Stubble Preferance

[Ferret Master]

Hello!

 

Delving into the depths of your pigeon shooting wisdom and experience here...

 

Given the choice of a field of rape stubble and a field of barley stubble which are both next door to each other. What field do you think the birds are most likely to prefer. (avoiding the assumption that one was a good cut and one was a messy cut with lots of spillage)

 

I know that every situation is different which is why I will be reccying the area the evening before, but in your experience which is the preferred stubble if they were cut at the same time? :blink:

 

Cheers,

 

FM :unsure:

[shakin stevens]

i would go for the rape and have done most times, i was sat on me mates combine last night and you

could see where the wind and rain had knocked the seed out the pods,and when its very warm it gets

even more brittle, and the combine knocks it out, he now has an extension on his header to help it in.

sometimes they combine at night when its alot cooler, so for my money they is more food on the floor

for the pigeons to eat,alot of folk disc the stubbles up then let the rape grow back then spray off before

drilling winter wheat.

[mossy835]

i would go for rape stubble

[Cookiemonsterandmerlin.]

Rape tends to be within 3 days old cutting then they will turn to wheat/barley as the times goes by.

 

On on rare occasions they will turn back in two weeks to green rape very rare IMO.

 

So OSR is in favour at the moment in my area.

 

Regards OTH

[bobby dazzler]

i would rather shoot on rape than barley but there again i would rather shoot on beans out of all of them :blink:

[M ROBSON]

We tend to have a good gap between the winter barley stubbles and the first rape stubbles, usually a couple of weeks. So it's more a case of the birds switching over onto rape once the stubbles start to appear. Today we had bags of 125 and 71 on barley stubble and 50 on a standing field of peas, our first rape stubbles won't appear till at least the end of this week.

 

I'm shooting a standing (sprayed off) field of rape tomorrow that is swarming with pigeons. There are 2 grass fields on the downwind sides so if we set up right all the shot birds should drop onto the grass. :blink:

 

Cheers,

Mark.

[woody swacker]

Hello!

 

Delving into the depths of your pigeon shooting wisdom and experience here...

 

Given the choice of a field of rape stubble and a field of barley stubble which are both next door to each other. What field do you think the birds are most likely to prefer. (avoiding the assumption that one was a good cut and one was a messy cut with lots of spillage)

 

I know that every situation is different which is why I will be reccying the area the evening before, but in your experience which is the preferred stubble if they were cut at the same time?

 

Cheers,

 

FM

rape everytime!!

[magman]

Given the choice barley every time as i will not take a dog on rape stubble

But i would go where the birds are

[hawkeye]

:good:

[Ferret Master]

There is a field of beans alongside the 2 fields in question that has quite a few birds showing interest in it as it is full of poppies and thistles due to a problem with spraying it off when they were drilled.

 

As I suspected, the general consensus is rape. I'm going to pop down tomorrow and see what the birds are taking most interest in, and bag off the lesser of the two to reduce the odds of them simply 'hopping' next door after the few first shots.

 

FM

[yickdaz]

we have had the bulk of our summer shooting on laid and barley stubble. some 700 pigeons in 5 weeks and can guarantee when the rape is ploughed up they will return to cereal stubbles if they are not already on them....but having said that we shot our record bag of 300 on rape stubble 9 years ago but thats a one off.and has been said its on the day and which field they are flighting to and feeding on

[Cranfield]

Disced rape stubble is my favourite, followed by wheat stubble.

We have very little barley in my area and what we have the birds seem to leave alone.