jhrg

PM sent.

PM sent - look forward to hearing from you.

What day of the week?

Got to be fibre wad.....

I am looking for a 20-bore cartridge (with fibre wad) that doesn't break the bank. Ideally about 25 grams of 7 shot. Am using Hull High Pheasant at the moment and it's costing a fortune!

If I didn't shoot them as they were just coming in to land, I'd never hit any at all! What you'll find is that there's a wide variety of shots, ranging from the easy (just as they are about to touch down) shot to the very difficult (zooming past like a rocket at 50mph) shot. In my experience, from a confidence-building perspective, you're best starting out by only shooting the birds that have fully committed to your decoys and are coming in to land - once you are consistently knocking these down, then you can start to work on the more challenging shots, e.g. as birds swoop past to take a look at your pattern etc. Remember the point of what is we do is pest control, so it's not in our interests just take the challenging shots.

Roll on shooting over pea stubble: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-13874432 it's been frustrating over peas the last few weeks because so many birds have been impossible to pick.

Hi there - I'm in Stamford and could do Wednesday, but would need to pack up early-ish (got to be home by 3pm). Let me know if any good.

If you fancy a boar-shooting trip to Italy, check out these folks: http://www.vialba.com/Caccia/Programme.html Husband and wife couple who used to live in London (he's Italian/American, she's English) - very hospitable people and a beautiful part of the world. The local shooting community look quite colourful too if the photo gallery is anything to go by: http://www.vialba.com/Caccia/Photos.html

Sounds like the smart money's on another Beretta then! Many thanks for the advice.

I've been shooting for the last 5 years and am very happy with my basic model Beretta Silver Pigeon 20 bore. I'm now thinking of getting a second gun to act as a spare (15-year-old son starting to get interested). Will stick with 20 bore but otherwise very flexible. I do a mixture of pigeon shooting and walked-up rough shooting. Ideally don't want to spend more than £600, so am probably looking at second-hand (unless there's some cheap wonder-gun out there I haven't heard of). Any advice gratefully accepted!

Maybe this site should have a separate section for surplus freshly shot pigeons, so that folk living nearby could pop over and help themselves (assuming we're not all so bored of eating pigeons that we don't want any more than we shoot ourselves...).

Hmmmm - lots to take on board here. Think I will: Stick with my 24gm No6s, spend a bit more time on clays (practice makes perfect and all that), and keep my shots within 30 yds.

As promised, am reporting back on my day - for my first outing I thought not too bad at all... Got 6 woodpigeons over 4 hours, but I did use 20-odd cartridges, so not a great ratio. I have a Beretta 20 bore, loaded with 24gm Special Pigeon cartridges (No6), and suspect that these are a bit light for the job - I'm sure I hit a couple more, but they were further out (30-40 yds) and only lost a few feathers before flying off. I've used these cartridges successfully on pheasant and partidge - do pigeons need something a bit more heavy duty?

This is all really useful stuff - many thanks for the tips and will let everyone know how I get on.