Jim Neal

Thanks Gents. I think I came home with a proper cocktail mix of emotions yesterday! Overall I was feeling a little frustrated at my shooting, which obviously shows in my report. However, the more I reflect on that outing, plus the handful of others I've enjoyed this winter, the more I realise how insignificant the size of bag or cartridge economy were, and just how lucky I am to simply be able to go out and shoot on a fairly frequent basis. Nobody I know mentioned the weather/light phenomenon yesterday, and I think I was possibly occupying the best seat in the house to enjoy it! The way the strange coloured light mixed with the cloud, sky, trees and then the rainbow shining through it was just breathtaking. I'd love to shoot that wood more often for pigeons but have to ration out the trips due to the proximity to the village. This afternoon I bumped into a mate who lives on the farm just across from the wood. He was trying to weld something up on on his truck yesterday afternoon and had to give up because my shots kept making him jump 😆 Another mate I saw this evening walking his dog just asked me how many I shot - he heard the bangs and knew it was me without asking! This winter's shooting has had the added dimension of bringing my son along a few times as well, which is stressful but it's just a rite of passage in the father/son relationship I suppose. "It'll get easier over time" I keep telling myself "and the rewards will come later after the hard work is put in now". Please?! 😲 I know what you mean but the stewardship plots I've seen around here are all standing leftovers of last year's growth - there's no new greenery or anything as far advanced that would be bearing pods like that. I was wondering if they're off a tree of some sort. I've tried to ID the pods with an app but it's telling me they're either a mushroom or a chilli pepper. The latter could be plausible?! Definitely not a cereal, I'd easily recognise those They were very small seeds, the size of rape seeds, some spherical and some a bit more oblate and a tad bigger. The red was similar to the colour of dressed seed but the size/shape made me think it might be something natural. Who knows! I've not seen any drillings locally yet, only a few fields been ploughed and so far not worked any further. I haven't emptied the "crop contents" bucket out yet, maybe I'll have another rifle through it if I'm feeling bored before bed 😅

After a magical roost shooting session a couple of weeks ago, and with the weather forecast predicting a rather blustery day today, I hatched a plan for a follow-up attempt in the same spot this afternoon. However, (and I'm terrible for this) inevitably I felt a bit of pressure: I very much wanted to match or exceed the results I got last time, especially as this was also going to be my last outing of the year. Second Album Syndrome is a common phenomenon with music artists. They burst onto the scene with a ground-breaking, fresh new sound which catapults them to fame; their first album goes platinum and they sell out gigs all over the place. Then, they go back into the studio to come up with more magic for a follow-up album and promptly hit a brick wall. I had my long eared companion with me today, which was nice in many ways but sometimes I think I shoot better on my own due to the lack of distractions managing a dog. Willow is a few weeks short of 11 and is the oldest puppy I know! After putting 50+ birds out of the trees at 15:45 on our way to the blind in front of the conifers, in readiness for their return we dashed behind the cover whilst the pigeons swooped downwind beyond the wood. I say "we", but one of us was running round in circles like a lunatic making the first few returning pigeons jink and flare way out of range. A swift bit of boy-scout work involving a dog lead and a tree branch resulted in the liver and white pinball being contained for the time being, and I managed to get the gun pointing somewhere interesting. It was a brief encounter, but I managed to peel off 3 shots and get myself on the score board with one pigeon to show for it. Then it went very dead. If anyone managed to stay awake long enough during my last report, I'm shooting from a blind i cobbled up just off a line of very tall leylandii trees. The prevailing SW wind is coming over your left shoulder here, so the birds usually come in from the right of you, either staying on that line or flying along the edge of the conifers before resting up in the bare hardwood branches. The more round to the west the wind is, it seems the less guaranteed the birds are to come over the centre part of this tree line - they can slip over the back and you've just got a solid wall of conifer over your shoulder, no sky visible so so once they've got past you they're safe. I told a wee porky in my last report. The beech in front of the hide is more like 10ft than 10yds away. It wasn't an issue the first time I shot here but has become more so, the more times I've used the blind! I'm going to re-build the blind for next year basically wrapped around that beech tree. The lull continued, and fairly soon I knew I wasn't quite in for the bonanza of a fortnight earlier. Nowhere near the number of birds were coming in to the wood, and due to the wind direction they weren't being funnelled right over my position. I tried moving a couple of times but to no avail. The highlight of the afternoon for me was when the sun was dropping low, with clear skies on the horizon but a large block of cloud overhead. The whole world became hued with a vivid and hauntingly beautiful shade of orangey pink. It was mesmerising. The beauty of this sublime gift from mother nature is totally lost during translation via phone camera and then onto a screen, but believe me it was electrifying. And then just to cap it off, rain started falling and a rainbow formed, facing the setting sun and enveloping me and the now peaceful woodland. So how was my "second album?" From a shooting perspective, I was hoping for a Led Zep II but kind of ended up with a Des O'Connor's Greatest Hits. I can't grumble, don't get me wrong, I pulled the trigger plenty of times and hauled in a fairly decent bag by my standards, but it just didn't click, didn't flow. It was a struggle. I bagged a square dozen pigeons. My own selfishness aside, Willow had the time of her life today. She retrieved everything I knew I'd shot - when she eventually decided to go out in the direction my hand was pointing. She also sniffed a couple out which I had no idea were down, after having worked her in roughly a 100yd circle around my shooting position. Since losing my other spaniel in December I've been acutely aware of the fragility of life, and the imminence of mortality. Sounds a bit dark, but really I'm an optimist and how that affects me is by making me make the most of her whilst I've got her, and whilst she's still capable. She might take a turn for the worse next year and could never come roost shooting again, so why not spoil her. She doesn't need asking twice. My shooting was below par today and I even missed a sitter about 20yds away! I need to pattern test the cartridges I'm using, I've lost all confidence in them, but I'm convinced... or have managed to convince myself... that they are not throwing a consistent pattern because I'm having some unexplained misses, barely wounding easy-to-kill birds and then retrieving the odd bird with literally half its head blown to pieces. Something's not quite right. I only had one satisfying "THUNK and folded up dead in the air" kind of shot today. Cartridge economy was exactly 4:1 which is not a disaster but it was 2:1 last time out when I shot 18 here! Feeding habits are definitely changing. Almost every bird was full of clover and there were virtually no ivy berries, which is interesting because there's still plenty of ivy berries available. Maybe it shows they only eat the berries when there's nothing better? Same as rape? Amazingly, a few birds are still managing to find some remaining acorns, one had only a tiny amount of little red seeds I couldn't identify, one full of rape and one had been on a bird table. There was also a lot of these little pale, soft feeling pods in one bird, if anyone's got a clue what they are? I split one open and it didn't have anything inside it. Thanks for putting up with my rambles. Roll on next roost shooting season 👍

Did you spend another cartridge fetching that one down from the tree? 😂 Beautiful spot, great shooting and a nice bag, well done for getting out there and doing a bit 👍 Having my last roost shoot of the winter tomorrow, in the same spot as my last decent bag with the rather long-winded report. Hoping to end my roost shooting season with something worth another post about!

Same as @Centrepinmy lofting poles are an amalgamation of two old fishing poles. I think my poles stop a little short of 14m, maybe 12, but add my height and arms like an orangutan and I'm probably about there! You don't really want to go any higher than that because seeing accurately to hook them on, and especially to fetch them down again in the fading light is a nightmare at any greater distance! It's amazing when you stand under what you think is a "small" tree and, at the limits of your lofting pole, you're nowhere near the top of it. This is one of the reasons why I think people waste ammunition and don't understand why they miss birds - range estimation.

Apologies, I skimmed past this topic at the weekend because I presumed you'd get the usual meaningless glut of two-word answers that don't help. Therefore, I'll share my two penneth on the subject for what it's worth.. Be careful and think it through before committing to a policy A standard pet policy will have a specific exclusion for any "working" purposes. Obviously they only know what you tell them, and if you take a dog to the vet you can always avoid mentioning they have been "working". However in my experiences, normal pet policies aren't worth the premiums. They cover very little. Insurance is one of those things where you only find out what you should have done after it's too late. Take out a policy specifically for gun dogs. Get your dog on a lifetime policy, rather than single year. In reality, the only things really worth claiming for are likely to be ongoing conditions or expensive surgery after an injury, so with just an annual policy once it has lapsed/renewed if you still need thousands of pounds worth of treatment for your dog due to a condition claimed for in the previous year, it's all coming out of your own pocket. Lifetime policies carry the cover perpetually as long as you keep the policy in force without a break. As an example, a dog I sadly lost late last year had some severe orthopaedic issues. The vet bill racked up quite a few thousand, and traversed the anniversary of the policy. With lifetime cover that didn't matter but, if it had been an annual policy, after the renewal I would have been either paying the full amount or the dog would have gone without his treatment. Lots of people say they never bother with insurance, and put away £xx every month to "self-insure" which is fine if you're comfortably off, but it's a bit of a game of Russian roulette if you're not. Could you afford, without warning, to lay out £3k or more on a referral to a specialist vet, then maybe another £2k more on follow-up treatments and drugs etc afterwards? A healthy young dog should probably cost about £20 a month on a lifetime policy for gun dogs. It will go up with age and certainly in the case of a claim. My remaining springer bitch, at almost 11, is now costing around £40. But since I switched over to my current insurer a few years ago for what was then two springers, the premiums I've paid fall far short of the vet bills the insurer has paid out. As dogs get older there will be a "co-payment" clause on any claims, usually 10%, basically meaning you pay 10% of the vet bills claimed for. In my case I've paid £500 of the £5k of vet bills, I can live with that.

*raises hand*

All those poorly made wicker baskets you bring home...surely the subterfuge won't last forever?!

You got me hooked with the unhealthy breakfast bit 😅

I didn't think James Hewitt was into gardening?

I'm going to divulge a trade secret. For anyone who's got decking, patio, paving, concrete, or whatever gets covered in algae all the time, get a bit of this stuff in your life: https://www.restormate.co.uk/epages/15094.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/15094/Products/JC-ALGEX5L I'd go in at a ratio of 1:10 for the first treatment if the build-up is bad, it won't hurt. You can keep things maintained with weaker dilution ratios of 1:20 or 1:30 if you don't let it get too bad. Depending on the material and how bad it is, you can literally watch the algae disappear within a couple of days after treatment in some cases. If you need to jet-wash as well, leave it a good 4-5 days between applying the product and washing, to let it do its job. Re-apply the product afterwards for prevention. It really does work - but as I said, on some materials better than others, but well worth a go, try it

🤔 Hope you fare OK mate, rest up and get well soon 👍

Can't be anywhere near as life-threatening as your neighbour's recent helicopter ride! All the best buddy, hope you ride it out OK

Decking looks great when it's new but it's a bloody nightmare to maintain.

I think it all depends on the willingness of the dog to pick up a real bird. Some will just grab it first time, no questions asked whereas others will take a bit of help and encouragement to get their gob around it! I think the bird inside the tights is a good way to start them off in terms of linking scent to retrieve without the potential off-putting factor of a feathery mouth. After that, you'll find out whether the dog gives two poops or not about feathers in its chops and then you take steps accordingly. I'm lucky I've never had to worry about it with any of mine, the wings on the dummy were just to give a bit of realism and a slight scent on blind retrieves (although the scent issue is a topic of debate on its own). I made a load of dummies out of old socks! Stuffed them with plucked feathers and a few other old socks/rags etc then attached the wings. I used to go out on my own prior to a training session with 6 or 8 of them, fling them out, then go get the dog. Quite often by the time it got to retrieving the dummies I'd forgotten where half of them were but the dogs made sure we never lost one 😊

what the f is that thing on his rug?!

Are you sure you haven't doctored the gun so he doesn't show you up John? 😂

Give Jack a pat on the back from me! And well done to yourself for persevering with him and giving him the opportunity. There are so many dads out there who just can't be bothered to put time into their kids. Introducing my boy to shooting and watching him get better at it is one of the aspects of parenting I'm most looking forward to... second to helping him move out so I can get my life back 🤣 Thanks, will definitely do that

I suspected so! And yep that's the way we should all live life really 👍

Hi, sorry only just come across this. The easy solution I found is just to drill yourself a new hole in the decoy. I'll stick a couple of pics on when I'm near my kit with my phone. This changes the angle at which the decoy sits, which is correct for a perching pigeon as opposed to one standing on the ground feeding - more upright. The distance between your new hole and the existing one is shorter so the spike will now fit through. The more pertinent point with lofters I've found is trying to stop them coming adrift from the hooks on their way up & down. @Centrepin I like your innovation to keep the decoy fixed via a thread, however your solution is slightly over-engineered compared to mine! With approximately 1" of the spike protruding from the top of the decoy, I cut some little pieces of tube and push them onto the spike which locks the decoy in place really securely. The tube is a syphon tube as used in home-brewing, you can get them from your local Wilkinson's if you have one or just off ebay very cheap. Cut a 2" length, then cut that in half using about a 45 degree angle, which then fits snug against the sloping back of the decoy. I tried lofters yesterday in near-still wind conditions, which I've found can help with no wind. The only time any of the very scarce pigeons came near I was either putting the decoys up, taking them down or shouting at my son to stand still so I never got a shot off! 😂

The other way to look at it is you've proved yourself very useful to the farmer!

😁😁 I'm trying to work out whether you're a Vinnie Jones hard-man type, a dentist, or got a bit of a thing for old grannies 😅

I'm having my last roost shooting sortie of the season in that same place either Wednesday or Thursday this week, depending on what Michael Fish predicts. Will hopefully have a decent last report. I blanked yesterday, not worth a post!! 😂

Last time I attached pheasant wings to a dummy I used elastic bands, they worked fine. If you have a scout around on the pavement there's tons of them dropped by posties which are very good bands. You just have to make sure you get fresh ones because if they've been there a couple of days the UV degrades them and they snap

If I may butt in, I think there's a simple fix for this and it's just a misunderstanding over the written vs spoken word I think you have just misinterpreted the word "wind" in Pete's original post meant as "put the wind up him", meaning "got him flustered" or such like. "Wind" as in the stuff that blows around. I think you might have read it as something like "wind up" as in "winding someone up" which, I don't think, is what Pete wrote

👍👍👍 Very refreshing to see someone whose income from shooting doesn't come above sound ethics I think my boy may be a little later than some before he's ready to swing a shotgun. I may be wrong, and hope i am, but at 4.5 yrs old now he's still a bit of a loose cannon! I think I'll get him plinking maybe this summer or next year and see how it goes from there. Will definitely be in contact though when the time is right. I'd love to coach youngsters for free but apart from the lack of time I probably need coaching myself, so I'd possibly not be the best teacher in the world!!