Pike Posted January 27, 2004 Report Share Posted January 27, 2004 I am currently shooting pigeon on a small driven shoot in north Essex. The sport is good but lately a rather over zealous farm manager has been firing into flocks of birds with a .243 and scaring them off with quads and scramblers. The net result has been that the birds now feed and fly in large tight groups and will all swarm off at the first bang, never to be seen again. The farm manager is desperate to get rid of them and I am desperate to get under them, has anyone got any ideas as to where to go from here? Pike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JONO Posted January 27, 2004 Report Share Posted January 27, 2004 Here's an idea Get together with the FM and a couple of shooting mates and set up a couple of three decoy sites on the land. Get the pigeons then moving between the guns once they're "on the patch" - you should hopefully all get some time under them once they're being herded. Just a thought. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red_stag88 Posted January 27, 2004 Report Share Posted January 27, 2004 Get under the flightlines, and push them onto each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Beasley Posted January 27, 2004 Report Share Posted January 27, 2004 In my experience you're wasting your time once the pigeons have been revved up by paranoid farm managers resorting to terror tactics like fireworks, rifles, and military bomb runs. If your birds are feeding in "large tight swarms" like you say then you very rarely get any kind of flightlines and the birds are unbeleivably hard to split up into smaller flocks (saftey in numbers I suppose). More often than not the birds will fly off the field and climb to a ridiculous height (unless there's a decent wind blowing) when they see any signs of humans approaching or hear a shot. I've even seen them get used to a particular vehicle before! A good tactic (if you can convince the farm manager) is that you will kill more birds without the bangers, rifles and all the other nuclear weapons he's using. Explain it to him like this: The pigeons are there....they'll be feeding on his rape most likeley til any drillings start going in or the cover crops are cut. They WILL feed somewhere each day no matter how many bangs,rockets & grenades he launches in their direction. All the bangers and scaring devices do is make them harder to shoot by pushing the birds into groups. The scarers only work for a short time, they are expensive and all they are really is a placebo ( for the farm manager ) making it harder for you to kill the birds cos all its doing is bunching them up. The only real successful way of stopping them eating his crops is if the birds are not there, in other words DEAD... and the farm manager isn't helping you make them dead!! Another great way of getting good shooting in the winter is to get your farmer to plant a sacrificial crop of something like Maize. This takes their attention off the Rape and as I'm sure you know the Pigeons will go bananas for it, meaning you get good shooting, there's less birds damaging the rape and its not costing him time and money chasing 2000 + hungry pigeons around. Anyway its sounds like you'll have more success leaving them alone this year and waiting til spring when they'll have split up and your farm manager has run out of warheads!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G.I. countrysports U.K. GARY Posted January 27, 2004 Report Share Posted January 27, 2004 WELL SAID WILL... IF ONLY THE FARMERS WERE MORE OPEN MINDED ABOUT PIGEONS... THEY LOOK AT ME "GONE OUT" AT THE SLIGHTEST MENTION OF NOT USING GAS GUNS, FLAGS, ROCKETS, SCREAMERS ETC ETC. HOWEVER, WILL IS ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON, THE MORE HASSLE YOU GIVE THE BIRDS, THE MORE WASPIER AND DIFFICULT THEY BECOME... RESULT... LESS PIGEONS SHOT MORE FEEDING ON WINTER RAPE WITHOUT ANY CHANCE OF CONTROLING THEIR NUMBERS. ALL THE VERY BEST GARY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurch Posted January 27, 2004 Report Share Posted January 27, 2004 Speak up Gary, can't quite make out what you're saying! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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