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An Entertaining Afternoon ( In More Ways Than One )


marsh man
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With our peas now in flower there is very little sport to be had , so yesterday I had a ride round and found a field of poorly grown Mustard that had a nice lot of pigeons dropping in , this farm is on the estate and is farmed by a tenant who I know quite well , rather than take it for granted I always find it best to ask first and after a search round I found him spraying some spring barley , when he stop his tractor you know you are going to be there for ages putting the world to right , having told him where the pigeons were feeding he said yea cause you can , go when you like , this was now well past four o clock so rather than shoot it for a couple of hours I thought I will leave it till today .

Having finished my chores early due to the town being extra busy for todays air show I was on my way a little after 1pm , pulling up at the gate I could see plenty of pigeons on the move and feeding on the crop , when I say gate it is two scaffold poles with a welded chain and a combination lock to keep the travellers out , so it meant lugging the gear over to the other side of the field , this I made it in one go and I was ready for the first customer by 2pm , within a couple of minutes there was a roar in the distance and out of the sun came a Lancaster with two Spitfires on the outside of each wing , when it got over the top of me there were pigeons everywhere as they are not used to these planes roaring over the woods and there afternoon was going to be disturbed in more ways than a number of air crafts flying about .

As the afternoon wore on I had the Red Arrows , stunt planes and other planes roaring overhead making there way to the sea front , this was lovely , plenty of pigeons , nice warm weather and an air display to cap it off ,

I decided to call it a day at 6pm as I had two trips back to my car with the dead pigeons and some of my gear as the rest of it I left till later on during the week when I will have another go , just to let P C know we can lay the bag out neatly if we try , mind you these are in my garage and not on the field as on the field they are still know as the Norfolk heap , the bag was exactly 60 picked and out of these there were two of this years young .

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very nice....you and motty on the blacks have had some sport ....................

 

oohhh...i know what i wanted to say....went to get the papers this morning.....saw pigeons gliding onto the barley and pushing it down..........................this time last year we had some heavy rain storms which had pushed a lot of areas down.....nothing down here anywhere this year so far...so it appears the birds were making it happen..........havnt even seen them gritting either...

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5 minutes ago, JDog said:

A fine bag, the best you have had for a while I believe.

Certainly is Mr JDog , our peas have been poor this year as far as shooting goes , you struggle to get into double figures and then it stop completely , I have looked at different times of the day and they are just not there , there is a gas gun on one of the fields not for the pigeons but a few rooks are on the keeppers game cover that is now above ground level. and now I fear we will have to wait till the pods are on before we get a bit of sport,

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11 hours ago, muncher said:

That's a great afternoon MM, I had a flying fortress over me last week, fantastic sight.

Lovely to watch and very nostalgic , when the Lancaster came over me it was making quite a roaring sound , when you see some of the ole clips of the sky full of them dropping off the parachutist  during the war years you can only imagine the noise it created .

A few years ago we had a Catalina sea plane came and landed on the lake , the noise and the spray it made was something else and well worth seeing .

11 hours ago, motty said:

Excellent bag. Mustard can be a good crop at this time,

This field is a poor crop to tell yer the truth with plenty of weeds growing as well , good for pigeons but I am not so sure if the crop is for commercial or for conservation as the farmer is very good at his job and last year he won the Silver Lapwing award for conservation and sustainability , so he obviously knows what hes doing when it comes to farming.

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Wonderful report of a memorable day in more ways than none. A fly past of historic aircraft and the precision of the red arrows which  I saw at the Athens Air show last year and the pride I had when the Greek and Turkish display teams applauded after there display , Proud to be British. The precision flying obviously rubbed off into the presentation of the birds after for which I give you ten out of ten. Again a great report well done.

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7 hours ago, pigeon controller said:

Wonderful report of a memorable day in more ways than none. A fly past of historic aircraft and the precision of the red arrows which  I saw at the Athens Air show last year and the pride I had when the Greek and Turkish display teams applauded after there display , Proud to be British. The precision flying obviously rubbed off into the presentation of the birds after for which I give you ten out of ten. Again a great report well done.

THANKS P C , Wow 10 x 10 for presentation , that made all the times I have practised the art of laying the bag out really worth while and for a brief moment in time brought a tear to my eye , not sure if it was my hay fever or me getting a bit emotional with me getting maximum result from the master:lol:,

When I finished Saturday teatime I had to carry the bag a long way slightly uphill , ( We haven't got many big hills in our county ) the first time I put thirty five in the bag and the second time there was 29 in the bag , 25 fresh and four I used for decoys , time I got back to my motor I was like a steam kittle that don't turn off , wet with sweat , mine was a one off , with you doing it every week I find it very inspiring and certainly someone to look up to , Saturday night is always made better once I have read of your days adventure ,  THANKS

Back to the air show , it was on again yesterday and I watched a fair bit from my garden , as you say , the highlight was the Red Arrows , when they came past they were in a perfect diamond shape , truly spectacular .,

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On ‎16‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 20:33, marsh man said:

With our peas now in flower there is very little sport to be had ,

I usually have the best shooting over peas in flower.  Have low numbers when drilled as not many left on the surface, then they leave them alone until in full flower then hit them hard.  Usually quiet again until sprayed off for harvest when they feed on the pushed down crop in the tramlines.  After harvest, they are disced in within days -  never had a good day after harvest but last year had a good day whilst the combine was still cutting the field.

This year have some late drilled peas and had a good day on them when about 6 inches high.

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40 minutes ago, ShropshireSam said:

I usually have the best shooting over peas in flower.  Have low numbers when drilled as not many left on the surface, then they leave them alone until in full flower then hit them hard.  Usually quiet again until sprayed off for harvest when they feed on the pushed down crop in the tramlines.  After harvest, they are disced in within days -  never had a good day after harvest but last year had a good day whilst the combine was still cutting the field.

This year have some late drilled peas and had a good day on them when about 6 inches high.

This have been a strange year for Peas in our parts , the fields I have got I have shot the same fields in the past when they have had peas put in , normally on a four year cycle and some years shot them hard from drilling to pea stubble , in fact one of the fields which must have been about 12 years ago because I was still working then was hit really hard and must had drawn most of the pigeons in the area when it was cut , on the Saturday when I went the farm hand had been pulling it up and left off dinner time with just the headlands to do , after a quick chat I drove down the side of the field to set up under a big oak tree , pigeons were happily feeding within 50 yds of my car and there were100s  , I started to shoot as soon as I had set up and shooting was continuous throughout the afternoon , around 5pm I had to go and fill some pumps up with diesel on a flooded marsh we had at the time and by then I had well over a 100 , I was gone for about an hour and when I came back the field was covered in pigeons and you would have thought no one had been shooting , I carried on for another hour or so and then called it a day as I had a fair bit of clearing up to do , I think my bag without looking in my diary was getting towards 200 and if someone better than me had started earlier and shot all day they would have got a very big bag and I would have thought a local if not a county record .

That was then and not now , the only record I am likely to get this year is the lowest amount during the pea campaign :no: , although at the moment we haven't got any laid barley and the peas are about three weeks off of being vined , so things might change yet , one way or the other we will soon find out .:good:

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