Still hitting the rape

[caeser]

I took limestone cowboy out yesterday on the hunt for some woodpigeons and maybe a few crows.

We drove around for the best part of an hour (7-8am) and realised it was going to be a difficult day. There was plenty of birds, but they weren't concentrated in any particular area. They were scattered in hedgrows, grassy fields etc, basically what you'd expect at this time of year.

I started watching a field of rape, that was a good 3-4feet tall and noticed pigeons dropping into the tram lines I suspect, in the middle of this huge field. After a bit of careful scrutiny, we picked up a sort of flightline over a couple of tall trees.

There is a strip of the remains of cover crop about 60 yards wide between the trees and the rape field.

No point in putting the decoys out, so I decided on the electronic flappers and a floater. These were placed about 30 yards from each of us and we were about 50 yards apart in the cover strip, which itself was quite tall in places. I knew the pigeons wouldn't come in ,but they may just fly in range out of curiosity.

Started shooting about 10am. Stopped at about 2.30pm (purely because limestone cowboy was off to france that evening).

I ended up with 23 pigeons and 7 crows, and LSC ended up with a dozen pigeons and a couple of crows.

Some fast sporting shots made it quite exciting.

So all in all it was a good session, which I wasn't really expecting.

[motty]

Sounds like you had fun. I've noticed there are still plenty of pigeons using the rape where there are no peas or set-aside.

[Cranfield]

Sounds like a successful outing.

Trying something different and being prepared to compromise is what will get you the shooting at this time of year.