Pigeons and peas

[Beagle boy]

Went down my mates earlier on this morning and I saw he'd ploughed one of the stubble feilds.

This one is going for maize but the one behind will be drilled this week for peas.

How long does it take for the pigeon to cotton onto the drillings and will it always be a target for pigeons until it's harvested?

 

Cheers rob

[fenboy]

Depends how well it is drilled , I could hardly find a pea on the six or seven pea fields I can shoot and as such there were no pigeon interested .

Once they are up they can attract pigeon right through and after harvest on the stubble .

My favourite time is from when they flower onwards.

[Beagle boy]

Cheers Fen boy, me and him have been doing some crow bashing latly on the sh"t spread fields and had some decent result but we've done more clays than anything under flood lights.

Once he's drilled I'll have a walk about and see what's about then, it's next to some rape fields of next doors farm and my mates wheat and soon to be maize field so I'm hoping for plenty of pigeons throughout the year.

 

Cheers rob

Edited May 1, 2016 by Beagle boy

[kenholland]

my guy covers his peas with a white membrane in block form so just got to wait a bit longer.

[deny essex]

One of my local farms 10 mins from home drilled peas, never seen so many peas on top in my many years of shooting.

But what a flop , daily visits by me and one session resulting in 23 pigeon down, since then all there is about are just a few 15 to 20 home birds having a go at the plant now and then..

No influx of pigeon for easy pea pickings.

But thats pigeon shooting, could be a different story tomorrow ( with luck)

[bluesj]

One of the farms i shoot on drilled 50 acres of peas last week, not a pigeon in site but then there are no peas on the floor. but at least there is a chance of some summer shooting

[wraivi]

I have been wandering atound all day doing a recce over a couple of patches with around 12 fields of peas in varying stages of growth from germination to 3", and nowt but a few plovers, rooks and crows.

Not even any significant flight lines developing anywhere. Going to sit out into the late afternoon/evening to see if any traffic develops.

Have found a bunny warren though that I will visit with the air rifle soon though, so not a total blank so far.

[marsh man]

Peas are not the magic draw as we are led to believe , on average I have around 10 to a dozen fields of Peas each year to shoot over , I dare say more than half of them wont produce a single pigeon ,having shot the same farms for a number of years and with the pea rotation of around four years I more or less know the fields that are likely to shoot well and the ones that are not worth worrying about .

 

I have had fields where I have shot pigeons every stage of growth from drilling to pea stubble but to find a field like that nowadays are far and few between , maybe some of it is due to when they are drilled , the early ones are at a time where rape is the main food diet and the later ones around now the pigeons have started staying in the woods eating the buds , then the early ones are vined at the end of June when the corn is still growing and the later ones are cut at the end of July when the pigeons are on barley stubble and any wheat that have been knocked about a bit . just a thought though , maybe some of you experts will come up with another reason .

[muncher]

I believe that pigeons have fields they visit that are on there flight lines and that's why some fields always seem to produce and others not . As marsh man says above peas are not the crack cocaine crop for woodies and if they are not on there usual routes then they will not get any attention ,I also have another theory and that is different varieties' of peas probably taste different like say apples to us and if a variety tastes bitter to them it will not get eaten .Tin Hat on

[JDog]

You will be the **** in the hat then Muncher.

 

I don't agree about some peas tasting different to others. All have been treated with the same stuff.

[muncher]

JD I meant post emergent peas not the pink things.😁

[JDog]

JD I meant post emergent peas not the pink things.

Apologies then Maestro.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

I have had fields of peas that never see a single pigeon and others that get a good passing trade.

 

Who knows what the reason really is.

[marsh man]

You will be the **** in the hat then Muncher.

 

I don't agree about some peas tasting different to others. All have been treated with the same stuff.

I think Muncher was referring to the end product Mr JDog and not the seed used for drilling.

 

I find pigeons prefer vining peas just before cutting than seed peas at the same stage of growth , to us the seed peas taste hard and sour and yet when they are combined the pigeons are quite happy eating the seed that have dried out and gone hard .

 

P S . Just seen the above posts where Muncher stated the ones he meant .

[mark1206]

problem is what ever is drilled is done so effective now .

nothing spilt or on the top

[aga man]

The peas are worth watching from germination onwards in my opinion. Rape and other seed drillings are preferable whilst still available in my area. Once nothing else is available the peas can produce some good bags, not always but worth watching right through to harvest.

[motty]

I wish I had the acreage of peas to shoot that I was once lucky enough to enjoy. I could usually find something to shoot, with between 1200-1500 acres each year. True enough, some fields would yield few pigeons, and certain areas would produce good bags every year. It was mostly vining peas I shot over. The one 'pattern' that I found was, that at no matter what stage of growth the peas were at, late May and the month of June were the most productive.

[marsh man]

I wish I had the acreage of peas to shoot that I was once lucky enough to enjoy. I could usually find something to shoot, with between 1200-1500 acres each year. True enough, some fields would yield few pigeons, and certain areas would produce good bags every year. It was mostly vining peas I shot over. The one 'pattern' that I found was, that at no matter what stage of growth the peas were at, late May and the month of June were the most productive.

Before our local factory stopped freezing peas ( Birds Eye in Yarmouth ) we normally had the first pea drillings in the area , they would start the first week in March and it took around 14 weeks before the first peas were vined the third week in June .

 

I am not so sure with May being the most productive but June certainly was , I used to have a weeks holiday the last week in June and I would be shooting every day of the week on peas ready to be cut ,or peas that had just being vined , I would have a day off in the middle of the week to go to the Norfolk Show and then carry on each day till I went back to work on the Monday.

 

We also had large amounts of pea growers who took the peas to Birds Eye , Co Op and Smedleys and the very early ones were taken loose on the back of lorries to be shelled at the factory and the first pea stubble I went on were piles of stubble on pallets spread all over the field to dry out before they used it for cattle feed . Happy days.

[Beagle boy]

Cheers for all the replies lads, basically I'm gunna ask him to keep an eye out and see what's moving around. But by the sounds of it it's going to be the usual case of decoying some days they'll drop perfect others they won't lol

 

Cheers guys

[ShropshireSam]

Keep an eye on them but if not many about after drilling then usually numbers pick up when flowering (late may/Early June?), can continue then up until harvest, and then until ploughed in.

[lakeside1000]

I had a few hours out on Monday on a fairly large acreage of peas freshly drilled just before the weekend, there were plenty of birds in the air moving along a strong flight line between two woods, but were very easily spooked and reluctant to come to decoys , I only managed 7 and a jackdaw with only 13 shots fired but the main flocks were well downwind of my position, It was my first visit to the site and really just wanted to watch them and find the right place to set up next time,

The land is stony and there are hundreds of seed peas on the surface, the birds had had 3 days by Monday to clear them up but did not seem too enthusiastic, while I was on the land the sprayer arrived and covered the whole area with the bright yellow spray, no idea what the stuff was but it gave me a chronic headache , god knows what it tasted like to the pigeons.

anyway we have had some fairly heavy rain since then and the peas will soon be showing on the surface,

I am off tomorrow for the day, setting up on the main flight line, fingers crossed they are still moving along it,

This is only the second year I have shot over peas and last year was very disappointing.

Following on from the last 10 weeks on rape with some good days and plenty of birds I can only hope for good weather, good numbers and good luck.

Edited May 5, 2016 by lakeside1000