Ghillie 'suit you sir , suit you'

[lakeside1000]

In an attempt to reduce the amount of gear I drag out each time I go out, I thought I would try out a ghillie suit, a quick scan of eBay and sure enough , direct from China , my suit arrived .

So yesterday I left all the hide poles , nets , clips , pegs , guy ropes etc at home.

A long walk out to some large rape fields on a very warm afternoon and I was glad to be travelling a little lighter.

First attempt was on some new drilling's, no cover anywhere , just large deep water filled ditches, with decoys out and a couple of turbo flappers I sat down on the edge of the field to wait, but not for long, the first birds in were jackdaws and crows who gave me a very wide berth , soon after a small group of pigeons did exactly the same, so even though I looked just like a bush or large pile of grass they were still suspicious.

So I picked up all my gear and moved along the ditch to the corner of the rape field and the drilling's, best of both worlds, a large 5 bar gate and short fence section provided a decent backdrop, decoys out on the edge of the rape and in the drilling's field I sat down against the gate post,

Suddenly the sky was full of birds, committing straight into the decoys,

The only problem I found was bringing up the gun to mount and fire, just this movement was enough to spook many birds, eventually I found waiting until they were right in over the decoys before moving at least gave me the time to get a shot off as they fled in panic.

not the easiest day I have had and I did feel very exposed without the nets in front of me but as a simple way of reducing equipment weight it seemed to work ok,

Final tally was 14 pigeons , 2 rooks and 7 jackdaws, although in fairness I did stop shooting jackdaws after a very short time as I did not want to waste my 'clear pigeon' cartridges on them.

Of all the birds to come in for a look, the jackdaws were the easiest to fool and the least panicked by the movement of the 'bush'

So final thoughts, the ghillie suit is a good alternative but I think for now I will stick to the conventional hide set up, now all I have to do is untangle all the brambles ,twigs and thistles from the suit which seemed to be a magnet for anything that would cling to it.

[oowee]

Good effort and thx for the report. The suit still has a man outline (albeit more yeti like) and shows movement which spooks the birds. I sometimes get into a hedge If I am out without gear and this works well but the branches can stick in your .... and getting the gun up can be a problem

[kitchrat]

In an attempt to reduce the amount of gear I drag out each time I go out, I thought I would try out a ghillie suit, a quick scan of eBay and sure enough , direct from China , my suit arrived .

So yesterday I left all the hide poles , nets , clips , pegs , guy ropes etc at home.

A long walk out to some large rape fields on a very warm afternoon and I was glad to be travelling a little lighter.

First attempt was on some new drilling's, no cover anywhere , just large deep water filled ditches, with decoys out and a couple of turbo flappers I sat down on the edge of the field to wait, but not for long, the first birds in were jackdaws and crows who gave me a very wide berth , soon after a small group of pigeons did exactly the same, so even though I looked just like a bush or large pile of grass they were still suspicious.

So I picked up all my gear and moved along the ditch to the corner of the rape field and the drilling's, best of both worlds, a large 5 bar gate and short fence section provided a decent backdrop, decoys out on the edge of the rape and in the drilling's field I sat down against the gate post,

Suddenly the sky was full of birds, committing straight into the decoys,

The only problem I found was bringing up the gun to mount and fire, just this movement was enough to spook many birds, eventually I found waiting until they were right in over the decoys before moving at least gave me the time to get a shot off as they fled in panic.

not the easiest day I have had and I did feel very exposed without the nets in front of me but as a simple way of reducing equipment weight it seemed to work ok,

Final tally was 14 pigeons , 2 rooks and 7 jackdaws, although in fairness I did stop shooting jackdaws after a very short time as I did not want to waste my 'clear pigeon' cartridges on them.

Of all the birds to come in for a look, the jackdaws were the easiest to fool and the least panicked by the movement of the 'bush'

So final thoughts, the ghillie suit is a good alternative but I think for now I will stick to the conventional hide set up, now all I have to do is untangle all the brambles ,twigs and thistles from the suit which seemed to be a magnet for anything that would cling to it.

I sometimes wear a gillie suit jacket when roost shooting as it breaks up your outline a bit. Even when I'm standing in a big bramble bush they can spot you and, as you say, movement is the big give-away. At least in a wood you can see birds coming a good way away and raise the gun in the right general direction ready for them but in the open in a field I think is a bit optimistic!

[lakeside1000]

I did experience a few problems with mounting the gun as well, the butt kept catching in the large clumps of woolly grass hanging from the shoulder area, so rather than sliding the gun up my shoulder I had to almost hold it out at arms length , then when in position bring it back onto my shoulder, took some getting used to but after a few practice goes it worked ok,

I think it will stay in the shed for now, my main aim is to use it on the marshes in the reed beds when wild fowling starts again as carrying gear out across the marshes is very heavy going and its usually too soft going for my fishing trolley.