Too Late

[scolopax]

Last week i had a call from my brother one evening tipping me off about a red hot field of peas he had seen on his travels.

 

I went straight round and true enough the field was blue with a nice flight in and out. I went round to the nearest farm, a horse livery kind of place, and was expecting to be told that the owner of the pea field lived miles away. But no, the field was theirs and the very nice young lady I spoke to gave me permission to shoot. I explained I would keep well away from the grass fields due to the horses, she thanked me as they were mainly mares in foal. It was quite late but there must have been a couple of hundred on scattered across the pea field.

 

Late next morning I turned up and pulled up on the road side to glass the field, no pigeons. And then I saw it, a landrover parked on the setaside next to the field. On the boundary hedge between the peas and the horse paddocks was our intrepid pigeon shooter and his rotary. Gutted!!!! I popped round to the farm just to explain that it was not me shooting next to the horses, during the five minutes I was there three lots sailed into his decoys. The woman at the farm thought the other shooter must be from the pea group, the land was contracted out for vining peas and the company sometimes had there own shooters.

 

Headed home to swap pigeon decoying gear for fishing gear but decided to do some door knocking on the way back. Found another good field with alot of pigeon on, nice old boy and his wife were sat in their conservatory but the answer was a straight no, he told me his grandsons liked to shoot so he saving the birds for them . Fair enough but he did ask for my telephone as I left. Half a mile down the road another pea field, not as good, only a couple of dozen on but i was getting desparate. Turned out I knew the farmer, we had been on the same coach to the Countryside Rally in Hyde park a few years ago. Unfortunately his regular shooter had shot the field the night before and was coming back later that day, otherwise I could have had a go at them. Not a wasted vist though as we had a good chat and it was another promising contact re-established.

 

Last hope involved a diversion of a few miles from my route home. The peas were much taller than the first three fields but there was the odd stoggie pecking away at the plants. I had shot this farm once or twice in the past and the farmer was more than happy for me to have a go again. But as I thought ,he said I should have been there a couple of weeks previously when the peas were only an inch or two high.

 

So a bit of success in the end, it was a slowish afternoons shooting with 14 in the bag and two rooks. Managed to use exactly two boxes of shells even though the sun was bright and my plastic decoys were shining like beacons. I must be a bit rusty at this pigeon decoying lark going by the kill ratio but overall after initial disappointment it turned into an enjoyable few hours shooting.