How did your roost shoot go?

[MerseaDavid]

Me and dad went out today and saw lots of birds all day but most just sat in the trees all day with the fog we had the birds just did not want to move and then at 12pm we hered our neighbours start shooting in their wood

 

We had dinner and looked around abit more listening to the shots going off and we got to our wood about 13:30 and we watched our neighbours shoot for a while but not many birds fell out of all the birds flying over, we started shooting at 14:00 and the birds were flying very high witch made for some challenging and fun shots but after an hour the wind picked up abit and the birds came in better and we ended up with 46 pigeons so not too bad.

 

I dont know how our neighbours got on but they must have fired 100+ shots :blink:

 

How did everyoe else get on?

[dave1979]

we had a few but they were very high fast birds..just passin us by after beein shot at several times in the surroundin woods!!!!

[Alanl50]

Nice shooting David

Mine day was useless total 5 under a pylon first, on rape, big flocks on there during the week F-- all managed 2 dont where they had gone a few people shooting, fog never lifted till 11.30 I stayed there till 2.00 on to another farm who reckoned it was blue, well only with cold never ever saw a flyer only stayed there 15 mins finished in a wood managed another 3

never been so poor for me not much flying a few more shots in the afternoon sounding off

OH well thats life I have another look tomorrow if the missus will let me

Alan

[markyboy]

i tried roost shooting for the first time 2nite,found a wood with alot of signs of pigeon in it. sat at half 3 and within 10 mins the barrels were red hot. they were very high passing over the wood in big flocks. is this the norm for roost shooting? also i wasnt sure when to pack up do you stay to the black dark? i managed 5 woodies for alot more shots they were very tricky to hit. but thats me hooked!!

[racingfrank7]

The same here really, not a great deal of birds about the one's that did emerge from the fog was hi and gave testing shots. Hopefully clear skys and a bit of wind next week.....

[anser2]

Very poor on N Norfolk. Several guns out tonight , but very few pigeons. I usualy see 500-1000 on the first roost shoot of the year. Tonight only saw 30 and shot 3. The fog did not help , but there seem to be very few pigeons in the area. Spent 3 days decoying this week and shot the total of 18 birds. A good tour around the 30 odd rape fields i can shoot over only one sizable flock of 200 was seen . 7 other fields held pigeons , but none more than 20 , though one maze strip did have about 75 on it. One other pointer to the low numbers of pigeons about was the number of unprotected rape fields with no scarers.

 

Talking to other local forum members by PM they agree about the lack of pigeons. I cant understand why , there were plenty last summer , very little pigeon shooting takes place in the game season and we escaped the worst of the last spell of winter weather. If anything I would have expected an influx of pigeons from worst affected areas of the country. Has the cold weather caused a heavy mortality ?

 

I was hoping tonights shooting would get the pigeons moving and we would see whats realy about , but on tonights evidence we look like a poor late winters sport. On the plus side another farmer asked me to shoot on his rape fields yesterday, may well be a poor year , but there is always next winter.

Edited February 6, 2010 by anser2

[Cookiemonsterandmerlin.]

Three of us managed 52 very poor compared to recent years a massive lack of pigeons since the snow .

 

Regards OTH

[phill.p]

Like you markyboy, my first time roost shooting tonight.

 

Received an invite from a gamekeeper i know. Thick fog all day though so not a lot of movement. Went out after the Ireland game. Only seen half a dozen, managed to hit two lol

 

Hope its clear and breezy next week. Or it,s gonna be a full afternoons rugby instead.

[proTOM1]

Had a cracking day on our hare shoot though weather made it hard work bag total was 241 mainly hare and a few pigeons then went for a bit of roost shooting i shot 16 but there was thousands in the air but very high with the no wind still the guys who went out shot over 150 in total so not to bad for the lack of wind and fog ,will hope for better luck next weekend

[mossy835]

3 of us went into the woods lots of guns going off all around,we shot 10 pigeons and 2 magpies and 1 fox that walked thought the wood.

[bentbarrel]

We had a cracking morning hare shooting although the fog made us have a late start, once again the beaters shot more than the guns. Roost shooting was a different matter, ive never shot at so many high birds even our keeper that is an awesome shot only got 8. I got 2 bt me excuse is im still learning!

[zab10]

16 and 2 rooks for me . try again tomorrow

[MerseaDavid]

Very poor on N Norfolk. Several guns out tonight , but very few pigeons. I usualy see 500-1000 on the first roost shoot of the year. Tonight only saw 30 and shot 3. The fog did not help , but there seem to be very few pigeons in the area. Spent 3 days decoying this week and shot the total of 18 birds. A good tour around the 30 odd rape fields i can shoot over only one sizable flock of 200 was seen . 7 other fields held pigeons , but none more than 20 , though one maze strip did have about 75 on it. One other pointer to the low numbers of pigeons about was the number of unprotected rape fields with no scarers.

 

Talking to other local forum members by PM they agree about the lack of pigeons. I cant understand why , there were plenty last summer , very little pigeon shooting takes place in the game season and we escaped the worst of the last spell of winter weather. If anything I would have expected an influx of pigeons from worst affected areas of the country. Has the cold weather caused a heavy mortality ?

 

I was hoping tonights shooting would get the pigeons moving and we would see whats realy about , but on tonights evidence we look like a poor late winters sport. On the plus side another farmer asked me to shoot on his rape fields yesterday, may well be a poor year , but there is always next winter.

 

I would say I have seen more pigeons so far this year than last year, but some people have said they have seen less in other areas but I have not seen any birds that have died because of the cold spell we had, all the birds in my area are nice and fat and living well.

[anser2]

There are some guys on the Wildfowling forum reporting picking up a lot of dead pigeons in the last spell of cold weather in Scotland. Here in N Norfolk the birds are ok , but most are not anyway near as fat as usual.

[Blackpowder]

Well yesterday was our Shooting Clubs first Charity Pigeon Shoot in north Northumberland, and it proved a very poor affair with only 46 birds for the 30 or so members who took part. In fact pigeon were conspicous by their absence on the 20 mile drive to the venue past an abundance of rape fields with scarce a bird to be seen. Many of us had anticipated a bumper start to the pigeon season with the coastal area clearing of snow a week before inland , but this was not the case. One group of Guns reported seeing large flocks of pigeon on rape as they entered their woods, but these departed and chose to roost outside our shooting area. Some members had been out in the morning on rape fields on the Scottish side of the Border and there also saw very few pigeon. My own result was nil saw 4 shot at three and picked nil. It can only get better?

 

Blackpowder

[webber]

On our shoot in Cheshire we met up at 2pm and then departed for different sectors of the shoot. There was no wind few woodies. I managed 4 woodies and a jackdaw, McF managed 4 woodies and a grey squirrel. The reemaining guns either blanked or only managed the odd one.

 

Don't forget that next Saturday is the Pigeon Watch National Day for Grey Squirrels and Woodpigeon.

Please do your best to take part.

 

webber

[dj.chapman]

me and a few mates went out. left the house at 3pm and was all ready to go by 5 past. birds where very high and fast and i started the bidding with a corking shot at a carrion crow, followed shortly after by a tree rat. at about 4.30pm the woodies started to flock in and between the 5 of us we came back with 3 crows, 1 rabbit, 3 jays, 1 squirrel and 93 woodies. going again this sat and hopefuly there will be a bit more wind to bring the birds in a bit lower.

Edited February 7, 2010 by dj.chapman

[Terrierist]

Great day on our shoot N Merseyside/SW Lancs Border, about 10 guns out and over 150 birds taken. Lots of birds moving, really high and fast!

 

A friend was shooting 10 miles over the way and reported no shooting in his wood and around 10 birds between 6 guns, shows just how localised pigeons can be? Looking forward to taking part in next saturdays events!

 

Best to all

 

Kev