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Poor roost shooting turnout.


pigeonblasterian
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Turned out again tonight for another February Friday roost shooting session to keep the pigeons moving.Sat there in the wood waiting for a bit of action and heard a few shots going off in surrounding woods.Had a few snow showers but did not last long but is was a bit cold in the wind even in the wood.I think most of the other shooters must have packed in about 1630 after the snow as i only heard one shooter in another wood having the odd shot.If as many had been shooting as last week it would have been a decent session.Only managed seven tonight and had even put the dog a camo coat on so she was not seen as easy.I hope the weather improves for next Friday so a few fair weather shooters might be able to get out in the woods to keep the birds on the move.

Poor photo but best i could do.

DSC_0200_zpsqqeebiwo.jpg

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Good effort, plenty of guns out our way but not many pigeons!

aga man , our traditional roosting day have always been , and I think always will be on a Saturday , its very rare the numbers of pigeons shot increase the following week after the first week , if they do it would normally be down to weather conditions , and we also find after the second or third week the excuses come out why they cant make it , such as shopping , baby sitting , wife ill or any thing else they can think of resulting in empty woods, and then you can say it is more or less it for another year .

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I think once committed people should turn out but as an older shooter its very difficult for me to imagine standing in a freezing draughty wood for hours just for a few pigeons,

Having said that I will be out next Saturday with Marsh Man on our local estate, the keeper raises money for a local charity from the shooters so its a great cause and I would not dream of letting them down, but I will have several layers of clothing and a huge flask of coffee, lets hope there are a few birds to keep me occupied, good luck for your next outing, :yes::yes:

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I got my allocated wood at 2:45 yesterday and put about 200 out at the other end, a fair few tried to come straight back in but one shot put them off, they didn't really come back then till 3:30ish but they did come back in lumps and small groups,there was a fair bit of shooting going on round us but by 5:00 they had found a safe wood

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I would think most people would be out on Saturday nights. Most people finish work after the flight has finished. Was out tonight and could hear shooting from the couple of surrounding farms, we had a good night with everyone getting plenty of shots and a few more squirrels and crows cleared up!

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Strange flight yesterday - a bit of wind but birds very very cautious. Didn't get a good shot until light faded and then hit 7 but only picked 5 (didn't take dog as she can't stay still for a second). Thought it was going to be a good day as several hundred lifted from the field to my right but never saw those again. Still got back in time to watch England thrash Wales and heard last five minutes of Norwich game - a 5.1 win! Good day.

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No-one does organised or even semi organised roost shooting around here. If I get up into the wood I don't hear any shooting at all. The other year we had rape all around us and there was an amount of pigeons that flighted in. One time I did hear some shots from an area of wood a couple of miles away across the valley but there are so many small patches of trees that you would need dozens and dozens of shooters out at the same time to get any effect at all. I have stood in the wood where I have thought that this is a good spot only to have loads of birds come in 50 paces away. One slight move of position and out they go. So you think "well if they are going to favour these trees today, I'll stand here". That's when they come back into the trees where I had been standing. It can be great shooting but it can be very frustrating. I have shot the wood with son in law and have got him to stay at the best spot whilst I have moved around the wood shooting at Some coming in to range where I am and moving the ones that keep coming in to trees that are out of range. Again in my situation no-one much gets out and there are so many places that the birds land in odd few trees that you would need dozens and dozens of shooters out to even show any effect at all.

PS. considering the amount of pidgeons in the gardens and hedges around here I'm surprised that there are any birds that come into a roosting wood in any quantity at all. There just seem to be a few scattered around odd trees here and there. When out with the dog these odd birds fly out and just go away to other small patches of isolated trees elsewhere and they don't return to give the possibility of a shot. I don't know if it is something to do with the mild weather that we have down here but I haven't seen birds flocking up on crops for quite a few years now.

Edited by fortune
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Strange flight yesterday - a bit of wind but birds very very cautious. Didn't get a good shot until light faded and then hit 7 but only picked 5 (didn't take dog as she can't stay still for a second). Thought it was going to be a good day as several hundred lifted from the field to my right but never saw those again. Still got back in time to watch England thrash Wales and heard last five minutes of Norwich game - a 5.1 win! Good day.

Similar day to me.

I left the dog for same reason, three hours sitting about is not very cocker is it

The birds flignting in don't notice the dog and I let her run because it sometimes moves the ones that have perched out of range sometimes giving me the opportunity of a shot and stopping those roosters becoming a focus for others coming in to roost with those that are out of range. And she picks the ones that I would never find in the dark.
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Similar day to me.

I left the dog for same reason, three hours sitting about is not very cocker is it

 

It depends on how well the dog has been trained.

 

My sprocker is as fast and active as any spaniel but he knows when he is told to sit and stay that he cannot move, and he doesn't.

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