Beats cutting the grass

[GingerCat]

That was the other option, cutting the grass. I did'nt fancy it so dumped the gear in the car and set off for a field of stubble i had spotted yesterday. I had hoped to sneak off before the wife noticed but it was too late. I made a hefty withdrawal from the recently acquired brownie point account and didn't look back.

I wasn't very confident of shooting anything really. The area however does hold a lot of birds and i would be between two woods. one a little closer than I'd like and the other about a mile away. Worst case I'd lug a load of kit best part of half a mile and have a pleasant afternoon in the sun.

I set up half way up the field under an ash tree I pegged as a sitty tree. Behind me was a field of uncut beans and the stubble field I picked was surrounded by uncut wheat that the birds had no interest in. I threw some decoys about randomly and wished that I had 2 birds for the rotary. Poured a coffee and waited. Nothing. or at least very little for half hour and then I bagged the first one. A little while later I bagged the second so on the rotary they went. The birds should have been coming from my right, into the wind and up hill. For reasons known only to themselves came from the left with the wind behind them. This was a flight line I hadn't seen. They threw the brakes on and did a bit of a semi circle before flying over the decoys to land by the rotary. Odd I thought; that normally makes the jink, as I pulled the trigger. I moved the rotary to the middle which suited better and crossed my fingers.

They came thick and fast. In fact they came a little too thick and quite often way too fast and I ended up doing a Jdog. I ran out of carts. Its never happened before, I've come close but I've never actually done it. It made my palms go all sweaty and I had to have a sit down. The only plus was knowing I was alone and could deny it if I wanted.

That pulled the curtains on a pleasant few hours, 3 to be precise, and a long walk back to the car with a bag of pigeons.

In total I shot just over 30 pigeons with 20 odd picked as a lot fell behind into the beans, there were also a couple of crows that strayed too close. Really I should have doubled that bag and any other day would have easily,the birds were certinaly there but today I shot poorly.

Still it was better than cutting the grass.

 

[JDog]

Good man. I know you have been champing at the bit for weeks now so it was excellent that you had some sport.

[GingerCat]

It was better than expected too. I shall revisit it shortly.