Darling Buds of April

[pigeon controller]

Following the warmer weather I counted eleven wood pigeons in the beech tree in the garden on Friday morning and knew from experience that the shooting at the weekend would be difficult as the food table was vast. With the warmer dry weather the drillings should be in full swing and that should give us some birds to shoot. As I drove past the first park to pick up DB the trees were full of birds in a feeding frenzie. I picked up DB at 08.30 and we drove out of the city north west and straight away we found drillings with plent of barley on the surface , no birds. We carried on and found further seed fields with  plenty of seed visible , no birds. So are we going out too early and the birds are feeding later?

As we drove out of the city is was evident that we had no birds in the trees or flighting. We came across two fields which were covered with crows but we made the decision to shoot pigeon as we had an order for two hundred this weekend. We looked at lots of fields to be seeded but they were untouched so we should have them to shoot next week, hopefully. It was getting on and we had covered seventy miles when we came across the first pigeons we had seen on rape but this is a farm we spooked the birds last week and they never returned. We phoned the farmer and gained permission. As we set up  we lifted approx eighty birds so we hoped they would return. We put out two magnets and eight stand ups  and waited, it was now 14.00 and I had a coffee in the hide and decided to drive the local area to see if the birds were holding off in the vicinity. I met up with Bunny_Blaster who was also looking, I carried on in a complete circle of the farm we  were shooting and found nothing. I went back to the hide and DB had shot twenty while I'd been away for ninety minutes. We had flurries of birds coming back to the field then nothing for ten minutes or so. We finished at 19.00 and picked up seventy birds and when I pulled up at home the odometer read 101miles  

70 hard earned birds

[Clodhopper]

Yet again you have well and truly earned every single one of those birds, well done.

[yickdaz]

you did well to get what you got, I think I can answer why you  seen no birds on the drillings they have not found them yet having only been done in the last few days everywhere we looked today  they were either ploughing or drilling, we shot an oat drilling today and got 24 blacks and 4 pigeons loads of seed on top, the farmer was drilling another field on the same farm as we were shooting so I agree next weekend should be better

[motty]

Well, despite your obvious frustration, I think you did well.

I shot my first drilling of the year (beans), and ended one shy of 40 for about 4 hours. I may look elsewhere in the morning.

[JDog]

A good recovery.

Yes these buds are problematic. I have hardly fired a shot in the last two weeks despite finding drillings with lots of grain on top.

[Wilksy II]

A great bag all things considered and the pressure of a large order on you back, lots of farming activity in east yorks, I’ve been invited on some drilled beans this afty if I can get a pass out, nice to have some good weather but with it come the flys and the problem keeping birds cool!

[pigeon controller]

Thanks for your replies, my post tend to be very repetitive but from expirence we travel the same route each week it will sometimes allow us to pick up on a flightline to new ground . Daz has it right due to the preoccupation on the buds they have not found the grain yet. So next week should be more productive. Re the order they will have to be frozen.

[aga man]

Great bag for the time of year

[Terry2016]

Very well done, I drove a very similar distance a day in the week and chose not too set up due to the lack of birds.

I will be out again this week though 

Atb 

Terry

[olly321]

nice going mate