Jump to content

Farmer Aid


Recommended Posts

We had three phone calls this weekend asking us to shoot the same farms as last week , now we would not normally shoot week on week at the same flock but these Farms are very good to us in the summer on the cereals and beans so we were the " Obedient Pigeon Scarere's " this week end. We were under pressure due to the " Dynamic Duo" JDog and LLoydi out in the Cotswolds.

 

So we approached the first farm it had about eighty birds in the trees none on the rape , as we walked them off they just lifted and moved like a murmur of starlings , so we set up and within ten minutes the whole flock returned en bloc, two shots and they went away, after an hour we packed up as they had not returned and the farmer was cutting trees down in the wood on the edge of the field!!!!!

 

The next Farm was very similar but it did have a flightline crossing the rape to an Oak tree from which they were dropping into the rape . So we walked the field to the Oak tree and set up what we did not realise was that twentyfive yards from the hide was the old maize game cover which had been cut and the birds were dropping from the tree into it not the rape. We set up twelve on cradles and two on the magnet and proceeded to shoot the flight to the decoys. We kept an eye on the weather as it looked as black as hell " Over Bills Mothers" and we decided to pack up at 15.00 and just managed to get back to the Disco before it was a total whiteout. I laid the birds out in the garage and we had seventysix which was a good total as they were not feeding on the rape.

 

Today we set out with the hope that the field would not be snow covered, when we arrived the sun was shining and we had approx two hundred birds down on the field. Just pulling the Disco into the gateway caused them to lift off and disappear out of view. So we set up in the same position as last week as this is the only cover on the whole field. The only difference is the wind direction causing the birds to approach from the left to the right. Last week the weather was cloudy this week it was bright sun and as the day moved on the sun was directly in front causing some difficult shots. We started with twelve fresh birds from the day before , just on spikes in the tram lines and waited for the birds to return. They tended to come back in groups of approx five or six , so we had a steady return during the day . We shot till 17.00 and picked up one hundred and thirty two , which was a great result from a field we had two hundred plus the week before . Just as we were packing up we had a shower of rain just to wet the decoys and gear.

 

 

 

 

 

86664f02-0be0-419f-beaa-2e7db54d3911_zps

 

 

 

9035f54b-67a3-4eb2-b693-ca5278530492_zps

Edited by pigeon controller
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two excellent days considering the weather we are having at the moment ,

 

What amazes me is , when you shoot a big bag is the amount of time you must spend going after winged and pigeons that plane out without a dog , yesterday I shot just over 20 and I only took my young dog to get him used to being in a hide and at the moment he isn't retrieving dead birds , out of the 22 , three dropped well out and two made there way back to a couple of trees behind me, I did end up finding them all but if I had shot your size bag I would have spent as much time going out to retrieve them as it took to shoot them .

 

So do you pick up the live ones straight away and leave the dead where they lay , or pick up after each one is shot ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

another very successful 2 days on the rape, and to shoot a 100 plus a week after you shot 200 plus on the same ( winter rape field) is out of the ordinary

also its looks like that sheep wanted to be in the pic

Edited by yickdaz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two excellent days considering the weather we are having at the moment ,

 

What amazes me is , when you shoot a big bag is the amount of time you must spend going after winged and pigeons that plane out without a dog , yesterday I shot just over 20 and I only took my young dog to get him used to being in a hide and at the moment he isn't retrieving dead birds , out of the 22 , three dropped well out and two made there way back to a couple of trees behind me, I did end up finding them all but if I had shot your size bag I would have spent as much time going out to retrieve them as it took to shoot them .

 

So do you pick up the live ones straight away and leave the dead where they lay , or pick up after each one is shot ?

We tend to pick up every ten shot , we mark dropped birds with a location on the horizon, if we fail to pick it up one will return to the hide with the collected birds and direct the other from the hide to the location.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You did well under such pressure, and got the desired results!

 

Without you boys, that farmer would have some serious problems with so many birds.

We have found that the farms who " Direct Drilled " into stubble seem to have the problems this year as the drilled rows seem to be wider, just an observation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...