First cauliflowers now turnips.

[old'un]

Nice bag and easy to pick from the field, as you say its more than likely the self set rape they were interested in, spring rape can produce some big bags.

[Fuddster]

now thats lot of pigeon.

 

good result from speculative foray.

 

f.

[marsh man]

Now the dust have settelled on Mr JDog fantastic bag , I wonder how many members would be capable of getting a bag like that even if they had that quantity of pigeons , three that springs to mind who have got the know how are motty , Muncher and P C , although there could be several more who don't post vey often.

 

First of all , how many would take that volume of cartridges , lets say you shoot 1.2 , that means you are talking about nearly 19 boxes of shells , if you are a tidy shot and can shoot 2.3 , then it is close on 350 cartridges .

 

On top of that you need to be pretty fit , and I mean fit , you go out and bend down to pick up 232 times , come back , lay them out and then bend down again 232 times to sack them up , if you are any distance from your motor this is where the hard work come into play

 

When I was middle age I could carry 50 at a maximum , then as the years rolled on it dropped to 40 , now it is down to around 35 if they are good pigeons , so for me to cart 232 any distance it would mean 7 trips with the dead pigeons without the gear I took ,

 

And then when you get home they have all got to be laid out again before you can put your feet up.

 

So although a lot of members would love to shoot a bag of that size , I can assure you it is not for the faint hearted , although if you keep aiming to beat your P B , one day you might get close to it and by then you will have a rough idea what it entails .

[Wilksy II]

No I couldn't shoot that many birds,I only carry at most a slab, the best I've shot is 20 for 27 shots but to maintain the concentration to shoot 232 is hard to imagine,the most I've carried is 50 and I couldn't believe how heavy they were, and lastly but a valid reason, I have no outlet for shot birds, our local game dealer has stopped taking them.

 

Great question marsh man!

[kippylawkid]

Well done JD. Fantastic bag - nearly a bird a minute.

Hope you were able to drive up to the hide!

[Wilts#Dave]

Good points to raise marsh man!

I've no qualms in saying I could knock up a bag like that given the quantity of pigeons.....carrying the pigeons back is really hard work to be fair but I usually carry 60 at a time in post office sacks when I've shot decent numbers.

Totally agree with all the things you've said in that it's not as easy as it seems to shoot bigger bags. Experience of shooting larger numbers helps massively, and shooting straight for long periods of time is hard.

I don't expect JDog used a huge number of shells for that number, I find on the bigger days I'll usually get a better average than normal as invariably they will have decoyed well. I picked 154 a fortnight ago on barley (a good 160/165 kills) with the 20 bore for 225 shots.

[pigeon controller]

Well done Marsh Man for identifying the effort required to shoot a good bag. Whenever I have a collection of birds by the game dealer he always ask's the same question did you shoot these yourselves and it always makes me think of the process.

 

Pick the bird when shot

Pick the bird to lay out for photo

Pick the bird to bag up to leave the field

Pick the bird to lay out to cool

Pick the bird to put in freezer

Pick the bird to bag up for collection

Pick the bag up for collection or delivery

 

My average number of birds per year is now 7K it used to be 10K that's a lot of effort each year.

 

I think a large number of shooters do not realise this when they enter the sport .

Edited June 28, 2017 by pigeon controller

[oowee]

Well done Marsh Man for identifying the effort required to shoot a good bag. Whenever I have a collection of birds by the game dealer he always ask's the same question did you shoot these yourselves and it always makes me think of the process.

 

Pick the bird when shot

Pick the bird to bag up to leave the field

Pick the bird to lay out to cool

Pick the bird to put in freezer

Pick the bird to bag up for collection

Pick the bag up for collection or delivery

 

My average number of birds per year is now 7K it used to be 10K that's a lot of effort each year.

 

I think a large number of shooters do not realise this when they enter the sport .

I think many have no idea even shooting on a casual basis let alone on a regular basis. They see the bags, and like to shoot but have no measure of the effort involved. Just to get out requires a combination of decent weather, a free day, access to land and in most instances availability of a mate to come too. Not to mention something to shoot being available. It's easy to see why not many shoot that often and that's before you factor in the physical effort. involved.

Many that join our club leave after a couple of years.

[pbutd]

If you take the sport/pest control seriously then you should always have in the back of your mind a clean tidy up & a respectable outlet for the dead pigeons;It does involve a bit of work.I sense there are quite a few of us out there in our later years & the stamina levels get a little drained.Since last back end I have had difficulty getting an outlet for large numbers of pigeons.Our local big game dealer went out of business & this had a knock on effect on the only other two,smaller dealers who stopped taking pigeons last Xmas time.

This now means disciplining myself to smaller bags that I can crown out (the same day in this weather);These I put into a marinade in the fridge for a couple of days & then bag up for distribution to food outlets locally. Crowning 30 or so birds ,cleaning & processing them adds another couple of hours to the day!

Stopping at 25-30 birds is not crop control but it does give you more time to accumulate 'brownie points' & do some of the jobs you were going to do before you went pigeon shooting.Although I shall be glad to find another dealer in my patch who can market bigger numbers.

[pigeon controller]

If you take the sport/pest control seriously then you should always have in the back of your mind a clean tidy up & a respectable outlet for the dead pigeons;It does involve a bit of work.I sense there are quite a few of us out there in our later years & the stamina levels get a little drained.Since last back end I have had difficulty getting an outlet for large numbers of pigeons.Our local big game dealer went out of business & this had a knock on effect on the only other two,smaller dealers who stopped taking pigeons last Xmas time.

This now means disciplining myself to smaller bags that I can crown out (the same day in this weather);These I put into a marinade in the fridge for a couple of days & then bag up for distribution to food outlets locally. Crowning 30 or so birds ,cleaning & processing them adds another couple of hours to the day!

Stopping at 25-30 birds is not crop control but it does give you more time to accumulate 'brownie points' & do some of the jobs you were going to do before you went pigeon shooting.Although I shall be glad to find another dealer in my patch who can market bigger numbers.

Although the TV Chefs do occasionally promote pigeon as food the demise of the dealer outlets is a worrying concern . Over the past 25+ years I have had to travel all over the country to deliver 1,000+ bags of pigeon . As the UK demand is not that great and more birds are shot it may be that we need to export into Europe via refrigerated trailers as I was talking to a Polish lad the other day and he said that pigeon is very popular.

[ips]

Now the dust have settelled on Mr JDog fantastic bag , I wonder how many members would be capable of getting a bag like that even if they had that quantity of pigeons , three that springs to mind who have got the know how are motty , Muncher and P C , although there could be several more who don't post vey often.

 

First of all , how many would take that volume of cartridges , lets say you shoot 1.2 , that means you are talking about nearly 19 boxes of shells , if you are a tidy shot and can shoot 2.3 , then it is close on 350 cartridges .

 

On top of that you need to be pretty fit , and I mean fit , you go out and bend down to pick up 232 times , come back , lay them out and then bend down again 232 times to sack them up , if you are any distance from your motor this is where the hard work come into play

 

When I was middle age I could carry 50 at a maximum , then as the years rolled on it dropped to 40 , now it is down to around 35 if they are good pigeons , so for me to cart 232 any distance it would mean 7 trips with the dead pigeons without the gear I took ,

 

And then when you get home they have all got to be laid out again before you can put your feet up.

 

So although a lot of members would love to shoot a bag of that size , I can assure you it is not for the faint hearted , although if you keep aiming to beat your P B , one day you might get close to it and by then you will have a rough idea what it entails .

A great post sir 👍

Kind of puts it into perspective. I am sure many (me included) never even considered some of the points you mention.

[muncher]

Well put marsh man, I regularly go to the gym and can run for 45 minutes and after a day like that I ache for a while don't forget if you stand for every shot that's a lot of times you use those thigh muscles.i often get moaned at by the misses for the birds laid out in the garage to cool then place in layers to freeze,takes some times 24 hours to keep them fresh.I always have at least 500 cartridges with me if not more I bet PC does the same.

Edited June 28, 2017 by muncher

[Mightymariner]

That's a heck of a bag, well done.

I bet you felt the pain the next day.

[OJW]

Nice to see a good report and success story lead to good conversation on the ins and outs of it. I hope your car wasn't parked too far away J!

[pigeon controller]

Well put marsh man, I regularly go to the gym and can run for 45 minutes and after a day like that I ache for a while don't forget if you stand for every shot that's a lot of times you use those thigh muscles.i often get moaned at by the misses for the birds laid out in the garage to cool then place in layers to freeze,takes some times 24 hours to keep them fresh.I always have at least 500 cartridges with me if not more I bet PC does the same.

I have 400 and DB 300 , if we get low we scrounge off Farmers etc.