pigeon controller Posted January 6, 2018 Report Share Posted January 6, 2018 This season is strange over all our rape fields none have birds of any quantity other than the field we are shooting each week. This field has delivered the following:- December 9th 30 birds, Dec16th 39 birds, Dec23rd 79 birds,Dec 30th 53 birds and January 6th 52 birds. No field can sustain this amount of shooting pressure yet it still produces but the shooting period each weekend shortens as they wise up and have started to flock up and be more difficult to decoy. We deliberately drove round all our shoots this weekend only to end up on the Banker field, I did manage to find 100 plus on a shared permission and informed the other shooter but the feedback I received was negative after he set up. We have always relied on Flightlines as our main stay of finding shooting at present all our known lines have dried up and we drive and see no birds in the air , which is strange. When I attend the horse in the mornings you can bank on birds coming out of the city to feed but the last three weeks it has been very quiet and I suspect the birds are on acorns and allotments within the city boundry. So todays efforts, we set up with six decoys as I had used some of my decoy stock to complete two orders I had for pigeon last week ( 300 and 122) So it was two on the magnet , one flyer and three on spikes. The birds just came in enblock and we let them pass putting a shot up when they had gone a good distance as to not spook them direct. This broke up the flock and we had individual birds decoy. We had started at 11.00 and finished at 13.00, shooting 52.We left the farm to allow the birds to regroup and possibly feed to perhaps allow us another week end shoot. We then drove back towards Brum and went to a roost wood on a farm who were running a game shoot and we hoped that the birds would be directed to our wood , but to no avail we ended the roost with a further eight. It was nice shooting as the wind was strong and from a differnt direction than normal. 52 on the rape a further 8 at roost Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenholland Posted January 6, 2018 Report Share Posted January 6, 2018 blue heaven , well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NatureBoy Posted January 6, 2018 Report Share Posted January 6, 2018 As you say PC, very strange season. It's the same here in mid Suffolk. No flight lines and nothing in the air. What are on rape if you put them off or have a shot none return. Checked all my farms. None came back. Ended up in what is normally a good roost wood with good breeze blowing. only 3 birds came in to wide. Ended up with a magpie, squirrel and 2 nice rabbits. The good number of birds that are in a lot of the game covers you would not know were in there until they are pushed out. No traffic in or out at all. They just drop back into the next one. NB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yickdaz Posted January 6, 2018 Report Share Posted January 6, 2018 it is a strange season, there is none on some rape fields and very few on others, around here you have done well shooting week in week on one rape field with decent results, but its not dissimilar to the area we have been shooting on stubble since oct with a total of around 500 shot on a few stubbles about 1/2 a mile apart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old'un Posted January 7, 2018 Report Share Posted January 7, 2018 Seeing exactly the same pattern, which is unusual for this area, I am covering around 15 fields of rape spread over a good area, and only two of those fields are showing a few birds, around 200, and as you say flightlines are virtually none existent, strange indeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbutd Posted January 7, 2018 Report Share Posted January 7, 2018 Certainly a difficult early winter period for 'pinning down' the blue marauders;Earlier on there were some decent flocks on the huge acorn crop in Herefordshire & we were able to get a few bags of 30,40 50ish but then about a month ago they dispersed onto the Ivy berries (Roadside hedges, Ivy clad trees on the edge of woods &ancient,uncut hedgerows in the valleys) & we have been reduced to alternating our decent,shooting season roost woods for bags of 10-15ish. It is always difficult to identify any reasonable flightlines when they are on the Ivy berries & I sometimes think they will roost where they are feeding? I was down on the Cornish coast (Newquay area ) last Wed (in all that wind/rain) & I have never seen so many pigeons in one place for a long time.Unfortunately it was quite a posh shoot & as a guest I had to behave myself...but I was pretty twitchy all day. Lines & lines of pigeons were flighting along the treetops as I stood on my pegs down in the valley.Despite the fact that the phaesants/partridges were truly testing ,exciting targets, I could happily have shot at the pigeons all day long.My smoking rate went up a bit. I can remember years like this not so long ago when the natural food supports the pigeons well into the winter & still maintain that they will only focus on the rape as a last resort.In this Parish I think it will be early Feb before they need to get onto the rape.In the meantime we might get a day on the flailed cover crops? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDog Posted January 7, 2018 Report Share Posted January 7, 2018 PC Stay in bed until next Friday's outing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TIGHTCHOKE Posted January 7, 2018 Report Share Posted January 7, 2018 Well done PC, wish we all had a "banker" field! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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