Experiment - Crashed and burned.

[anser2]

For the first time this winter reasonable numbers of pigeons turning up in N Norfolk. I had a look at a dozen rape fiel;ds yesterday and all had pigeons on them in various numbers from 20 to 1,000. Ended up settling on a maze strip and had 60 odd plus some crows in 3 hours. This is the first time I haveseen over 300 in a day for the past 4 months.

 

Tried an experiment today and failed. Last year I had a lot of pigeons dropping into shell goose decoys . So thought I would try a dozen Texas rags in the decoy pattern with 20 normal pigeon decoys , a bouncer and a magnet. Result a failure. The Texas rags drew pigeons from 1\4 mile a way , but they all sheared off 100 yards out. O 'well you just have to try these things. Ended with just 10 pigeons and a crow after I took the Texas rags in.

[Whitebridges]

Nice try Rob.I suppose the idea is the pigeon are super confident that with geese in the landing zone all will be well? Well done on getting a few.I've been out couple of times to the west of Holt with a mate and we've had about a dozen for 20 man hours on OSR. We've shot more in a couple hours at roost.

We were down in Suffolk today and walked off two groups of 500 or more. Set up, the wind was perfect. No drilling or maize for miles and we shot.........1 bird! There's always another day. I'm having a mare at the moment on the pigeon.

[bobby]

For the first time this winter reasonable numbers of pigeons turning up in N Norfolk. I had a look at a dozen rape fiel;ds yesterday and all had pigeons on them in various numbers from 20 to 1,000. Ended up settling on a maze strip and had 60 odd plus some crows in 3 hours. This is the first time I haveseen over 300 in a day for the past 4 months.

 

Tried an experiment today and failed. Last year I had a lot of pigeons dropping into shell goose decoys . So thought I would try a dozen Texas rags in the decoy pattern with 20 normal pigeon decoys , a bouncer and a magnet. Result a failure. The Texas rags drew pigeons from 1\4 mile a way , but they all sheared off 100 yards out. O 'well you just have to try these things. Ended with just 10 pigeons and a crow after I took the Texas rags in.

 

ah so thats where they have gone. im up in lincolnshire and there were hundreds a few weeks ago and now they have done a vanishing act.

[anser2]

Nigel , its good to see a fair number of local pigeons back againin our area. I have been hitting two small maze cover trips with bags of 70 , 44 , 62 and 80 in the last few days. I last shot one on Friday and they were back on it in big numbers again today so going to have another go in the morning before the rooks , crows and deer clear it all up. The habbits of the birds are very different to other years. Usually mornings are best and you can pack up and go home by lunch time. But this year a few birds come in in the morning , but its been 1.0'clock before the main body of pigeons turn up and they keep coming until about 3.30.

 

Until two weeks ago 20 was a good bag this late winter for me and I have not realy had a good shoot on rape , its mainly been maze or maze next to rape. I can never understand why farmers plant rape next to maze game cover. You just know the birds are going to leak out of the maze onto the rape. The weather has not helped much. I had a week off at the end of last month and when there was wind it rained hard and when it was calm I had thick fog all day. Neather are good pigeon days in my book. Brisk windy days are still in short supply , but at least during the last few days we have has a little wind from late morning onwards.

Edited March 15, 2010 by anser2

[lincolnshire poacher]

For the first time this winter reasonable numbers of pigeons turning up in N Norfolk. I had a look at a dozen rape fiel;ds yesterday and all had pigeons on them in various numbers from 20 to 1,000. Ended up settling on a maze strip and had 60 odd plus some crows in 3 hours. This is the first time I haveseen over 300 in a day for the past 4 months.

 

Tried an experiment today and failed. Last year I had a lot of pigeons dropping into shell goose decoys . So thought I would try a dozen Texas rags in the decoy pattern with 20 normal pigeon decoys , a bouncer and a magnet. Result a failure. The Texas rags drew pigeons from 1\4 mile a way , but they all sheared off 100 yards out. O 'well you just have to try these things. Ended with just 10 pigeons and a crow after I took the Texas rags in.

Great thinking,you could try the Texas at 200 yrds away and then a standard decoy layout at normal range, they sometimes will draw to 1st pattern and then flare to second pattern.