The wrong field,not the wrong trousers.

[JDog]

Yesterday morning whilst I was still in bed I had a call from a farmer who I had never met telling me that he had heard about my recent exploits and asking if I would care to meet him to look round his farm with a view to shooting the pigeons. This farm is adjacent to the estate where I have enjoyed some success on the beans this last week.

 

I met him in his farmyard and he drove me round the farm. There were four newly drilled fields of barley with pigeons on them and several stubble fields which were still to be drilled with barley and spring rape. This was exciting stuff.

 

I settled in for a watch for half an hour and decided on a barley field where there were 100 pigeons feeding from a flight line along an oak belt, along another hedge and into the field. There was no wind, not even a breeze which determined the hide position, as did the sun making a welcome appearance. The first birds to decoy dropped down from a very great height into the pattern. There is no better sight for the shooter and countryman to see their acrobatic skills.

 

Whilst I was getting a steady flow of birds into the pattern I could see three fields to my right a better flightline with a lot of birds on it. I guessed where they were going but as this was new land to me I was somewhat disorientated and couldn't be sure. It only became clear to me when I shot a couple of very high birds on a returning line coming from behind me that the main lot had been heading for the beans on the next door estate where I had shot them in the week. Their crops were jam-packed full of beans.

 

I would not have shot the bean field in any event as it had been shot twice within the week but it just shows what a draw the bean drillings have in some areas. The pigeons much preferred to travel over perfectly good feeding on the barley drillings, ignore my decoys and gorge themselves on beans in a field in the distance.

 

I picked 77 pigeons and six jackdaws for a total of 83, two of the latter were shot with one shot, but not intentionally.

[the pigeon man]

Cracking bag well done

[Cranfield]

I have posted elsewhere that I am still shooting pigeons on a bean field that was drilled 3 weeks ago and not a spare bean in sight.

They do like their beans.