MRTN Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 (edited) I have spotted a field that has been filling nicely and i am sure i could tally up a good bag, if i could just get set up! The field is 30 acres+ and is a triangle surrounded by roads on all sides. The hedges have all been laid and i am looking for guidance from you all about in-field hides. I have used one in the past on a stublle field with a grouse butt made of bales but i am now planning something more risky. has anyone ever been successful at this time of year shooting from an infield hide on a patchy winter bean crop that has been direct drilled into the stubble? There is a good enough wind planned for the weekend and i am aware of a good number of strong flightlines that are in use over the field and they are coming in well with a great deal of convidence despite the farmers 15+ flags and kites which i will move away from the area of the field i intend to cover. exclusive permission from the famrer granted. i am thinking of getting a hide up ASAP (to let them get used to it) and positioning it in a good dip in the undulating field to keep the profile of the hide as low as possible, i will then set up the decoys (wind dependant) on the bank. This will be 80 yrds from the nearest hedge. Please feel free to send me any tips you have on infield hides and effective shooting from them! i will not be able to dig into the field, the hide will be made from poles and traditional heavey weight military camo netting. I would like to have a buddy in the hide too but i am unsure about risking the bigger hide. we will be set up before they start to stir and we will keep things tidy but limit movement outside the hide where possible. is there anything you can suggest about hide building/position and techiniques or tips to give the best chance of tricking the pigeons? Kit will probably be my usual basic mix of full bodies and shells and some DIY dead pigeon floaters on coppice cut out the hedge. (normally works well for me) Thanks, Will Edited March 22, 2011 by MRTN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ91 Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 m,ake sure you put a roof on thide a small gap on one sid eto shoot out of make sure 2 sides are very thick so you have a good backdrop to make it harder to see throught the hide, this will make any slight movement harder to spot i shoot from middle of fields all year round when need be. usually set it up a day before i intend to go to let pigeons get used to it but have set up and shot from them same morning with success Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRTN Posted March 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 m,ake sure you put a roof on thide a small gap on one sid eto shoot out of make sure 2 sides are very thick so you have a good backdrop to make it harder to see throught the hide, this will make any slight movement harder to spot i shoot from middle of fields all year round when need be. usually set it up a day before i intend to go to let pigeons get used to it but have set up and shot from them same morning with success Many Thanks for help! I have used a hide with a roof for crows but will certainly do my best to get it right and keep the netting thick to cover my movements. Thanks again. Will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
point and shoot Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 I don't go for the 'let the pigeons get used to it' idea. Afterall, every time you put a hide at the side of the field the pigeons take no notice. It wasn't there yesterday! I have also done in field hides and as previously stated you need a good background and probably something of a roof. Just set up and get on with it. It should work. Les Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ91 Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 I don't go for the 'let the pigeons get used to it' idea. Afterall, every time you put a hide at the side of the field the pigeons take no notice. It wasn't there yesterday! I have also done in field hides and as previously stated you need a good background and probably something of a roof. Just set up and get on with it. It should work. Les a little bit different hide against a hedge is a lot less noticeable than a big square thing stuck in the middle of a field. some pigeons will be wary but others wont take a blind bit of notice movement is the giveaway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cranfield Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 Keep your profile as low as possible and this is where being use to shooting sitting down becomes a bonus. I would agree with everything TJ91 has recommended, especially the "thick sides", you have to avoid being silhouetted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Essex Hunter Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 I don't go for the 'let the pigeons get used to it' idea. Afterall, every time you put a hide at the side of the field the pigeons take no notice. It wasn't there yesterday! I have also done in field hides and as previously stated you need a good background and probably something of a roof. Just set up and get on with it. It should work. Les TEH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosd Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 80 yards is too close to be shooting in the direction of a road! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 There should be no need for a roof on your hide or to make it as small as possible.Pigeons also do not need to get used to it. I turned up on saturday afternoon to set up on a small bean field completely out in the open. A friend was with me and we made a large hide without a roof with 3 nets.The net colours didn't match the bare brown field or the bright green grass track that the hide was made on. It would have been easy for any passing human to see that this was a pigeon hide out in the open on the edge of the field. But the pigeons took NO NOTICE whatsoever!! Birds were dropping into the pattern from all angles and heights, sometimes landing a few feet away from a greenish/brown/beige 'bush' that so many people think that pigeons are scared of. We shot 81 pigeons. Try it yourself.Build a hide in the open just as you normally would a hedge hide, but obviously it must surround you. I think you'll find that it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mightymariner Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 I shot with Protom a while back and he set me up twice in different hides, once next to some electricity poles in the middle of a field and once completely in the open. Both times birds ignored the hide and came into the decoys. On the latter, the hide had been set up the day before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobba Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 I have spotted a field that has been filling nicely and i am sure i could tally up a good bag, if i could just get set up! The field is 30 acres+ and is a triangle surrounded by roads on all sides. The hedges have all been laid and i am looking for guidance from you all about in-field hides. I have used one in the past on a stublle field with a grouse butt made of bales but i am now planning something more risky. No commenting on hides but on layout. Without a drawing it is unclear just how 30 acres fits in with the triangle of roads. But I understand that many shooting grounds prudently allow some 300 yds for shot fallout to cater for angle of fire and following winds. A quick check with BASC today confirmed this. All I can say is, therefore,make sure your hide and direction of fire exceed this distance. Good Luck Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKPoacher Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 (edited) a little bit different hide against a hedge is a lot less noticeable than a big square thing stuck in the middle of a field. some pigeons will be wary but others wont take a blind bit of notice movement is the giveaway Last summer I had some of my best days shooting out of a green Pop-a-Bivvy in the middle of a 53 acre field of ripened wheat. I turned up after work, put the bivvy up, set the deeks in crop circles and was averaging 40 pigeons in three hours, several days a week for a couple of weeks, despite the hide sticking out like a sore thumb and getting plenty of 'interesting' comments from other shooters. I could see the pigeons coming in and very few spooked. In a small field I would not put a roof on. I would consider sitting on the ground with my back against a bag and shooting out of the top of the hide as they come over. That way the shot is less likely to fall over the boundary. Edited March 24, 2011 by UKPoacher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRTN Posted April 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2011 Thanks to all who made the effort to suggest tips for my inaccessible pigeons. having put the hide up 2-3 days in advance of the date I was hoping to shoot, I made my way to do some recon on the morning before the big day. I was shocked to find that my hide consisting of 4 hide poles and multiple nets had been pinched! A few frantic phone calls soon dispelled all other possible scenarios. Moral of the story, don’t shoot within view of a public right of way. Back to the drawing board! I have written a little about our day for those who would like to read it. it is not worthy of any awards but I welcome comments on tips for improvement. I have a few questions below too…. What should you do differently when trying to decoy in fog? Do the birds leave roost later? Do you need to elevate your decoys and use more movement in the pattern? Do they travel less distance from the roost in fog? Is it bad to set up too close to a wood? How do i use dead birds for floaters and spread the wings without buying something? are their crops that are favored in fog (less tall crops?) will birds land on a downward slope or look to land uphill? Having no more hide equipment I had already decided that the field I have been looking at for an infoeld hide was not a good idea especially as it didn’t seem very busy with birds. Waking up to a dense fog I was starting to think of all of those articles i had read about shooting only when the conditions suit and not going out to shoot 10-20 birds at a time. Well gone are my days of being able to pick and choose better days and working away from my home farm (and in the shooting industry sadly leaves me with little days to dust off the decoys. Not knowing what to do in fog we set up behind a low hedge on the corner of a wood by a OSR crop and used what we had around us to create a very good 2 person hide using some gorse and other materials from the wood and hedge. the wood is used as a roast for a small number but a good resting place for those feeding locally that come from the 50 acre wood a mile or two away. it seemed that birds were not really looking to feed hard and were sitting up in the woods. some flight lines were in use few were looking to feed. Once the hide was set up I positioned the mix of full bodied and flocked shell decoys to encourage the birds coming into the smaller wood to spot the pattern upon arrival and drop in. They have always liked feeding in that corner of the field and the unusual wind direction allowed us to sit with our backs to the wind, the wood offering some shelter to us and the birds. Somehow we started well adding two single passing birds to the bag for as many shots. However, I was concerned about the birds view of our pattern as the early birds did not seem to notice my pattern with not even a pause in the wing beat to show interest. I cut some flexible 6ft branches of a few hedge row trees about 1/2 inch thick. After a bit of fiddling I had two bobbing floaters to add to the back corners of my pattern and this seemed to work very well with birds turning in unnaturally to my pattern from a flight line that had become the stronger of the two. Having noticed that the main flight line was coming from straight ahead and I was asking a lot from the birds to turn into my pattern, I turned the pattern slightly and opened it up into a shallow arc pattern leaving better access. The two rear floaters acted like flood gates with every bird then committing well with identical positioning. It was just a shame that we saw so few! The slow drip of birds dried up at about 11.15 and having not seen a bird by midday we felt less distressed to have to head home anyway. We had a very modest bag but we both felt satisfied with the fog not stopping us from having a few pleasing shots and the chance to work on our field craft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisherman Mike Posted April 7, 2011 Report Share Posted April 7, 2011 Dont bother with all that hide mullarkey just paint your self like a electricity pylon like this guy and stand next to it. http://wideopenspaces.squarespace.com/wide-open-spaces/liu-bolin.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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