Hope and pray

[Clodhopper]

I had a call from JDog in the week in which he told me that he had travelled many hundreds of miles in search of elusive wood pigeons. He had eventually resorted to kneeling down and praying. Did I have any? He was getting withdrawal symptoms and beginning to shake.

 

I had seen a lot hanging  around a block of rape which was about 250 acres in total. It had not been shot all winter, however there were no strong flight lines. The birds were spending the day sat up in the willow trees which surround an brickpit in the centre of the block. We observed birds leaving trees and heading towards the far edge of the rape some 600 yards away.  

We decided that this was probably our best option as the wind was increasing a little and would hopefully muffle our shots and not disturb the resting birds. We set up on the banks of a land drain in the edge of a small plantation. Six dead birds, 2 of which went on the magnet completed the picture.

 

Birds came almost immediately. Some decoyed. Some came low and others from a height closing their wings stooping down into the pattern. All the time we were shooting we had small packs of teal wizzing by along the drain. More than once we were up on our toes at the sound of air rushing though wings only to see another pack of teal fly by.

 

There was intermittent sport for about an hour and a half in which time we accounted for 20 pigeons.  It should have been a few more but numerous times we both shot the same bird as a group came in. The birds then changed tack and headed off for another area of rape. Although not a big bag we had an enjoyable couple of hours and JDog had his fix of Columba Palumbus.

[marsh man]

Should be more than enough to combat Mr JDogs with drawl symptoms for at least 24hrs.

Most of our rape on the estate is surrounded by trees , at the moment they are still in a huge flock and rarely use the same field for two days running , this make decoying any numbers very difficult , although it is better to see big numbers and not getting many , rather than not seeing many and still ending up with the same result . 

[JDog]

It was a great place to spend some time out in the fresh air. We saw several snipe, a woodcock, loads of Teal and wild pheasants during our time out. Oh yes, and about 400 pigeons.

Clodhopper has fretted about how to shoot these fields for weeks now. I am afraid that I was no help in working it out. There is so much rape out there on the flatlands or marsh that once the packs were frightened off our field they had lots of other choices.

 

[pigeon controller]

Well done to both of you , Clodhopper well done for reducing JDogs cold turkey. Keep an eye on that field it will produce if it has not been shot when the birds start to split up for mating.

[Clodhopper]

Thanks PC. I am eagerly awaiting it to be top dressed in the hope it will concentrate the birds on the stunted growth.