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Barley barmy!


motty
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I thought I would finally report on my day out with Muncher on Saturday.

I spotted a field of barley in a very good pigeon area that had several small laid patches. The pigeons took a few days to take advantage, but numbers grew steadily until there was several hundred - maybe more - using the field. I was eager to shoot the field on Wednesday last week, but it really had to be Saturday. I was slightly concerned that another shooter may beat me to it, or that the farmer might decide to take his own action. I needn't have worried.

Last Friday afternoon I checked the field again. Pigeons erupted from all over. I phoned Jules to tell him that I thought a 200 bag could be on the cards. I then planned my attack.

It was clear that picking pigeons would be difficult in all but one spot. I hate losing birds, so decided we should set up next to a piece of bare ground next to a decent sized flat patch. This spot had the added bonus of being next to a lone tree that I was certain the birds would head for if they didn't fancy the pattern.

So to the day itself. I met Jules at 8am near the field, with a view to be shooting by about 8.30am. I thought that we would get a few early birds, with the main flight coming later. We encountered a problem. The pigeons kept heading to some trees along the right edge of the field. I decided to take the .410 and pop a few off over there, whilst Jules manned the decoys. I managed to pop off several in half an hour there. By this time the action had started to heat up in the hide. I had to watch as Jules was knocking down several pairs. I went back to join him.

I have neglected to mention so far that we had a 'busy' looking layout. We had two flappers, two magnets, a floater and several decoys. It worked to good effect for the most part. The birds still went across to the trees on the right and I have no doubt that it was THE spot. Picking the birds would have been a nightmare, though. The good thing was, though, that many of the birds that got disturbed from those trees, then decided to pay us a visit.

I had thought the birds had dried up completely on at least three occasions during the afternoon, only to be proved wrong with birds pouring out time after time. It was great to see such volumes of birds; the main line was incredibly busy, with some bunches 50 strong on the wing.

We decided to pack up at around 5pm. The action had slowed dramatically. I'm sure we could have shot more, but we had had plenty of sport and we had a big pick up still to do.

The dogs worked extremely hard, bringing back bird after bird. It was handy that several birds were shot and landed almost in heaps, especially under the tree to the right.

Over an hour later we were ready to leave. We had bagged a lovely 256 pigeons and a single crow.

I have edited the film of the day, which will be ready to view shortly.

WP_20170624_0011_zpsr61si0jb.jpg

 

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That's some day on Barley Motty, awesome result....glad no one beat you to it as well!

The fields we shot were heaving with birds again last week which we planned to shoot Friday but on the Thursday afternoon a couple of 'beaters' appeared and ruined that for us, oh well.

Do you find you get a lot of sport early on? Never seem to have much success with early starts, most of the action always seems to be after 12 o clock.

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its bit frustrating seeing all these bags coming in on here and the FB page, and not seeing any or very little around us we have no laid barley at the moment its all standing some are going on it but you would be surrounded by standing crops and I,m not shooting birds over them

but anyhow well done great bag :good:

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Good report and result Motty, what's your .410 set up gun/ammo? Just out of interest. Obviously a useful combination, when applied with some good shooting of course.

 

 

Id like to know that too .as have been playing with the idea of .410 again .

The .410 I was using was a 26" barrelled Yildiz o/u. The cartridges I used on the day were a real mix. I used anything from 9gm of no.6 to 18gm of no.8.

I mostly used 14gm of 7.5 or 18gm of 8s.

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