Lots of pigeons on the move but not following decoying protocol!

[ShropshireSam]

I planned to have a go decoying today as the wind was a bit stronger but the sight of so many pigeons yesterday morning had me rushing home for my gear. I was torn between two adjacent fields. One a maize stubble with good numbers on over the last week or the adjacent barley stubble that I shot 186 on previously and yesterday morning had about 500 on by 9AM. I opted for the barley field and set up 20 flock half shelled. Plenty of pigeons on the move but none decoyed....never experienced this lack of decoying before...normally at least get the young birds coming in. I wanted to get some birds shot to get on the flapper and magnet (don't bother keeping dead birds for the next decoying session). After 40 mins and three shots in the air to get some birds moving I gave up and moved to the maize stubble. A similar situation in the field but one bird came into the tree I had the hide under, so that was shot and placed on a flapper and then at last some started to decoy and once I had two flappers and the magnet running I could pull more birds in but still saw many large flocks just pass over. What was also unusual was that the birds that did decoy ignored the nice route into the U pattern (into the wind) and kept entering the U from all directions but the right one and then swooping round sharply once in the kill zone....so they were a difficult to shoot as either they were swinging round in an ever tightening arc or they were practically on the ground. They appeared to stick tight to the flightlines and then enter the U rather than deviate earlier to swing round and enter the U from the "open" end. What was unusual was that nearly ever bird did this from both flightlines and both directions.

 

 

Missed far too many, but had enough nice shots to make the day worthwhile and reminded me that my kill rate is only good when the pigeons behave and follow predictable lines into the decoys!

[JDog]

There is a lot of that going on at the moment.

[ditchman]

"predictable lines into the decoy's"..............cor i wish

[Charlie_79]

very much the same with me at the moment, my local maize seems to be covered in pigeons when ever I go past, but as soon as I set up they all move onto another place and don't come back

[birdsallpl]

There is still so much food about at the moment, they are not that desperate to feed anywhere particular. Tomorrow we will have eight guns out over a reasonable area on all fields pigeon have been feeding these last couple of days from rape that has been hit on Thursday, to wheat drilling yesterday and today, Maize stubble cut earlier in the week, birds feeding on the lot and good flight lines. However I'm not holding my breath for any really decent bags. They will probably go back to the berrys which are still in abundance here. Or clear off completly. Not being negative just realistic.

[Michael170874]

The birds i managed to shoot today wouldn't decoy at all .There were at least 800 birds one minute in the maize next picking rape,then clover .so stood under what was some sort of flight path dropping about 30 birds all with several food stuffs in the crop there was hawthorn berries,clover,a few acorns,wheat,so obviously they wont tollerate being shot at they will just go to the next item on the menue.This is the worst time of the year to decoy pigeons iv'e done this for 40 yrs and usually just leave my equipment at home and just take the gun and see whats passing .