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Shooting on the rape stubble

Ferret Master

By Ferret Master,
in Sporting Pictures

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Ferret Master

Ferret Master

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hello!

 

Not done a write up in way too long so I'm pulling my finger out and getting one done. ???

 

Reccy'd this field of rape stubble yesterday, there were a couple of hundred birds feeding hard on it. We also pushed some bales together to make a hide with the following day. :lol: Everything is a well oiled plan so far. ;) Planned to arrive at the farm for 11am today as the farmers son had said they weren't feeding early in the day.

 

Received a txt message this morning saying they had just sold the rape bales and a farmer was on the way to collect them. (bye bye hide :lol: ) Arrived at the farm, jumped in the farmers sons field car and toodled off to the field as I didn't fancy trying to get my little Clio down the track. Upon reaching the field it became apparent there was already someone in my hide. :lol: Anyway, turns out I knew the fella and he also has permission, just hadn't told the farmer he was going to be there. He was asked to move to the other rape field as his hide was about to be loaded onto the trailer. :hmm: However, as they knew I was coming, I already had some bales of barley straw on the way down to make a hide. ???

 

I set up further down the field than originally planned due to where the birds seemed most intent on feeding. This meant the wind was a far from ideal crossing wind which varied from crossing to being into our faces. This was imposed on me as otherwise I would have been shooting towards a busy A road. :lol:

 

Anyway, believe it or not I actually set up a hide, got some deeks out in 2 horseshoe patterns and settled down in our bales. The shooting was slow but steady for the first hour. I wasn't happy with the amount of birds landing on the far edge of the pattern as I was having to take shots at 40-50 yards and obviously these are challenging due to the fact you need the birds to be facing you so your not shooting them up the backside to ensure a clean kill. :lol: So when the trailer returned to collect the rest of the bales I moved one side of the horseshoe in to the left hand side of the hide which helped matters somewhat and the birds were decoying closer. The result of this was more clean kills and a better shot to kill ratio. :lol:

 

The shooting went in fits and starts all afternoon with me regularly bagging 3 or 4 birds in the space of 2 minutes and then not seeing a bird in the sky for another 10. The chap who was shooting the other field came down to see how I was getting on (he bagged 20) and ran his dog through the hedges to pick a bird for me that I had lost. Also gave me a handful of different cartridges to try which ranged from paper cased 25g of 6's, 28g of 7.5's and 32g of 7.5's.

 

These cartridges were all tried and I have come to the conclusion that I definitely don't like 7.5's for pigeon shooting. They were knocking the birds down and the pattern was obviously good from the clouds of feathers that were being knocked out of them. It's just they were not doing the damage that my 6's and 6.5's were. I had to finish off 3 birds that had taken a pellet to the head yet were still walking around. It would appear that the smaller pellet just wasn't doing enough damage. :( Never again.

 

Finished off with 44 pigeon in the bag and another half a dozen at least lost in the undergrowth and woodland for 100 shots, which considering the farmers son had a few shots and didn't connect with any as he's still learning was acceptable. :) The fox I saw (don't shoot them on this land) will eat well tonight. :lol:

 

 

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Here is a couple of pictures of my ugly mug and the hide which we used. Despite the different coloured netting in contrast to the bales, the birds were not spooked by it at all. :lol:

 

Thanks for reading!

 

FM :)

Edited by Ferret Master
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yickdaz

yickdaz

Posted
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well done fella nice bag ;):hmm: i normally only shoot 6s at pigeons but i was running low on them and i only had some 21gram high velocity 7.5s. that.i use for clays.so i tried them out over decoys and honestly i killed most birds stone dead but only up to 35 yards any rangey stuff needed a second barrel on the deck.more often than when i use 6s.

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Cookiemonsterandmerlin.

Cookiemonsterandmerlin.

Posted
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Once again this reminds me of my younger years struggling to get it right on diffcult days .

 

Nice to see you have fun and arnt farmers a pain when they come and mess your day up by picking the bales up etc.

 

Good see somebody talk some sense on the subject of 7.5s for woodies the forum bull gets on my nerves .

 

Keep it up FM

 

Cheers OTH

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jamie g

jamie g

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Posted

good going we should have done this the other day. the farmer hasnt cut the crop to the corner of the field. so the decoys would have been 50 to 60 yards out on the cut stuff whixh is no good.

 

yet in the middle of the field when we left 200+ pigeons must have lifted. maybe this is the way forward. push some bales ove rto the middle then seet up decoys

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