Windy day over Peas

[Hur5ty]

I found today shooting on Peas that my magnet scared 90% of the Pigeons away.

Bought it in after and hour or so and they started to play Ball.

Its was fairly windy so maybe that had an impact on the Magnet.

Ended up with 74 so on this occasion taking the Magnet in worked.

Anyone else had this experience in windy conditions?

[mossy835]

74 was a good day,i find the same with my magnet they just dont like it.so its back in the shed.

[aga man]

Some days it can be just the positioning of the magnet and I have sometimes found they don't like it if it is revolving slowly. Others days they just don't like it no matter what!

Great bag you shot regardless

Edited May 23, 2018 by aga man

[yickdaz]

aga man has said what I was gonna say, but 9 times out of 10 its where it is placed in my opinion anyway, others will beg to differ, good bag by the way 

[motty]

I have found that sometimes they shy away from the magnet early on in a session. Persevering with it can bring rewards.

[Hur5ty]

Interesting comments. Thank you!

I sometimes find that Pigeons do not like flying over it so I place my Magnet  at the back of my decoy set up.

 

4 minutes ago, motty said:

I have found that sometimes they shy away from the magnet early on in a session. Persevering with it can bring rewards.

Interesting. I was shooting over Rape a couple of weeks ago and they didn't mind the Magnet at all. 

[motty]

I shot 92 last Saturday. Several pigeons tried to land on the magnet.

[Clodhopper]

Well done, nice bag over peas.

I have not noticed any particular correlation between wind speed and effectiveness of the magnet. As others said some days the have it and some days the don’t.

[marsh man]

After all the years the magnet have been in circulation we should have by now have a good idea where to site it and more importantly when to site it ,  but in reality we haven't and each day is still  trial and error . just look at the above posts , some people swear by them and others now leave it in the shed .

If anyone came up with the right combination ( where and when to put it out ) I am sure they would be on a good little earner , but that day is still light years away .

With me getting old and lazy ,  I tend to use them less and less on drillings and low crops but find them effective on tall and laid crops ,     

[old'un]

It all depends on what mood the pigeons are in on the day.

[Walker570]

Twenty years ago my own made 'Whirly' was always in my kit and used with success, but as said I also had more success with it over growing crops , particularly laid corn.

These days ...a) I shoot less over decoys, try and get under a flight line, b) I travel as light as possible, a few real pigeons and a floater, but put a 100 pigeon shooters in a room and ask any question and you will get 100 different answers, because after you've been out there enough times, you know nothing is guaranteed.

They are certainly a lot wiser today I believe than 25-30yrs ago.

65yrs ago I would be set up by my grandfather in range of a 'sitty' tree inside a fully enclosed blind made from natural materials with a small window  18 inches square with a view of the tree.

I was given 10 to 15 cartridges and they would be counted against the pigeons I took home, one empty case had to relate to a dead pigeon, so every one was a sitting shot from the tree.

He would put out one beautifully carved and painted wooden woodpigeon as a decoy.

I don't think I shot as we do now over decoys until the mid 60s.

[Hur5ty]

It's very interesting reading all these different theories.

It just shows that the Pigeon has many different characteristics!

I'm shooting the same field next Wednesday so will let you guys know how I get on.

 

[pigeon controller]

I started approx thirty years ago when a chance meeting with DB while I was pike fishing. He had been shooting with his older brothers for twenty years. They had used cardboard decoys,painted milk bottles self made fibre glass decoys and folded plastic half shells. The best decoys were real birds injected with formaldahyde and carried in  a wicker fishing kreel.

They made flying frames to replicate landing birds, hand operated flappers. One that worked on a lofting pole up in a tree, four others that worked on a series of pulleys, so one flap from the hide had the effect of four birds landing in the pattern.

DB and I developed a hand operated magnet based on a cycle free wheel, cradles for tall crops and a flyer out of a tree swooping down Ito the pattern. 

We have bought magnets and commercial flappers. All in the pursuit of outwitting the Wood Pigeon. 

As stated previously all will work on the right day, the trick is not to fall into " Robotic Pigeon Shooting"  that is to say the same pattern and equipment each time you shoot. We have a basic set up and then adjust as necessary and this has helped us over the years. Even to the point of putting the magnet in the field behind the hide. The same set up will not always work two days running, as Old'un stated you have to find the mood they are in. As a general rule we do not like magnets on seed but have found them to be effective on clover if kept very low.

Well done Hur5ty on your 74 you proved that being adaptable gave you a bag, had you been dogmatic and stayed with the magnet you would have had a normal shooting day.

[JDog]

And there you have it Hursty, sage advice from some experienced pigeon shooters.

The sentiment contained in the last sentence of your last post is one I often see on the forum. Surely you are going to the same field to see if pigeons are still using it in numbers rather than going to the field and setting up regardless.

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, JDog said:

And there you have it Hursty, sage advice from some experienced pigeon shooters.

The sentiment contained in the last sentence of your last post is one I often see on the forum. Surely you are going to the same field to see if pigeons are still using it in numbers rather than going to the field and setting up regardless.

There is another question in the last half of your post , how long do you leave a field before you re shoot it  ? ,  again another question where you will get several different answers , where one person would bypass a field with only a few on it , the next one would be quite happy to set up for the chance of a odd shot , time is another factor , with us , within reason we can go whenever we like where somebody who have to work for a living might be working weekends and only get a day off during the week , this would have to be the day to shoot on .

Then , what quantity of land he can shoot over , is the land shared by other shooters , is there any of the same crops in the area , the distance the person have to drive to keep an eye on it , and no doubt several more reasons you can think of .

[JDog]

The same principle applies no matter how much time a shooter has on his hands. Watch the field and if pigeons return then set up and shoot them. There is no point whatsoever in setting up if pigeons are not feeding on a field even if that is the shooters only opportunity that week other than to enjoy the sights and sounds of the countryside.

As for the length of time a field can be left before shooting it again the same answer applies.

[Mightymariner]

 

40 minutes ago, JDog said:

The same principle applies no matter how much time a shooter has on his hands. Watch the field and if pigeons return then set up and shoot them. There is no point whatsoever in setting up if pigeons are not feeding on a field even if that is the shooters only opportunity that week other than to enjoy the sights and sounds of the countryside.

As for the length of time a field can be left before shooting it again the same answer applies.

A case in point, four fields of peas drilled Weds and Thursday this week on land I (and 3/4 others) can shoot, one shooter and his pal were set up on one of the fields whilst they were still drilling it.

[old'un]

16 minutes ago, Mightymariner said:

 

A case in point, four fields of peas drilled Weds and Thursday this week on land I (and 3/4 others) can shoot, one shooter and his pal were set up on one of the fields whilst they were still drilling it.

Nothing wrong with that if pigeons are coming to the field, or looking like they might, I’ve done a similar thing on a field of rape as they started cutting/combining it.

[marsh man]

21 minutes ago, Mightymariner said:

 

A case in point, four fields of peas drilled Weds and Thursday this week on land I (and 3/4 others) can shoot, one shooter and his pal were set up on one of the fields whilst they were still drilling it.

We never had the benefit of these type of forums or any other advice come to that , we had to learn by our mistakes and I still do , although nowadays we don't make as many and hopefully we don't make the same mistake twice .

I am not to bothered about numbers on a filed when I turn up , I am more interested in activity and movement to and through to the field rather than how many are on it .

One of my Pea fields have got a wood running down the side of it , if you look at it during the morning you might see 40 / 50 feeding down the same side as the wood , you know fully well that these pigeons have been roosting in the wood and have dropped down on to the peas , you can sit there for 25 / 30 minutes without seeing another pigeon dropping in from any other direction , I then walk them off and sit there having a coffee , after another 10 minutes or so without seeing anything it is now time to move off .

Now what I am getting at , many years ago after seeing the pigeons on the above field I would have set up for a slow few hours and I might have got a few last thing in the afternoon when a few come back to roost , like I say , you live and learn .

[Mightymariner]

Point is there is no way on earth they could have any idea whether pigeons were coming or even interested that early...how can you get a true picture if the field isn't even drilled completely, or for that matter, harvested. Surely it is better to wait a day or so to see if a flightline develops with the hope of shooting a few, rather than setting up for the sake of it?

[mossy835]

On 24/05/2018 at 09:09, old'un said:

It all depends on what mood the pigeons are in on the day.

 

 

down here they must be a bad mood all day then.

[anser2]

12 hours ago, marsh man said:

There is another question in the last half of your post , how long do you leave a field before you re shoot it  ? ,  again another question where you will get several different answers , where one person would bypass a field with only a few on it , the next one would be quite happy to set up for the chance of a odd shot , time is another factor , with us , within reason we can go whenever we like where somebody who have to work for a living might be working weekends and only get a day off during the week , this would have to be the day to shoot on .

Then , what quantity of land he can shoot over , is the land shared by other shooters , is there any of the same crops in the area , the distance the person have to drive to keep an eye on it , and no doubt several more reasons you can think of .

There are times when pigeons can get really hooked on a field. One small field of rape 5 acres was very attractive for them a few years ago. It had a hedge along one side and a spinny along the north side. We shot the field 3 times a week between December and March and never got less than 40 birds with the best bag just topping a hundred. There was another field on the same farm, much bigger field about 1000M x 250m again with rape and again it was usually a good field with the best bag 180. The field had bangers a gas gun, a windmill scarrer and loads of flapping bags, plus my mate and I shooting it regularly and yet the pigeons would not leave the field alone. The whole became badly grazed even within 10M of the scarers. The biggest problem was finding the right spot to decoy which seemed different every time we shot the field and they had a tendency to move down the field when we shot it. Still had some very good bags through on the right day. Oh those were the days. I had the advantage of being the sole shooter on the farm though I often took a friend.  Pigeon shooting is hard work on this farm these days.

[Hur5ty]

On 25/05/2018 at 08:39, JDog said:

And there you have it Hursty, sage advice from some experienced pigeon shooters.

The sentiment contained in the last sentence of your last post is one I often see on the forum. Surely you are going to the same field to see if pigeons are still using it in numbers rather than going to the field and setting up regardless.

I've been watching and they are still plentiful!

It's 2 minutes from my house which help.

Great advice all round. You can never stop leaning.

 

On 25/05/2018 at 08:19, pigeon controller said:

I started approx thirty years ago when a chance meeting with DB while I was pike fishing. He had been shooting with his older brothers for twenty years. They had used cardboard decoys,painted milk bottles self made fibre glass decoys and folded plastic half shells. The best decoys were real birds injected with formaldahyde and carried in  a wicker fishing kreel.

They made flying frames to replicate landing birds, hand operated flappers. One that worked on a lofting pole up in a tree, four others that worked on a series of pulleys, so one flap from the hide had the effect of four birds landing in the pattern.

DB and I developed a hand operated magnet based on a cycle free wheel, cradles for tall crops and a flyer out of a tree swooping down Ito the pattern. 

We have bought magnets and commercial flappers. All in the pursuit of outwitting the Wood Pigeon. 

As stated previously all will work on the right day, the trick is not to fall into " Robotic Pigeon Shooting"  that is to say the same pattern and equipment each time you shoot. We have a basic set up and then adjust as necessary and this has helped us over the years. Even to the point of putting the magnet in the field behind the hide. The same set up will not always work two days running, as Old'un stated you have to find the mood they are in. As a general rule we do not like magnets on seed but have found them to be effective on clover if kept very low.

Well done Hur5ty on your 74 you proved that being adaptable gave you a bag, had you been dogmatic and stayed with the magnet you would have had a normal shooting day.

Some great advice and some interesting points.

 

[Hur5ty]

On 25/05/2018 at 10:00, marsh man said:

There is another question in the last half of your post , how long do you leave a field before you re shoot it  ? ,  again another question where you will get several different answers , where one person would bypass a field with only a few on it , the next one would be quite happy to set up for the chance of a odd shot , time is another factor , with us , within reason we can go whenever we like where somebody who have to work for a living might be working weekends and only get a day off during the week , this would have to be the day to shoot on .

Then , what quantity of land he can shoot over , is the land shared by other shooters , is there any of the same crops in the area , the distance the person have to drive to keep an eye on it , and no doubt several more reasons you can think of .

I have  a family with little ones so time is a factor so I go regardless to the surroundings.

I am more than happy just to be out in the field shooting the odd Pigeon.