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After having shot a few pheasants on Saturday, I thought (as I was in the area) to have a look for some pigeons. About a fortnight ago I remembered the farmer telling me he was getting ready to cut his last bean field. By now I had an idea he may have already drilled it with wheat. On inspection through the binoculars (at 3pmish) I saw around 500 pigeons on the field, well scattered. A quick call to the farmer revealed that the field had indeed been drilled with wheat a week ago. I thought that it could only mean one thing - there was still loads of beans that the pigeons could get at. I invited my mate Dave, a recent newcomer to the sport, to spend a Sunday with me shooting. We got set up by around 9am. I was sure we were going to the right field, despite seeing a few hundred birds lift from a nearby rape field. The hide was put around a big tree - a perfect place to be, as I know from shooting there in the past that pigeons like to go and have a sit in there. I normally don't bother, but I put a few small branches cut from the tree in front of the hide netting. I almost always use a magnet, but today I didn't bother to use one. Firstly, I didn't think it necessary to use it, and second, it would have added extra weight to the kit for the good walk across the field. I used just 12 dead birds on sticks - roughly set in 2 clumps either side of the hide - along with Dave's home made 'angels'. The shooting was steady early on, with not too much getting away. I was letting Dave take the more simple decoying birds and I was taking anything that presented more of a challenge. It got frustrating at about mid-day. A good amount of birds kept landing in the trees on the opposite side of the field. The action had slowed to a standstill. At 1pm and with 40 pigeons down (all added head down in the pattern) I decided that I would put a stop to the pigeons going to the trees opposite. I walked over there and sat in the ditch. No sooner had I got there, that the birds decided to decoy again! Dave took a double from the first bunch, swiftly followed by another. He has certainly improved his shooting over the last few months and was very pleased to be knocking down a better percentage. He shot 8 (and myself 3) before I decided I needed to get back to the hide - the action was back on. From that point on the shooting was steady- and sometimes hectic- until we packed up. With over 80 dead birds in the pattern, many pigeons just couldn't resist. We had them dive-bombing from great heights - great to see! Aside from shooting around 30 doubles myself, I also took some cracking high birds, some I never really expected to fall. We were both using Rio 28gm 7.5 and White Gold 7.5. They did the job admirably. The pack up at around 4.30pm was a pain, and carrying the birds back was no fun. It was a great day, though, and my most satisfying bag of the year. We shot 155 pigeons, 1 crow and 1 jackdaw.