Too Many Miles Again

[pigeon controller]

We set out on Friday full of enthusiasm after two phone calls informing us that the peas were blue over!!. We travelled to the two farms only to find two gas guns on the one and no birds and the other just had no birds on it at all. We continued travelling but the sky was devoid of any flighting birds. We looked at seeded fields of barley, wheat and even maize no birds. We looked at clover and rape , as we passed the one rape field we saw a birds dropping in so we stopped and clapped them up and about twenty birds came up out of the rape and flew round in a big loop and dropped in again.We had two options the rape with the twenty birds on it or some clover we had seen birds on in the morning . We decided to go and look at the clover only to find groups of Boy Scouts crossing the field with all but the kitchen sink clanging about on there backs. We spoke to a farm hand and he said the birds were all up at the top of the field by the copse , so we drove down only to spook about ten birds . So we left and drove back to the rape , our decision was" We get what we get" . As we walked the field the same twenty birds lifted off and went to the trees. We started shooting and the birds came straight to the decoys with a futher eighty lifting of from the border trees with the first shot it was the standard 15.00 set up and we shot till 18.30 and picked up thirty two birds some we lost in the tall rape. We do miss Blue!! DB was starting to panic as he neeeded thirty for his free curry. We had travelled one hundred and ten miles looking.

 

Saturday saw us heading in a different direction at what we call our summer farms who do not grow winter crops just wheat ,barley and clover . We passed through three of these with no birds we saw a few on clover but no numbers. We looked at our normal rape fields but they are too tall and you would loose all the birds. We ended up looking at the peas we were called out to on Friday which is a thirty plus acre field which had five stock doves on it. As we were leaving a shooter on a quad came down the track , we stopped and had a chat . he said that there had been one hundred plus birds on the peas yesterday and he was going to shoot it along with two other shooters. Next to these peas is a rape field which we had been asked not to shoot by the farmer as the Keeper likes to shoot the pigeons. The shooter we were talking to said he shot the rape yesterday and it was pants as the just flew off and did not return . He said that if we wanted we could shoot the rape and keep the birds on the move. We said we would have a look and have a go if the birds were about . So we drove round the seed and rape to the far edge with the wind off out backs. We watched it for twenty minutes and noticed that the birds were not bothered with the rape but eating the buds on two specific beech trees. We decided to set up on the edge of the rape between these two trees, we had the decoys from the day before which by now were a bit naff but we set them up in the tramways in the rape . In the first hour we had twenty eight birds , eighty percent comming to the trees and shot so they fell on the edge of the rape so we could pick them up . All the shot birds were put out in the tramways. The other shooters had few shots on the peas. We had started at 13.15 and shot till 18.30 and picked up one hundred and twenty birds and we had covered eighty eight miles but it was worth it in the end

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JDog]

Today's result was excellent.

 

I had a drive out this afternoon without a gun and I saw very few birds in the air. I suspect that they are all in the tree tops.

 

The chap on the peas must have been gutted that you shot so many.

Edited May 3, 2015 by JDog

[steveyg]

That first picture just does'nt look right.... ,as usual you got a cracking bag in the end. Well done lads

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Well done PC and DB, it's pouring down at the top of Cambridgeshire at the moment so we wont be out for a while.

[aga man]

Well deserved as always, great results.

 

It's suprising how quick birds can be lost in the standing rape without a dog!

[motty]

More excellent results.

I had a similar experience to your second day, some years back. My mate Sam and I were shooting on some set-aside after another pair of shooters had set up on the adjoining peas. They stayed for a few hours with very little action and they must have been annoyed with us banging away all afternoon.

[ditchman]

loverly job PC...............

[WelshMike]

Well done as usual. I am shocked to see that you have missed the total of the second pic. Did you misplace the large numbers you hand up in front of the camera?

[pigeon controller]

Well done as usual. I am shocked to see that you have missed the total of the second pic. Did you misplace the large numbers you hand up in front of the camera?

No for some reason Photobucket would not let me add to the picture.