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Red letter day on the pigeon


Stealth Stalker
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I'd been watching a field of spring rape after getting a heads up from the Peltman on a farm we shoot, the early rape was getting a fair old hammering from about 500 birds. The conditions were ideal the afternoon I recc'd it & I was kicking myself for not having my gun with me, although the weather the following day was set for some of the same.

 

I planned to be set up at 2pm for the afternoon feed, with my back to a strong wind & the hide set against a small oak in the hedgeline the rotary stood out 20 yds to my left with 8 dead birds in cradles forming a U shape & a floater out on the right hand end of the U, the birds started pouring in, the minute I'd got back into the hide.

 

After just under an hour I had 30 on the clicker, the birds were coming over some large oaks 100 yrds to my right seeing my deeks and dropping over the floater & heading for the rotary, the majority of the birds were being shot in the kill zone between the magnet & the floater. They were decoying beautifully :hmm: I had them coming in in 2s & 3s all afternoon & I was letting the first bird decoy & taking the tail ender before nailing the decoyed bird as it rapidly made a retreat for safety, when they were catching the wind tailing away I reckon they were close to 50 mph, fantastic sport!

 

The clicker was notching up rapidly & at the 2 hour point I had 75 birds down when I noticed that the stock on my semi had worked loose :hmm: so I ran back to the motor to get some tools to tighten it up as birds were pouring in to the deeks ??? 10 mins later & I was back in action taking out plenty of doubles & a few trios, the 200 carts I had were quickly diminishing so I was making every shot count. As the last cart was fired the clicker registered 123 birds down & the time was 5.15 pm :good:

 

Now came the long hard pick up, Molly my young black lab had been picking any runners or wounded birds, but I'd purposely not sent her for any others to avoid spoiling any flightline, she worked tirelessly for about an hour picking birds in the foot high stuff while I hoovered up the birds in the shorter rape.

 

The count back at the truck was 110 birds & both myself & Molly were knackered, the local foxes could clear up the rest as I was concerned about damaging any more of the crop.

 

So a personal best for me in just over 3 an 1/4 hours

 

A tired Molly with the final bag

 

DSC00439.jpg

 

Cheers

 

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