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Decoying, Flighting and Roosting with Jdog


OJW
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Jdog kindly invited me down to the Cotswolds for a days pigeon shooting yesterday. I set off from Surrey at about 7:30am and had an easy drive up the M25 / M40 to get across in 1hr 20mins which I was happy with and only arrived 3minutes late.

 

Jdog - please add details of any technical bit I have failed to explain properly. Or indeed anything else.

 

Decoying

We split up and watched for pigeon movement before setting up one main hide on the top corner of a block of woodland. The wind along the top edge of the wood was good, around 10-15mph at this point and Jdog used two magnets carefully placed to guide the pigeons into our decoys as they struggled to get in. Jdog encouraged me to shoot them out as far as I could rather than hoping they would make it in to the decoys struggling in the wind. The set up worked well and we had a few good flocks come over us, shooting about 20 in a couple of hours. The picture is the view from one side of the hide, in front was a hedgerow and the main set up was in the other field to the right of the picture (out of shot).

 

We decided to move on to a second rape field, it took a big slog across a couple of fields with all the kit but it was worth it. The wind began to really pick up and the birds decoyed well. It was great watching them commit and pull of their flight line along a hedge from a long way out. We got another 15 or so here and then decided to go to a flighting wood. I don't have a picture of the second location unfortunately. The wind was even stronger by this point.

 

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(one of the magnets - doesn't really show lay out very well)

 

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(hide view)

 

 

Flighting

We went to a small wood with tall trees and by this point the wind was really fantastic. Jdog had some great snap shots with birds swirling in out of nowhere only giving us a seconds notice to react. We put a couple of crude nets between some trees and this was about all the cover we needed. It started raining hard and we witnessed a couple of brilliant rainbows (Jdog pictured walking back to the car under one). The good thing about the showers was that it kept the birds moving, in that almost as soon as one shower stopped, we could expect a small flock to take advantage of the pause in rain moving on into our wood for their next pitstop. We only counted what we could pick in this wood and left with about 7.

 

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(view from the wood)

 

Roost Shooting

I thought that the trees in the last wood were high, but these ones took the biscuit. The wood was on a steep slope and all of the trees were at least 60ft high, lower on the slope shooting at anything above them there was some serious distance involved. Jdog put me in the best spot in the centre of the wood and he went off to the bottom to keep them moving.

 

I can only describe this as the Ferrari of pigeon shooting. Within minutes birds started screaming over above or circling into the tree tops. It was like being on a driven shoot with the most amazing birds being pushed across the tops of the trees on a woodland drive. Instinct took over and within the first 10 minutes I accounted for the 3 best pigeons I have ever shot (for 7 shots!). They kept coming and I finished with another two or three. Jdog came over to stand near me (dropping 3 or 4 dead bird from his last position by his side) and I watched him shoot some more great birds. We stood in the wood for about an hour and finished the day on a bag of just over 50. The wind and conditions were good to us all day and I was lucky to be able to shoot all three of these disciplines in one day. It got dark so I couldn't take any pictures of this wood. I forgot at the start.

 

After the shooting was over we went to a stunning and very classy local gastro pub, literally full to the rafters of beautiful women, where Jdog was greeted by on a first name basis by the barman. Must be a local haunt :rolleyes: . After a good chat and fully appreciating the local talent we departed. A fantastic day. Thank you J.

Edited by OJW
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No Jasper? Great report OJW sounds like a fantastic sporting day. :good:

 

Cheers. Jdog was down for work during the week so had to leave jasper at home unfortunately. Had we had him, we would have had a bag closer to 60.

Edited by OJW
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We had perfect conditions for our bit of sport. Sadly the shooting took a back seat as far as OJW was concerned when a girl came into the pub wearing tight white trousers and no knickers.

I take it pictures of the young lady are to follow?

 

It sounds like a very good day all round!

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Great write up of what sounds like a fantastic day all round.

If JD could market days like that, how much would they go for?

A very generous host.

 

 

 

17s/6d-1/2d at the very least.....................

 

 

 

 

(stop encouraging him.. :lol: )

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Great write up of what sounds like a fantastic day all round.

If JD could market days like that, how much would they go for?

A very generous host.

 

 

By the time OJW had bought me two White Russians in the gastro pub it had cost him almost as much as a day's driven pheasant shooting.

 

I have never charged for taking people out pigeon shooting. My reward is to give them a few shots and to be thanked afterwards. Sometimes the latter never happens.

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By the time OJW had bought me two White Russians in the gastro pub it had cost him almost as much as a day's driven pheasant shooting.

 

I have never charged for taking people out pigeon shooting. My reward is to give them a few shots and to be thanked afterwards. Sometimes the latter never happens.

 

Haha, as long as they tasted as good as the girls in there looked they were worth every penny!

 

I don't think we would have been quick enough to have shot some of the birds we did without the skinny cappuccinos we stopped for to wake us up ... Us southern folk are a hardy bunch!

 

What a great read, liked the way you describe some of them birds as the ferrari equivalent of pigeon shooting, I struggle to get on them at morris minor speed never mind like that. Well done and a fantastic gesture again from jd. Great pics always help with the story!

 

atb

7diaw

 

Glad you and everyone else enjoyed the read.

 

They really were like that, performance birds! What I find amazing is that the same ones would have decoyed just like any other bird (or Moris Minor), but the difference in making them into Ferraris was purely Jdog's knowledge of them and the local area.

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By the time OJW had bought me two White Russians in the gastro pub it had cost him almost as much as a day's driven pheasant shooting.

 

I have never charged for taking people out pigeon shooting. My reward is to give them a few shots and to be thanked afterwards. Sometimes the latter never happens.

Yes, I know you're exceptionally generous with your invites. It is rewarding to see a friend buzzing after sharing a good day.

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