn with no sign of pea leaves in there. The other decoyed birds had either empty crops or a small amount of chopped pea leaves in. No ‘squabbles’ were in the dead birds but quite a few young birds with no neck bands but also no ‘unformed’ feathers around the neck. Although it’s not good for the farmer, I can’t wait for a bit of wind and rain giving me just one accessible’ laid’ patch

On holiday in Spain and the texts piled in as soon as I switched ‘airplane mode’ off upon landing here. “Loadsa pigeons on my emerging peas, how soon can you get here?” As luck would have it, a pal of mine had finished up with my gate key for the farm in question so I sent him a text, he was there the following day and picked 73 pigeon! then ran out of carts as he ‘ didn’t really expect so many shots’ I guarantee when I get back on the field, after six months of keeping the birds off the osr etc, it will be deserted of pigeons😩

I’m not sure that my view of pigeon shooting ( wood pigeon that is) is shared by the majority but the reason I can obtain permission to shoot pigeons up here in t’north is usually down to the amount of dead birds I throw onto the manure heaps at the end of the day which are then seen by, then loaded into the muck spreader the following days by the farmer and ‘ put back onto my field what the ******* have stolen’ as fertiliser. Yes I have taken an odd dozen here and there to various friends when asked but have never sold them to a game dealer and no way will I deliver them to a posh resteraunt ready breasted out etc for a couple of quid. I control pests and the fact that I do not dislike doing this should not detract from the benefit to my enjoyment of partially protecting the food chain and I will not justify doing what I do by saying I eat the horrible things. Damm, my spoons stuck while stirring

Just noted a previous comment about the lack of acorns around. I’ve noticed this while out both clay shooting and on the pigeon with lots of oak trees having no acorns whatsoever. A large beech in my driveway which usually drops beech mast onto a side road which is then ‘prepared to eat’ by passing cars is also devoid of any ‘fruit’. ive had calls over the last couple of weeks from farmers (and farm manager) stating that “ pigeon are piling into the Osr planted around the farm buildings and when are you coming’ so there tomorrow as I’ve had a few weeks off due to eye op. Also a couple of the farmers who’s land I shoot on have taken to putting sheep onto the rape fields as the only other option is a retardant (due to the actual appearance of yellow flowers near two weeks ago) plus although they have had to buy miles of electric fencing and pay for transporting the animals, the cost is part offset by receiving pavement from the farmers who own the animals. Now it’s a lot of years since I’ve seen grazed Osr and that was miles away where fences and bramble hedges were used mostly to keep the animals in. At the time I never thought to ask what the meat tasted like but I suppose the livery taste will have long gone before lambing. Also there is a constant supply of feral pigeons around the cattle sheds so I’ll be protecting the grain and cattle feed stocks around the farm while nodding off waiting for woodies! Crops I opened two weeks plus ago only contained red berries with a tiny amount of, I think, Osr leaf but I have been told that some areas of Osr have been eaten off along tree lines, but mostly the plants up here in the North are over knee high and very few badly drilled or flooded out areas for the birds to easily access.

Around here, Yorkshire, we very rarely have any townies causing bother even though the fields and footpaths are getting ten times as much use by said new in the area folk ( offcumdens) A couple of days ago a very nice chap called over to me from the edge of a wood that contains a footpath “ hello there, have you any picking up required from the wood? “ As he had a mongrel looking terrier with him I declined his assistance but left my gun unloaded in the hide and walked over to chat with him. I then realised he had left two black labs sat twenty’ish yards behind him. “Go on then” I said, “there’s certainly a couple in there plus a pricked pigeon that had disappeared into the wood” After his dogs had brought back two of the dead birds he entertained me with stories of himself ( over seventy five years old) and his obviously very well off father’s shooting days of yore. He was well upset by the fact that he could never use his dad’s Purdeys again as they weren’t fit for steel shot. It seems his last foray into actual game shooting was a good twenty years ago and had been on duck and he thought everyone was now using steel shot even though he still offered his services as a picker up on some big local estate shoots. Now the moral of this story is, I cannot believe the number of pigeons that came to decoy while I was out in the field, but you can guess how many came in after I was back in my hide!

Afternoon all, couple of us were out yesterday on drilled barley ( drilled last Friday from when I took many crows but few woodies while on me Todd) I picked just over fifty pigeons with a dozen being ferals and seventeen crows. Even better was a conversation with the farm owner who was proceeding to drillbeans on the field behind later in the day so I’m going to be back this Saturday ( should be going Friday but bad weather predicted) I find beans are good to shoot over for the second to fifth day as the big wide modern drills hide the seeds on the straights but tend to drop a bit of seed etc when lifting and dropping the drill when turning near borders. I also find beans specifically are a good crow ( but not pigeon) puller a couple of weeks later as the plant is about an inch to two high and ..Mr crow knows he can pull the bean out if the soil is slightly damp. After two inches of growth I suspect there isn’t anything left of the chitting bean underground and clever crow knows this!. The only downer to the day was the info that this farmer is not planting peas this year and that’s the first time we won’t have a ‘fill in crop’ to protect once the o/s/r ‘gets away’ from the pigeons up to the point we have problems with laid barley and oats. ps yesterday the farmer had ‘rounded off’ the turning areas by making two passes with the drill around the perimeter of the field and, although not a single grain of treated barley was visible on the surface, pigeons were visiting the field for a look see, high flying over head then rocketing back across wind and straight in to a couple of flappers and two dozen shell decoys. Also there is still a good bit of activity on other farms on the O/S/R especially as the only flocks seem to be juvenile birds with wiser pigeons now pairing up.

Hope everyone looking forwards to warmer weather for decoying. One of my farmers texted me Monday with crows on fresh drilled beans, there on Tuesday and set up with just two dozen pigeon shells and a pecker to one side and a dozen full bodied crows with two pecking crow. I never use the spinner on drilling’s even though I find it magic on part grown Osr. The field was well littered with spilled beans on the surface and I managed 49 mixed crows and pigeon but, even though I had a cracking day, I hung around to try get that half century! Why I don’t know ‘cause it’s only a number. My pal at the top of the field picked 18, all pigeon, but he only started off with half a dozen shell decoys. Once I got two dead birds on the flappers the birds dove straight in but again I collected nearly ninety empty cases so missing more than hit!! Off again tomorrow on the assumption more birds will have found the field. We’ve previously had a few twenty to thirty bird days on the same farm on Osr so it seems there are more pigeons about than usual after the flocks have nearly fully broken up but most of the pigeon were quite small although fully feathered up in full colour. One thing I have noticed is the total lack of gunshots in the distance when I’ve been out, the only noise coming from the many gas guns booming away.

Was out yesterday. Always ring the police force via 111 night before and get through to area required, usually North Yorkshire. Then give a description of fields to be shot over plus land owner/agents telephone number. Sometimes difficult to get through but there is a facility to get a ‘ring back’ and I have always received a call within the hour so full marks so far. Usual questions are “ what type of weapon and do you have a dog with you?” Plus your telephone number. This is actually quite useful as I have had problems with the odd ‘anti’ and have been rung up when on a field and asked politely if A, was it me shooting and B any chance you can move further up/ down the field as some ‘townie’ ( and that is usually the firearms officers description in theses areas) is moaning about noise/shot fall ( usually described as bullets landing nearby) Five minuts friendly chat with the firearms and I move 20 yards. Sometimes works and sometimes not but the rozzers do the best they can so no use gun owners being owt but pleasant with them. Boring I know but the field of osr I was asked to shoot already had a gas gun on it with a few pigeons but the main group were sat in the tree tops two fields away dropping down on some stubbles. Great as I could drive the field and unload my full load of gear including mini gas heater etc. Found quite a lot of single plants of volunteer rape which were absolutely eaten to the leaf skeleton. Set up and lo and behold, a following pair then only a single careless bird for two hours. Now although the birds wer’nt actually doing damage on the stubbles, I also kept them off the actual osr field whereas the single gas gun was not doing any good so I consider my half day to genuinely be ‘crop protection’ Went up to some fields in North Yorkshire and found not a pigeon on two really poorly established fields ( where I expected them to be gathering) yet a well eaten corner in a field where the plants were all near knee high! Bloody pigeon!!