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It has certainly been hard work this year. I mentioned in one of my last reports that good bags have been hard to come by. My recent 71 on rape was followed up by a 46 on drilling with Fenboy a week or so ago, but I have still been searching for the opportunity to shoot that elusive first 100+ of the year. So it was with hope more than expectation that saw me driving round for a look on the way back from work on Monday afternoon. I came across a field that was drilled several days ago that I had looked at several times. I had yet to see a bird on it. Today it was blue with pigeons (and black with crows). I stopped and watched as more pigeons dived in from all directions. This looked very promising. I was slightly perturbed by the complete lack of any visible food for the birds and wondered whether the pigeons would still be likely to turn up tomorrow. In my experience, though, even with no food to be seen (at least to the human eye) I have found that great sport can still be had when this is the case. A few things needed to be taken care of, though. I needed to book leave at short notice. Sorted. Weather forecast checked and looking ok. Who to invite? Muncher missed out on a 185 bag that he would have shared with his brother when he was away the other week, so I asked if he wanted to join me. He took little persuading. We arrived at the field for 9am yesterday. A good number of pigeons and crows were already down on the far end of the field. We chose a mid-way point in the field to set up. We started off with a pattern of around 25 flocked shells and fuds, one flapper and a floater. This proved to be enough to get the pigeons in range, but I wasn't totally happy with the way they were coming in. As usual, all the dead birds were added, but the real difference came when the magnet was introduced. The pigeons seemed to be more confident and came in closer. Jules (Muncher) shot well with Gamebore and Eley 32gm 4 steel loads. The rangey birds were easily trimmed up with a full choke in. I shot fairly well, too, but I was using an ounce of lead 7s and 3/4 choke. We got several doubles between us. Triples were very difficult to get in the stiff wind - any third shots would be taken at birds flaring with the wind at extreme range. Crows were spared when pigeons were en route. We did shoot a few mixed blacks when the pigeons were taking a breather. The plan was to be off the field by 5pm. We shot until just after 4pm and killed 143 pigeons and 13 mixed corvids. A great day. I reckon if I had not checked this field until the weekend I would have missed the opportunity.