Am I missing something.

[kennett]

Right bit of background, I keeper a shoot for a small syndicate I start work at 6.30am so can't dog in. A friend of one of the guns offered to do it, he is apparently very experienced and more than knows what he is doing.

3 times a day he goes over and pushes all the birds out of the covers and woods back to the pens. I got a text this morning complaining there are no birds in our star first drive, despite being told there were 40 plus in there last week.

Has he permanently dogged them out of there? I always understood you dogged in from where you didn't want them to stop them wandering

[rimfire4969]

Dogging in has always for me been to stop the birds disappearing over the boundary and to push them back to where you want them.

[kennett]

Exactly, not pushing them out of exactly where you do want them, back to the pens. I don't want 2 drives with 500 birds in each!!!

[Cockerman59]

I dog in morning and night on our shoot, I started pushing all the birds back to the pens, now as the first day gets nearer, I dog in the boundaries pushing them into the drives, I would have thought by now you are feeding the drives not the pens, unless the pens are a drive, but the position of the birds change daily, for instance last night saw very few birds, this morning hundreds in the same spot and vice versa, On shoot day you want them in the drives

[ColinF]

You need to keep him away from the covers! He should only be pushing the birds back from areas where you don't want them, I wouldn't want them back in the pens during the day at this time of year. You should be encouraging the birds out to the covers to feed, as that's where you want them to be on shoot days, they will usually return to the pens in the evening to roost on their own. If you keep disturbance to a minimum, I'm sure they will find their way back to the covers in a few days

[kennett]

I'm glad it's not just me being dramatic, I'm cutting the feeders down in the pens and slowly moving them out to the covers. First day is only 6 weeks away

[hifly]

No my dear you just need to find the right person to help you out who knows what to do, I had 2 very good blokes who helped me out on my shoot and one of them was YOU !!!

have a look around on here, if I lived closer I would of given you a hand.

[Paul223]

He sounds like the kind of help you don't need!

[scotslad]

I take it there is no other reason for the birds not to be there?

 

40 is not a massive ammount (althou a lot for a small syndicate) and the bad sort of sized group that could easily wander down a fence line following a fly or something equally stupid.

Or no unwanted dog walkers or foxes? Even being disturbed on the way there from pen?

But as others have said plenty of time left for them to move back.

 

I'd definately ask him wot he actually does and how/where he 'dogs in' and wot direction. Many shoots (esp DIY) have got plenty of experienced guns that think they know wot there doing but many havenae got a clue.

Same with a shoot day when it comes to beating, most have not got much of a clue if they have not been on a decent keepered shoot/beating line before even thou they have done it for years/decades on DIY shoots

 

I'd go out with him and get him to show/explain wot he's doing, then show/explain to him wot u want done.

While it sounds like he may be at fault he may not know any better, and having someone on the ground as often as that for a DIY shoot should be a godsend, bet most wee syndicates wish they had someone like that even eys on the ground is a big bonus.