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Flapper on Lofting Pole Experiment


Pykie
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I have been reading the few threads regarding putting a flapper on lofting poles to simulate a bird landing into the trees. Thinking it is a very good idea, I have Gorilla Camo taped my FF5 flapper and battery unit to a lofting pole, with the idea of lofting it up a few bare trees where I plan to roost shoot tomorrow. I just hope it isn't too windy as it is a little top heavy to say the least! I will let you know how it goes and post some pics. Wish me luck!

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I do not use lofting poles , but I do use plumbing piping to lift flappers etc above tall crop, it works a treat. Look forward to hearing how you get on.

I use the same approach for Angels as well.

 

As an aside in the Snow I spread camo net on the ground and lay my decoys in and around it, from above it looks like a clear patch of ground.

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I did try this years ago with a string operated flapper. I was in a hide under the tree. I thought that the incoming pigeons would see the pattern and come into it. but what happened was that the birds landed it the tree above me and I couldn't see them coming in. Or where they landed I would shoot the decoy. After this I set my hide up about 30 yards away from the tree so that I could see them coming in either to the pattern or the tree. I used #7 on the ones coming into the pattern and # 5 if the sat in the tree as I found that with #7 there was a cloud of feathers and they flew off. Sometimes only to the other side of the field where they landed in other trees and then fell out. I picked up quite a few like this but when I started to use the #5s on the sitters they fell.

PS if you are right handed then you would need to be on the left side of the tree to get the best out of the natural swing as they come in either to the tree or the pattern

 

As an aside in the Snow I spread camo net on the ground and lay my decoys in and around it, from above it looks like a clear patch of ground.

thats not a bad idea. never heard ofthat one but i dont tend to go out decoying in the snow much because we dont get much snow down here and I'd much rather go when the weather is a bit warmer than getting frozen sitting in a hide. been there done that.

Edited by fortune
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I did try this years ago with a string operated flapper. I was in a hide under the tree. I thought that the incoming pigeons would see the pattern and come into it. but what happened was that the birds landed it the tree above me and I couldn't see them coming in. Or where they landed I would shoot the decoy. After this I set my hide up about 30 yards away from the tree so that I could see them coming in either to the pattern or the tree. I used #7 on the ones coming into the pattern and # 5 if the sat in the tree as I found that with #7 there was a cloud of feathers and they flew off. Sometimes only to the other side of the field where they landed in other trees and then fell out. I picked up quite a few like this but when I started to use the #5s on the sitters they fell.

PS if you are right handed then you would need to be on the left side of the tree to get the best out of the natural swing as they come in either to the tree or the pattern

 

thats not a bad idea. never heard ofthat one but i dont tend to go out decoying in the snow much because we dont get much snow down here and I'd much rather go when the weather is a bit warmer than getting frozen sitting in a hide. been there done that.

Staying in the warm may be a better idea.

 

My theory is that they have to come out ot feed, and when they do I will be waiting.

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Staying in the warm may be a better idea.

 

My theory is that they have to come out ot feed, and when they do I will be waiting.

Keeping in the warm sounds good because I am at home off work with the flu. I know someone that has an old caravan that he tows out on on his fields with a tractor where he wants to shoot. The birds don't seem to take any notice of the tractor and caravan. He loads all of the kit in the caravan and sets out the pattern and shoots out of the door. The caravan is like a home from home. It's wind and rain proof and when he fancies a bit of warmth and a brew he has got the gas cooker available and can sit and have hot soup and if he has some trade come in he just picks up the gun and shoots out of the door. At the end of the day he loads up the birds and kit and either leaves the caravan where it is and takes tractor bad or tows the caravan back to the farm. Cushy or what Edited by fortune
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Keeping in the warm sounds good because I am at home off work with the flu. I know someone that has an old caravan that he tows out on on his fields with a tractor where he wants to shoot. The birds don't seem to take any notice of the tractor and caravan. He loads all of the kit in the caravan and sets out the pattern and shoots out of the door. The caravan is like a home from home. It's wind and rain proof and when he fancies a bit of warmth and a brew he has got the gas cooker available and can sit and have hot soup and if he has some trade come in he just picks up the gun and shoots out of the door. At the end of the day he loads up the birds and kit and either leaves the caravan where it is and takes tractor bad or tows the caravan back to the farm. Cushy or what

 

Cushy indeed, but I wouldn't complain if I had access to that sort of thing!

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As already mentioned above, I too used a string operated (WAGBI/SEMARK) flapper, with a dead bird fastened on to it. I would put the poles with the flapper in an oak tree, and put my net hide 20 yards or so along the hedge, dependant on wind direction. I used this for many years with good success. I was situated between several woods and could see around for some distance. When I heard a shot from any of the woods and saw birds on the wing, a few quick flaps and they just came straight to me. It was possible to turn birds away if you did not see them coming in and flapped the wings though. The good thing about the old manual flapper was that the wings folded in when at rest, pulling the string would stretch them out, releasing the string and a rubber band pulled the wings back to rest. I will be out tomorrow, but too old now to be messing about with lofting poles. It does help if there are pigeons in the area though. Still got that flapper somewhere too, must try and find it !

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As already mentioned above, I too used a string operated (WAGBI/SEMARK) flapper, with a dead bird fastened on to it. I would put the poles with the flapper in an oak tree, and put my net hide 20 yards or so along the hedge, dependant on wind direction. I used this for many years with good success. I was situated between several woods and could see around for some distance. When I heard a shot from any of the woods and saw birds on the wing, a few quick flaps and they just came straight to me. It was possible to turn birds away if you did not see them coming in and flapped the wings though. The good thing about the old manual flapper was that the wings folded in when at rest, pulling the string would stretch them out, releasing the string and a rubber band pulled the wings back to rest. I will be out tomorrow, but too old now to be messing about with lofting poles. It does help if there are pigeons in the area though. Still got that flapper somewhere too, must try and find it !

I met Sid Seemark at the basc road show in Maidstone back in 87 on the eve of the hurricane. Sid was a very interesting bloke. He was selling his new invention that was a game dispatcher like a pair of crimpers that primarily broke ducks necks easily. I made my flapper to match his. The main problems with this was that you had to have a bird to use the thing, and either the bird got so stiff that it wouldn't flap and you had to take it down out of the tree and put a fresh bird on it or that the load on the string caused it to Frey and break. I got over this by using a plastic full-bodied decoy with grey cloth wings that flapped easily and didn’t cause the line to break. Where the line went through the guide hoops I coated it with grease and shone smoothed the hoops with fine wet & dry. Back in the mid 80s when they didn't exist I made a 12-volt motor driven flapper. Mine didn’t ever get used because there was too much vibration and shake in operation and the fact that there were only lead acid motorbike batteries available it needed a lot more development work and sealed batteries. I even rigged up a Honda 50 headlight on my shotgun and the air rifle to go out at night lamping rabbits but again it was a lead acid motorbike battery which wasn’t that good with the acid. The advantage that the string flapper had was that it was light and simple and you had control over when and how many flaps that you gave it. I spent a lot of time in watching pigeons from a distance to see what they looked like when they landed and found that about three was right. if the pigeons saw this they would comit from a field away, and you knew it imeadiatly. I went with the decoy with the cloth wings but I did have this idea of a rotating shaft with white flash squares as wings but again it was the time developing this that was better spent out in the field or with my young family. Oh to go back the thirty years to the mid 80s.

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what i have done in the past was to put a couple of flappers up into the ivy on a tree....put them up on an angle to make them look if they are struggling to get a foothold in the ivy.....

 

now....that does work.... :good::good:

the pigeons do this on an ivy covered hedge over the road. smetimes I have seen up to 13 birds at all angles even upside head down to the ground.

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Keeping in the warm sounds good because I am at home off work with the flu. I know someone that has an old caravan that he tows out on on his fields with a tractor where he wants to shoot. The birds don't seem to take any notice of the tractor and caravan. He loads all of the kit in the caravan and sets out the pattern and shoots out of the door. The caravan is like a home from home. It's wind and rain proof and when he fancies a bit of warmth and a brew he has got the gas cooker available and can sit and have hot soup and if he has some trade come in he just picks up the gun and shoots out of the door. At the end of the day he loads up the birds and kit and either leaves the caravan where it is and takes tractor bad or tows the caravan back to the farm. Cushy or what

Oh how the other half live :lol:

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That's OK. It's not until you get the amount of poles and the decoy up there that you realise how high and how heavy and cumbersome with the branches and the wind that it is. My first attempt was with meter long lengths of dowel and plumbing fittings. No chance. It was like using plastic pipe, it was so wippy and it had a mind of its own in the wind and trying to get the beast up though the branches. Like fighting with a drunk snake.

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Well done Royboy, I told you it worked ! I found that I could get up to 8 x 6' poles up a tree, if I picked the tree carefully. I would look to use branches that would offer support to the poles as I extended them. Although I was not using any decoys yesterday, I watched birds dropping in from a great height to join a bird that I had hit, which had landed in a tree on the other side of the field. It is the movement which is the attraction, the same as decoys on the ground.

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Well done Royboy, I told you it worked ! I found that I could get up to 8 x 6' poles up a tree, if I picked the tree carefully. I would look to use branches that would offer support to the poles as I extended them. Although I was not using any decoys yesterday, I watched birds dropping in from a great height to join a bird that I had hit, which had landed in a tree on the other side of the field. It is the movement which is the attraction, the same as decoys on the ground.

Yeah it worked a treat, as soon as they sore it the wings where folded and in !!

Maybe I'll try a bit higher next week 👍

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