motty Posted October 15, 2011 Report Share Posted October 15, 2011 (edited) I started yesterday with a morning flight on the marsh. There were plenty of wigeon and a few pinks about. I didn't have a shot, but my mate Sam killed a high wigeon with his only shot of the morning. We then went off to have a bite to eat and get ready for a decoying session. The field in question was shot on by Sam and myself about three weeks ago. We had a decent bag that day. I didn't expect too much for the day, despite the field showing a lot of birds the day before - indeed i had plans for later and didn't want to shoot for the whole day. The barley stubble is still covered in food - the most i've ever seen on a harvested field. The farmer didn't yield too much from it. Sam and i met another mate (Carl) at the field at around 9.30 am. He set up on one side, while i thought the other side would be a better bet. Sam and i set up with just ten prodecoys and a magnet. A turbo flapper was added just after we had the first bird down. It was a poor start, though. Most of the pigeons kept bypassing to our left ( leaving us pondering on a move) and my shooting was poor to say the least. We waited it out and i'm glad we did. Carl wasn't having too much joy where he was and when Sam and i started blazing away and he wasn't, we knew it was only a matter of time before he joined us.Though we were now getting stuck into the pigeons, at no point did they really decoy properly. Instead we had to shoot high birds most of the time, with an occassional bird swooping in in textbook fashion. We had well over 50 in the bag when Carl set a hide at a convenient bale 75 yards to our left - the idea being that he could clear up any that were drifting left. He didn't stay there long, as we were killing about 8 to each of his 1. So we agreed that he could set his hide on the other side of the tree that we were under (in the middle of the field), and he could clear any that might sneak around the back of us. This worked quite well as we regularly took 4 from a bunch that came around. As we got into the afternoon and we were well into 3 figures the amount of birds on the wing just continued to increase. Still the pigeons didn't really decoy, but some absolute crackers were shot at 50 odd yards and only with the much maligned 7.5 shot. Later still and the pigeons didn't let up. I had to ditch my plans for later and just concentrate on killing pigeons. God knows how many we might have shot if the birds had only decoyed properly. Never mind, there should be another day on there soon, as the field is so covered in barley. We packed up at about 5pm with a total of 340 pigeons - a real red letter day. Edited October 15, 2011 by motty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proTOM1 Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 Cracking bag mate well done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cranfield Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 What a great day, well done. The birds always seem uncommitted to decoys at this time of year, between the harvest and the Winter rape fest. I have been shooting over drilled wheat and although there are birds on the field, they come and go regularly for no obvious reason and will look at the decoys, but not commit to land. There is a lot of crop filling food about at the moment with acorns, berries and beechmast, but things will change in the next few weeks. I have noticed some nice 20-30 bird flocks getting together, thats a sure sign to watch the rape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
here iam Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 Thats one heck of a bag mate i was on some drilled wheat yesterday afternoon the ferals were hitting it more than the woodies , i wish the woodies came in as confident as ferals do any way it was still shooting practice and good to be out in our great british country side i also had a newcomer with me who shot is first pigeon a left hand shooter as well we talked and talked and talked in between banging Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hawkeye Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 I had a call on Friday from one of my farmers to say there were a lot of birds on the wires.. Had a quick look they were on a bean field that had only had about 3 cuts round the outside.. We set up yesterday a hide at both ends of the field and shot from 11am till 4pm we had over 240 on the clicker between us. We ended up picking up 182 the rest were crows and ferals.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted October 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 I had a call on Friday from one of my farmers to say there were a lot of birds on the wires.. Had a quick look they were on a bean field that had only had about 3 cuts round the outside.. We set up yesterday a hide at both ends of the field and shot from 11am till 4pm we had over 240 on the clicker between us. We ended up picking up 182 the rest were crows and ferals.. Not surprised you had a good day on the beans, being this late. The best thing about my day was the fact it was really unexpected. Even after reaching the first 100, we expected things to go a little quiet. There are simply thousands of birds in the area at the moment and i reckon maybe 75% of the bag was this years birds. In the crops of the dead birds was mainly barley, a bit of wheat and a few acorns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted October 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2011 Had another day on the same field today. Shot from around 8am till 1pm. Was about 200 yards from where i shot last week. The difference was the pigeons decoyed well today. Plenty of left and rights and the odd triple were had. Birds everywhere. Could have stayed and shot more but i want to save the birds for another day soon. Shot 157.So that's 497 pigeons in 2 outings in 9 days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rubythedog Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 ill keep this short (TOP CLASS) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foghorn Posted October 29, 2011 Report Share Posted October 29, 2011 Yet another incredible couple of days Motty, do you ever have a bad day ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted October 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2011 Yet another incredible couple of days Motty, do you ever have a bad day ? I have my share of bad days, but i like to think i can get it right most of the time. Anyway, i was back on the same field again yesterday. I hadn't checked the field for a few days so had no idea how many birds would be about, but i thought there would be some. I arrived at the field at around 11am. There were a number of pigeons feeding in the corners of the field. I picked the same spot as last Sunday. A magnet with hypa flaps was used to start - no dead birds - so i also had to wait for a bird for the turbo flapper. Soon they were coming in. I started with a left and right then shot like a **** for a bit.I recovered though. So many pigeons were coming in i could easily pick out doubles. I only got one triple though. At times they were coming into the decoys 50 at a time. I left some of the bigger lots. By about 3.30 the sport had dried up. I finished with 155 and a crow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorsey Posted October 30, 2011 Report Share Posted October 30, 2011 That field must be your favourite by now! That's some great shooting and far better than the 2 crows i've managed on my last few trips out! Time to move to Norfolk I think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pigeon controller Posted October 30, 2011 Report Share Posted October 30, 2011 Well done, good shooting. We shot 51 on Friday and 39 yesterady after covering approx total of eighty miles all the birds had acorns in them, nothing on crops or clover. Once again well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted October 31, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2011 That field must be your favourite by now! That's some great shooting and far better than the 2 crows i've managed on my last few trips out! Time to move to Norfolk I think! To be honest, it was already one of my favourite fields. I have shot somewhere in the region of 15 100+ bags on there. It's in a good area and the farmer always leaves the stubbles alone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted November 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2011 Back to the barley stubble again today. After shooting 4 canada geese on the field yesterday (weather too miserable for pigeon shooting), it was time for yet another assault on the woodies. My mate Carl was set up on the field when i arrived and we were ready to start shooting by 10am. The day followed a very similar pattern to last saturday. We were up the other side of the field this time. Two magnets were used but no turbo flapper this time. We had to contend with 10's and 20's coming in but had a fair few singles and doubles come our way, too. We both shot fairly well and knew another 100 was coming. By 2pm the tap was turned off again, just like last week. It is quite strange really, the total was exactly the same as last week - 155! A quite remarkable run on this field - 807 pigeons in 4 outings. I remembered to take some photos this time but they are too big to attach. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
browning n spaniel Posted November 6, 2011 Report Share Posted November 6, 2011 sounds as if you had another cracking day mate, i had good day last saturday on drilling , pigeons there all week again so set up yesterday morning , they just had no intrest in decoying, had a ride around today and there must of been 500 feeding there, still never mind there be there for another day, could do with a bit of your luck if you have any going spare lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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