Ireland's Finest! Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 Ok lads, We put down 100-200 pheasants each year and the returns arent great, so just looking for some tips on what should hold more birds down in the area? 1. Are cover crops a must? 2. Do things like "Bird Puller" make a difference? 3. Does constructive vermin control make a differnce? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ollie Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 Our vermin control on our shoot is 2nd to none, we take a lot of foxes from the shoot & the surrounding area each year and there is no doubt this helps. We don't use cover crops, however, we are lucky that we have a lot of natural cover on the shoot and this obviously helps. Other things like keeping on top of the feeding helps, we have about 3 or 4 feeders on each drive in strategic places. I don't know if you have any neighbouring shoots that could be drawing some of your birds but this could be a factor. We are lucky in that the surrounding miles around the shoot we have the shooting rights to and very few of our birds ever stray. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Browning Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 Get plenty of waterpoints out, birds will travel further looking for water than they will for food. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bolts Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 Vermin control is a must, you also need to dogin morning and night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ireland's Finest! Posted February 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 Our vermin control on our shoot is 2nd to none, we take a lot of foxes from the shoot & the surrounding area each year and there is no doubt this helps. We don't use cover crops, however, we are lucky that we have a lot of natural cover on the shoot and this obviously helps. Other things like keeping on top of the feeding helps, we have about 3 or 4 feeders on each drive in strategic places. I don't know if you have any neighbouring shoots that could be drawing some of your birds but this could be a factor. We are lucky in that the surrounding miles around the shoot we have the shooting rights to and very few of our birds ever stray. Good luck. We hope to do a serious vermin control programme from this year onwards, I hope to have my first rifle in a few weeks and I will be out lamping as many nights as I can, were also purchasing a few more larsen traps to get on top of the greycrows and magpies, we also hope to get a ladder trap and see how effect it is on the crow population around the shoot, I'd imagine things like this will help. We dont do any driven shooting but we still have a few feeders around the place and hopefully a good few more next year as I dont think you can ever have enough of them. There is no other clubs around us but like you's we have the shooting rights for miles around the release pen which is good in the sense we've more land to shoot but bad in the fact its a lot of ground to cover when out shooting. Thanks for the reply, hopefully good vermin contol, more fedders and more members in the club can get the % up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al4x Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 how many acres is it on and what is the ground like? are the woods warm or are they lacking cover later on in the winter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scolopax Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 In my experience cover crops make a big difference to the average shoot and well worth the investment if you can get the farmer onside. With cover crops our returns were 50 -60%, without 25 -35%. Vermin control is only absolutely essential if you rely on wild stock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ollie Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 In my experience cover crops make a big difference to the average shoot and well worth the investment if you can get the farmer onside. With cover crops our returns were 50 -60%, without 25 -35%. Vermin control is only absolutely essential if you rely on wild stock. I think vermin contol is very essential when you are only releasing about 100ish birds a year. I know if we didn't do so well on the vermin control side we wouldn't be achieving 50%+ year on year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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