A bit of a **** up , but alls well that ends well.

[anser2]

Started my new pigeon season this week ( I do not shoot pigeons in late spring\early summer ) and finally made a bit of a bag out of a bit of a hash up. One field I have been keeping an eye on had been attracting a fair number of pigeons for the last few weeks and the farmer cut it on Tuesday afternoon. Knowing they would bale the field the next day I invited a mate for an afternoons decoying on Thursday. Wednesday evening I did a quick check on the field and was a bit miffed to see a couple of land rovers parked in the hedge and a magnet spinning against the hedge. Usually I am the only gun the estate will allow on the fields apart from the estate manager and rarely a friend of the landowner. I assumed the shooters were friends of the land owner , but when I talked to the manager the next day he said that “ Lordy was away “ and he had not given anyone permission to shoot on the stubbles. It looks like we had been poached by pigeon shooters. This is the second time this has happened in recent years.

 

The next day my mate turned up and we checked the other four stubbles that have been cut so far this year, but there was no sign of any pigeons on any of them except the field that had been shot the previous day. Normally I never shoot a field two days running , but I had a guest and this was the only field the pigeons were interested in. We set up is useless conditions , bright sunlight and no wind. Plenty of pigeons about , but they were shy of the decoys \ magnet and we only managed four.

 

Saturday once the rain stopped conditions were perfect with a good strong wind and racing clouds. The estate manager and his son setup on two of the stubbles and I found a good lot of birds on a third field of partly cut barley. But the only cover to set a hide up in was on the distant hedgerow. The fields was very wet from the mornings rain and I almost got stuck reaching the far hedge. I am of an age where if possible I like to drive across the field to my hide , unload my gear and tuck the car into the hedge. Gone are the days when I used to walk miles to some favoured spot. As I sat there watching pigeons pouring onto the stubble it was evident this field was wetter than I at first realised and I was in serious risk of getting badly stuck , so sadly I left the pigeons behind and set off to the only other available stubble that had already been shot twice in the past three days.

 

When I got there I was not surprised to not see any pigeons feeding on it , but there was a flight line across the field. Rolling 2 huge bales together I got set up with a couple of dozen decoys , a magnet and a couple of bouncers. For the next 4 hours pigeons streamed across the field barely in range ( many were just too high to shoot at ) Only one pigeon showed any interest in the decoys so it was a case of taking the odd chance at birds on the flight line. My shooting was not very good but by 5.30 I had twenty wood pigeons and a feral. What was interesting was that every bird was cleanly killed with no sign of a pricked bird . The combination of 1\2 choke and 28 gr of no 6 shot was working well on these high birds , that is when I hit my target.

 

Around 6pm the flight line dried up , but every few minuets a single bird would appear over the trees and unlike the early pigeons it would lock in to the decoys and decoy perfectly. Now most of my shots were in the 25-35 yard bracket and I did not miss many , but at least half the birds came down as runners .

 

It did not make sense early on I missed a lot of birds and yet those that I hit were clean killed and later I hit almost everything , but most were runners.

 

Ended the day on 44 wood pigeons , on a field that was being shot for the third time in 4 days so all in all I was very happy with outcome

[ditchman]

that sounds like a hard ole day...............

[motty]

A good result. I am interested to know, Anser, why you decide to have a self imposed 'close season'.

[Wilts#Dave]

Have you not got a 4wd or was it that muddy?

At least you made something of the day, and good going for a field shot so much in that time.

I'm more than likely a lot younger that you so couldn't have resisted a walk for more shooting, but can understand why you didn't....my Dad will wait for me to go with him if there's a walk involved!

[anser2]

Motty, wood pigeons have declined so much in my part of Norfolk that they need some respite from shooting so at least they can rear a brood or two before being shot again. A decade ago I used to shoot 2-3,000 a year ( my best day was 210 shot over rape ) , these days I am lucky to get 300 a year. My shooting extends over a 3,000 acre estate plus several more large farms , the crops have not changed ( mainly wheat\barley\rape\clover and some peas and beans ) , the estate holds many woods including a big one of 1.000 acres , so plenty of breeding sites and most of the year I am the only regular pigeon shooter on it and yet year by year the pigeons get fewer and fewer. 15 miles away on the coast there seem plenty of birds , but numbers decline as you start looking inland.

 

Over the last few years they seem to have ignored the rape and the only worthwile shooting has come over stubbles or on clover. We had a good beech mast last year and despite waiting for the pigeons under the extensive stand of beech I only shot odd birds in places where in the past bags of 20-40 were common. Roost shooting has been a failure in recent years with frequent bags of up to 50 dropping until this year when 4 February saterdays produced just 11 pigeons. Though in part that might be due to so few people roost shooting these days. So these days I only shoot pigeons in spring early summer if requested to by the farmers and thats very rare these days. There are just not enough pigeons to do any meaningful dammage. I keep telling myself that its just a bad year yet these bad years seeem to have been going on for the last decade so I try and let the pigeons some peace to get a brood or two off.

Edited July 26, 2015 by anser2

[anser2]

Dave , no I do not have a 4x4 so have to be a bit careful where I take my car off road. We have had 3 inches of rain in the last week so the fields are very wet and easy to get bogged in. As for walking , I am in my 60s and had a stroke a few years ago so slogging long distances over muddy fields is just not on and even worse if it was worthwile getting a big bag ( haha ) back to the car a nightmare.

 

Having said that its surprising where you can take a Fiesta with care so a little commom sense was required.

Edited July 26, 2015 by anser2