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Drilling !


Longstrider
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At last ! Amazing spell of weather and I get the phonecall this morning from one of my farmers to say that he is drilling 80 acres of Spring wheat today. ( The first drilling on any of my perms all Spring) I've already got Sunday earmarked for a day with the gun so guess where I'll be heading for. Poor bloke has been tearing his hair out waiting to get the seed in the ground with all the wet we've had, and I've been waiting for the birds to have a concentration point so I can decoy them properly.

Trouble is I reckon every farm for 100 miles will be doing the same thing this week !

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We all get excited about drilling time and it is often a disappointment.

I the last three days I have driven two hundred miles and seen between thirty and forty fields of fresh drillings and there hasn't been a bird on any of them. There is very little grain on top so no feeding opportunities for pigeons. What I like is the scenario when a poor farmer with poor land and equipment drills late in desperation at getting his crops in. I also note that I missed the drilling of several bean fields as I was looking in the wrong place.

I hope you have more success than me.

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3 minutes ago, JDog said:

We all get excited about drilling time and it is often a disappointment.

I the last three days I have driven two hundred miles and seen between thirty and forty fields of fresh drillings and there hasn't been a bird on any of them. There is very little grain on top so no feeding opportunities for pigeons. What I like is the scenario when a poor farmer with poor land and equipment drills late in desperation at getting his crops in. I also note that I missed the drilling of several bean fields as I was looking in the wrong place.

I hope you have more success than me.

I won't be able to get to my ground until next weekend but spoke to one of the guns who was out for Mr. Reynard last night and he said nothing had been done, but all the kit was in the yard waiting to go.

This weekend the good Lady Penelope has a celebration itinerary lined up as I reach a certain milestone next week. Something to 'Grouse' about!!!

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7 minutes ago, Penelope said:

I won't be able to get to my ground until next weekend but spoke to one of the guns who was out for Mr. Reynard last night and he said nothing had been done, but all the kit was in the yard waiting to go.

This weekend the good Lady Penelope has a celebration itinerary lined up as I reach a certain milestone next week. Something to 'Grouse' about!!!

Then you should have some opportunities in ten days time.

None of the land to go into peas round here has been cultivated. I have never seen so many brown fields in the middle of April.

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3 minutes ago, JDog said:

Then you should have some opportunities in ten days time.

None of the land to go into peas round here has been cultivated. I have never seen so many brown fields in the middle of April.

We have 10 fields on our ground alone to be drilled. Peas and beans.

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If you had just come out of hibernation ,you would never think we have had the beast and what seem like endless wet and raw days , a lot of the estate land is contracted out for potato growing and these guys work long hours and have got the all latest gear to do with planting and preparing the ground , on the other land , two tractors are working the same field doing sugar beet and now all the spring drilling grain is now finished , the pea land is ready , just waiting for the go ahead with the dates .

When the conditions are ideal , shooting on drillings are now just a memory , the speed they now drill is unbelievable and yet there is very little loose grain laying about , normally a few Rooks will have a peck about then a few days later they will be gone and that is it till it is either laid or cut .

 

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Luckily I think my farmers' drill was in use the day Noah set sail in the Ark ..  There'll be plenty of loose grain about for the birds to find. There always is.

Off out there this evening after work for a recce and stretch the dogs legs :)

The same field gave a me a crop of over 400 rooks, crows and jackdaws in the 3 weeks following drilling last Spring.

Edited by Longstrider
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18 minutes ago, Longstrider said:

Luckily I think my farmers' drill was in use the day Noah set sail in the Ark ..  There'll be plenty of loose grain about for the birds to find. There always is.

Off out there this evening after work for a recce and stretch the dogs legs :)

The same field gave a me a crop of over 400 rooks, cows and jackdaws in the 3 weeks following drilling last Spring.

What did you do with the Cows ? , chuck em on the muck heap :lol:

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when i worked on a very big farm many years ago.when i used old drills there were lots of corn on the ground.but when new drills came out,it was put in the ground more, so no seed on top and my pigeon shooting went down hill.in the old days the birds would be there for 3 to 4 days now 2 days and there gone.modern drills for you.

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15 hours ago, mossy835 said:

when i worked on a very big farm many years ago.when i used old drills there were lots of corn on the ground.but when new drills came out,it was put in the ground more, so no seed on top and my pigeon shooting went down hill.in the old days the birds would be there for 3 to 4 days now 2 days and there gone.modern drills for you.

That is correct , one of the reasons we don't see many posts about shooting over drillings , if the person who shoot the land is working and cant go till Saturday and the land was drilled Monday or Tuesday then the chances of getting a bag a couple of days later now are slim and by leaving it all the week then the chances are virtually nil , that is unless the land is hard with clay or the farmer is using a ancient drill then the pigeons might build up like they used to and then by leaving them a working week might be just about right.

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6 hours ago, marsh man said:

That is correct , one of the reasons we don't see many posts about shooting over drillings , if the person who shoot the land is working and cant go till Saturday and the land was drilled Monday or Tuesday then the chances of getting a bag a couple of days later now are slim and by leaving it all the week then the chances are virtually nil , that is unless the land is hard with clay or the farmer is using a ancient drill then the pigeons might build up like they used to and then by leaving them a working week might be just about right.

 

 

good post, drill on monday gone by saturday.

Edited by mossy835
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It worked :)  Out for a start at 9am (not too early due to relatively nearby houses) and the 'black birds' just wouldn't stop coming in to my pattern of decoys. Hectic sport all morning, even struggling to reload the semi-auto fast enough to keep up with them at times. At lunchtime the rooks and jackdaws seemed to switch off like a light, but as a compensation there seemed to be a few pigeons winging about the place instead (hardly saw a pigeon all morning).

A quick re-shuffle and a trip back to the vehicle and I had swapped the crow decoys for pigeon decoys, leaving about 20 of the dead rooks out as a pattern off to one side.

Joined by a good friend for the latter afternoon we enjoyed our usual banter and Mickey taking until 6pm, ending the day with a bag of 77 assorted rooks and jackdaws and 32 pigeons.

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10 minutes ago, Longstrider said:

It worked   Out for a start at 9am (not too early due to relatively nearby houses) and the 'black birds' just wouldn't stop coming in to my pattern of decoys. Hectic sport all morning, even struggling to reload the semi-auto fast enough to keep up with them at times. At lunchtime the rooks and jackdaws seemed to switch off like a light, but as a compensation there seemed to be a few pigeons winging about the place instead (hardly saw a pigeon all morning).

A quick re-shuffle and a trip back to the vehicle and I had swapped the crow decoys for pigeon decoys, leaving about 20 of the dead rooks out as a pattern off to one side.

Joined by a good friend for the latter afternoon we enjoyed our usual banter and Mickey taking until 6pm, ending the day with a bag of 77 assorted rooks and jackdaws and 32 pigeons.

hello, nice one LS:good:

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