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Reconnaisance is key


motty
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It has certainly been hard work this year. I mentioned in one of my last reports that good bags have been hard to come by. My recent 71 on rape was followed up by a 46 on drilling with Fenboy a week or so ago, but I have still been searching for the opportunity to shoot that elusive first 100+ of the year.

So it was with hope more than expectation that saw me driving round for a look on the way back from work on Monday afternoon. I came across a field that was drilled several days ago that I had looked at several times. I had yet to see a bird on it. Today it was blue with pigeons (and black with crows). I stopped and watched as more pigeons dived in from all directions. This looked very promising. I was slightly perturbed by the complete lack of any visible food for the birds and wondered whether the pigeons would still be likely to turn up tomorrow. In my experience, though, even with no food to be seen (at least to the human eye) I have found that great sport can still be had when this is the case.

A few things needed to be taken care of, though. I needed to book leave at short notice. Sorted. Weather forecast checked and looking ok. Who to invite? Muncher missed out on a 185 bag that he would have shared with his brother when he was away the other week, so I asked if he wanted to join me. He took little persuading.

 

We arrived at the field for 9am yesterday. A good number of pigeons and crows were already down on the far end of the field. We chose a mid-way point in the field to set up. We started off with a pattern of around 25 flocked shells and fuds, one flapper and a floater. This proved to be enough to get the pigeons in range, but I wasn't totally happy with the way they were coming in. As usual, all the dead birds were added, but the real difference came when the magnet was introduced. The pigeons seemed to be more confident and came in closer.

Jules (Muncher) shot well with Gamebore and Eley 32gm 4 steel loads. The rangey birds were easily trimmed up with a full choke in. I shot fairly well, too, but I was using an ounce of lead 7s and 3/4 choke. We got several doubles between us. Triples were very difficult to get in the stiff wind - any third shots would be taken at birds flaring with the wind at extreme range.

Crows were spared when pigeons were en route. We did shoot a few mixed blacks when the pigeons were taking a breather.

The plan was to be off the field by 5pm. We shot until just after 4pm and killed 143 pigeons and 13 mixed corvids. A great day.

I reckon if I had not checked this field until the weekend I would have missed the opportunity.

 

 

 

 

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A great result , muncher had already told me this morning of your result , good job it was planned for yesterday and not today looking at the weather !

Only one thing Motty , I am not sure if you made the correct decision on who to invite :lol: only joking of course I am pleased the pair of you got a decent day out :good:

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Sounds like a great day , congratulations to both of you, did you record any of the days shooting Motty ?

Not on this occasion. It can sometimes be a bit of a chore to record and it can take away a bit of the enjoyment of the shooting. In hindsight I wish I did record some.

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A great result , muncher had already told me this morning of your result , good job it was planned for yesterday and not today looking at the weather !

Only one thing Motty , I am not sure if you made the correct decision on who to invite :lol: only joking of course I am pleased the pair of you got a decent day out :good:

Glad I did go yesterday. It's always difficult to know who to invite. With a fair few people who I could (and sometimes should) take, I can't please everyone. :lol:

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New avatar , is that the day you had with sam when you pair had the 248 and i had 137 ?

No. Add another 100 and you're almost correct. Didn't take a picture of the 248, because we moved the bag back to the truck in stages throughout the day.

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An old photo from 2011 then :)

 

Invites should be gladly recieved but never expected so no worries there mate , there are still hopefully some good days to come this year , though the way my peas and mustard are going I will not be handing out any invites just yet :unhappy:

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Well I had a great day watching Motty shoot and also standing in the most suspect mud (possible ****} that Motty liked to slare all over his trousers .He put me in a bramble bush so ive got puncture wounds ,butI did get my own back and slared some of that suspect mud over his shiny new gun slip.thanks.gif.pagespeed.ce.8dph9GhVFt.gif

Must say we left the crows alone to concentrate on the woodies but if a carrion crow came along I had to shoot it .

Edited by muncher
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Well I had a great day watching Motty shoot and also standing in the most suspect mud (possible ****} that Motty liked to slare all over his trousers .He put me in a bramble bush so ive got

Must say we left the crows alone to concentrate on the woodies but if a carrion crow came along I had to shoot it .

 

Surely you did not fall for the " I will put you in the best position" trick :lol:

Edited by fenboy
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Surely you did not fall for the " I will put you in the best position" trick :lol:

Yes, You go that side because your using an auto ,after a few shots with his berreta O/U he changed to an auto and tried to put me off with spent cases flung in my face .To be fair I did say it was a good place to set up . :shoot:

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well deserved bag :yes: that's more like what I,m used to seeing from yourself :good:


Great bag. I am pleased you also acknowledge a tricky year so far, i thought it was just me!

 

i have yet to score my 100 this year :unhappy:

 

Well shot chaps :good:

I agree its been a tricky year for us also, only turned around in recent weeks but , the wait will start again soon until harvest

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The title says it all , Intel is an important part of our sport. When I was working i would always come home by a different route to try and spot pigeons down. You did exactly that and had the rewards. Well done and a great report and result. With regard to the spacing of the decoys I've said before that we will go to approx fifty decoys when we have shot them and they commit with more confidence. When we used plastics we had 36 plastics and four thawed Angels as our normal set up. The only down side to that was the shine on decoys so we moved to twelve thawed birds.You need to have a waiting list for all the shooters who want to come out with you .

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