How high do you want them?

[JDog]

Three days of attempting to sort out the new house left me drained. The only solution was to go decoying. And why not?

 

It took a while to find any flighting birds but when I did there were two hundred or so on some drillings. There were two problems. Firstly they wanted to be in a field at the top of a hill with a road on one side and a well used footpath on the other so that was out for a start. The second problem was that the route into that hill top field was over a field which is the largest in these parts being 70 to 80 acres in size with not a single hedge, bush or stone wall anywhere near. I had to be somewhere in that large field and I decided to set up on a new circular fence enclosing young trees planted on the site of a now demolished farm building.

 

I started with a rotary and fifteen flock coated decoys. Not a bird decoyed. All I saw was a procession of birds heading to the hill top field which was frustrating. When a couple walked the footpath in my view all 200 birds got up and headed up wind to a wood three fields away. During the next two hours birds did return, heading to the other field. None decoyed but they did come and have a look at ranges anything from 30m to 70m high. I shot some of the lower ones! I did hit some at what is for me extreme range but I could see that I could not kill them outright so I refrained from testing my skills at these difficult birds.

 

I picked 25 pigeons and 2 Carrion crows.

 

Edited March 17, 2015 by JDog

[fruity]

A bag not to be sniffed at jdog, top marks , a great way to relax and put the house to the back of your mind for a while

[aga man]

Worth going for the Carrions if nothing else.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Perhaps some rope bangers may have helped!

[Old farrier]

Hi

You did well to get any so well done

Thanks for posting

 

All the best

Of

[fenboy]

Not a huge bag JDog but if it is of any consolation you shot more than Muncher , Motty and myself put together today !

[JDog]

Not a huge bag JDog but if it is of any consolation you shot more than Muncher , Motty and myself put together today !

 

If that is the case it must be the greatest achievement of my miserable little life.

[ditchman]

dont feel tooo bad ...i shot nutin today.....and saw birds EVERYWHERE on the damn drill.....................

 

 

 

 

..............whilst i was on the way to chop up some more wood !!

[pigeon controller]

Well done for getting out, it's frustrating when they go elsewhere and present themselves as very high birds which are tempting but If you can not get a clean kill , unsporting . You will have time in your new abode to concentrate on the local birds just bide your time and get the new house to your satisfaction.

[pbutd]

You did the best you could in the circumstances by the sound of it! Glad to see someone else taking their terrier out into the hide- my old Border used to bury everything the Lab retrieved;My current beast-from-hell tries to bite the current Lab's legs to stop her re-entering the hide.Always good company.

[Andylea]

Good effort young man

[kitchrat]

Three days of attempting to sort out the new house left me drained. The only solution was to go decoying. And why not?

 

It took a while to find any flighting birds but when I did there were two hundred or so on some drillings. There were two problems. Firstly they wanted to be in a field at the top of a hill with a road on one side and a well used footpath on the other so that was out for a start. The second problem was that the route into that hill top field was over a field which is the largest in these parts being 70 to 80 acres in size with not a single hedge, bush or stone wall anywhere near. I had to be somewhere in that large field and I decided to set up on a new circular fence enclosing young trees planted on the site of a now demolished farm building.

 

I started with a rotary and fifteen flock coated decoys. Not a bird decoyed. All I saw was a procession of birds heading to the hill top field which was frustrating. When a couple walked the footpath in my view all 200 birds got up and headed up wind to a wood three fields away. During the next two hours birds did return, heading to the other field. None decoyed but they did come and have a look at ranges anything from 30m to 70m high. I shot some of the lower ones! I did hit some at what is for me extreme range but I could see that I could not kill them outright so I refrained from testing my skills at these difficult birds.

 

I picked 25 pigeons and 2 Carrion c<script pagespeed_no_defer="">//=d.offsetWidth&&0>=d.offsetHeight)a=!1;else{c=d.getBoundingClientRect();var f=document.body;a=c.top+("pageYOffset"in window?window.pageYOffset:(document.documentElement||f.parentNode||f).scrollTop);c=c.left+("pageXOffset"in window?window.pageXOffset:(document.documentElement||f.parentNode||f).scrollLeft);f=a.toString()+","+c;b.b.hasOwnProperty(f)?a=!1:(b.b[f]=!0,a=a<=b.e.height&&c<=b.e.width)}a&&(b.a.push(e),b.d[e]=!0)};p.prototype.checkImageForCriticality=function(b){b.getBoundingClientRect&&q(this,b)};h("pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality",function(b){n.checkImageForCriticality(b)});h("pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkCriticalImages",function(){r(n)});var r=function(b){b.b={};for(var d=["IMG","INPUT"],a=[],c=0;c=a.length+e.length&&(a+=e)}b.g&&(e="&rd="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(s())),131072>=a.length+e.length&&(a+=e),d=!0);t=a;if(d){c=b.f;b=b.h;var f;if(window.XMLHttpRequest)f=new XMLHttpRequest;else if(window.ActiveXObject)try{f=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")}catch(k){try{f=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")}catch(u){}}f&&(f.open("POST",c+(-1==c.indexOf("?")?"?":"&")+"url="+encodeURIComponent(b)),f.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded"),f.send(a))}}},s=function(){var b={},d=document.getElementsByTagName("IMG");if(0==d.length)return{};var a=d[0];if(!("naturalWidth"in a&&"naturalHeight"in a))return{};for(var c=0;a=d[c];++c){var e=a.getAttribute("pagespeed_url_hash");e&&(!(e in b)&&0=b[e].k&&a.height>=b[e].j)&&(b[e]={rw:a.width,rh:a.height,ow:a.naturalWidth,oh:a.naturalHeight})}return b},t="";h("pagespeed.CriticalImages.getBeaconData",function(){return t});h("pagespeed.CriticalImages.Run",function(b,d,a,c,e,f){var k=new p(b,d,a,e,f);n=k;c&&m(function(){window.setTimeout(function(){r(k)},0)})});})();pagespeed.CriticalImages.Run('/mod_pagespeed_beacon','http://forums.pigeonwatch.co.uk/forums/index.php?s=c4326c38f86b7ad4f065972f0dc24046&app=forums&module=ajax§ion=topics&do=quote&t=308079&p=2781574&md5check=faab3556a499271b00e11d3cc3eed2a0&isRte=1,l8PuqRhht8,true,false,iZsB4wlJme0'); //]]></script>&&0

Is that an old Border terrier?? If so, I'll bet you can't get him to retrieve!!

[kitchrat]

Three days of attempting to sort out the new house left me drained. The only solution was to go decoying. And why not?

 

It took a while to find any flighting birds but when I did there were two hundred or so on some drillings. There were two problems. Firstly they wanted to be in a field at the top of a hill with a road on one side and a well used footpath on the other so that was out for a start. The second problem was that the route into that hill top field was over a field which is the largest in these parts being 70 to 80 acres in size with not a single hedge, bush or stone wall anywhere near. I had to be somewhere in that large field and I decided to set up on a new circular fence enclosing young trees planted on the site of a now demolished farm building.

 

I started with a rotary and fifteen flock coated decoys. Not a bird decoyed. All I saw was a procession of birds heading to the hill top field which was frustrating. When a couple walked the footpath in my view all 200 birds got up and headed up wind to a wood three fields away. During the next two hours birds did return, heading to the other field. None decoyed but they did come and have a look at ranges anything from 30m to 70m high. I shot some of the lower ones! I did hit some at what is for me extreme range but I could see that I could not kill them outright so I refrained from testing my skills at these difficult birds.

 

I picked 25 pigeons and 2 Carrion crows.

 

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Glad you don't subscribe to this "I can regularly clean-kill birds at 60+ yards" myth!! Some you do, some you don't but with the pattern density at that range it's a matter of luck, not skill (Unless you are Digweed using extra full chokes)

[motty]

Glad you don't subscribe to this "I can regularly clean-kill birds at 60+ yards" myth!! Some you do, some you don't but with the pattern density at that range it's a matter of luck, not skill (Unless you are Digweed using extra full chokes)

That last comment appears to be somewhat contradictory.

[JDog]

Bounder the Border has always been a fantastic retriever of all sorts of game and pigeons. He is a veteran of many hundreds of days in the field.

 

[cocknee]

Glad you don't subscribe to this "I can regularly clean-kill birds at 60+ yards" myth!! Some you do, some you don't but with the pattern density at that range it's a matter of luck, not skill (Unless you are Digweed using extra full chokes)

Contradictory and no myth

[kitchrat]

Bounder the Border has always been a fantastic retriever of all sorts of game and pigeons. He is a veteran of many hundreds of days in the field.

 

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FANTASTIC!! Many thanks for the photo and the biggest surprise I've ever had from Pigeon Watch. My family have had several Borders and the only thing they would fetch was their dinner!!

Fabulous dogs!!!

[kitchrat]

Contradictory and no myth

No contradiction really, let's try and clarify for the masses. At longer ranges, UNLESS you are using a super-tight choke, AND you are good enough to get the bird in the pattern, the pattern density is not high enough to ensure consistent clean kills, it's a matter of luck where your pellets hit the bird.

Comprendez??

[kitchrat]

Bounder the Border has always been a fantastic retriever of all sorts of game and pigeons. He is a veteran of many hundreds of days in the field.

 

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Now I know why you are such a good pigeon shooter - if you can get a border to retrieve, walking on water will be so simple, as will winter rape shooting - congratulations.

PS he only fetches them because He wants to....

[JDog]

Walking on water? Dead easy.

 

This is a slightly younger Bounder honing his retrieving skills.

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2015 by JDog

[steveyg]

His name suits him perfectly...he is a real character..

[fenboy]

No contradiction really, let's try and clarify for the masses. At longer ranges, UNLESS you are using a super-tight choke, AND you are good enough to get the bird in the pattern, the pattern density is not high enough to ensure consistent clean kills, it's a matter of luck where your pellets hit the bird.

Comprendez??

 

The contradiction being you saying ,Some you do, some you don't but with the pattern density at that range it's a matter of luck, not skill (Unless you are Digweed using extra full chokes)

So you are in effect saying it can be done , but takes great skill which I agree with , anyone can use a tightly choked gun few will have the skill to consistently kill birds at that range , so its a case of having the skill or not , nothing to do with luck at all.

[rjimmer]

Glad you don't subscribe to this "I can regularly clean-kill birds at 60+ yards" myth!! Some you do, some you don't but with the pattern density at that range it's a matter of luck, not skill (Unless you are Digweed using extra full chokes)

60 yrds is a long way up. I've got a National Grid pylon, that I know to be 57yrds high, on my place, and when you see something fly past the top of it you wonder if anyone would ever lift a gun to try to shoot at it, even though it's supposed to be just about within 12-bore range. I think that peoples' '60yrd kills' are a lot closer, perhaps. Likewise, the people who reckon they can kill ducks at 90yrds with Hevi-shot.

[JDog]

My outing on Wednesday reported in this thread did get me thinking, something I do infrequently.

 

I have never really gone into the whole tight chokes and heavy cartridges thing. To me my guns were tools for the job and although I have always looked after my guns I have never fawned all over them nor have I fiddled around with chokes. Mine have always been fixed in any event even though I probably never knew what they were.

 

The pigeons I had over me on Wednesday were all heights as I said from 30m to 70m. I knew that the very high ones were out of range and I never fired at them. Some of the middle range birds, 40m to 50m birds I was tempted by. I distinctly remember at the time, when these superlative pigeons were flying overhead, what would some one who could really shoot, with tight chokes and heavy cartridges do with those pigeons?

 

I am too old to change my ways now and I will have to rely on my non existent decoying skills to bring the birds in closer.

[lloydi73]

Where do you shoot J Dog, I know your Cotswolds way like me.....I only ask, as down in Steventon, I haven't seen many pigeons, and definitely not flocking...Crows are a few, but pigeons seem to have disappeared?!?

 

One other question to all really, are you seeing many rabbits about, I hear some saying they're shooting 60 plus, yet on my permission I'm lucky if I see 8 or 10 in a night, let alone shoot them....daytime, forget it, don't see any......The weird thing is, there's a plethora of Hares, but Farmer doesn't want them shot, without exagerating, I must see 50 hares a night, but rabbits, nil point:(