A day at the Seaside

[Clodhopper]

As I eluded to in my last post, pigeon shooting opportunities have been thin on the ground for me over the last few weeks. This week looked no different. I had travelled 80+ miles around my permissions looking for something to get me excited. I had seen pigeons here there and everywhere but  none with any purpose. 

I had a chat with JDog and he was experiencing the same thing, having travelled many miles but not finding too much of interest. We agreed to meet up this morning and see where the day took us. 11 am saw us heading off to the coast, in the direction of the holiday resorts. I thought an ice cream would be good if we did not find anything.

My companion had a long forgotten permission which was about 3/4hour drive away which we thought might be worth a look. This farm is a long narrow strip along the sea bank, totalling around 1200 acres. On arrival we saw that the stubble had been direct drilled with rape which was now showing through. There was a lovely 20mph  breeze from the southwest, all we needed was some pigeons.

We scanned the stubble and only saw a handful of birds scattered.about the place, it did not look good. We then saw an odd bird flying along some power lines, not many but maybe 1 or 2 every 5 minutes or so. This made it look a little more promising. We decided to give it an hour and so set up on the Southern most point of the land, wind over our left shoulders, 2 hides 50 yards apart with a pattern in between consisting of 10 dead birds 8 plastics and a flapper. The hides were built in a dry ditch.

Birds came almost.immediately and from every direction providing every shot in the book. Mostly they did not decoy but the set up drew some attention and got them near enough for a shot. It became apparent that we would have 2 lines,an out going one and a return. This kept us.on our toes as you did not know.which way to look. My friend Giles joined us a couple of hour's in and enjoyed some great sport as by now both lines covered a wide front.

At 5 pm and with the black clouds closing in we decided to pack up and pick up. We did not have a clicker but knew.we.had a few down as we had very few cartridges left. This is open.flat land which made picking up easier, which was a good job as we only had one dog.

The final tally was 88 pigeons and a crow. 

 

A few bonuses during the afternoon were watching a pair of Marsh harriers float around the fields, a Peregrine gliding across the big open sky and a small skein of Pink footed geese no doubt heading down towards the wash.

 

 

[Wilksy II]

Great write up and final tally clodhopper, and you got a bit of sea air with the awd Dog!

[aga man]

Sounds great, the bag of pigeons just a bonus really.

[7daysinaweek]

Oh I do wish to be beside the seaside dee dee dee dee deed dee!

What a fantastic day out and really enjoyed the read.

atb

7diaw

[pigeon controller]

Good return for travelling and thinking out of the box and taking a punt on the flightline, well deserved.

[motty]

A well deserved return for your efforts. A shame The Dog does not post anymore.

All the recent talk of pinkfeet has got me very excited.

[Old Boggy]

2 hours ago, motty said:

 A shame The Dog does not post anymore.

 

Any particular reason. I trust that he is well. I do miss his self deprecating style of writing, plus of course his horticultural knowledge and input.

OB

[dead eye alan]

26 minutes ago, Old Boggy said:

Any particular reason. I trust that he is well. I do miss his self deprecating style of writing, plus of course his horticultural knowledge and input.

OB

Me too he always made sensible replyes and vast knowledge .

[Clodhopper]

Thanks for reading chaps, great day made all the better when my good lady stir fried some of the breasts whilst I wrote my account of the day. Washed down with a couple of pints of Guinness, lovely.

Motty, you should be excited those geese were definitely heading in your direction!

[marsh man]

Excellent report and well worth the travelling , it often amazes me where the pigeons come from when you are shooting on the coast , I have got a large farm to shoot on which is only a half a mile from the North sea and some of the land is just inside the sea wall and yet over the years I have shot 100s of pigeons while watching the different ships going backwards and forwards .

The geese should be hitting Mottys area any day now and some might already be there , we have to wait for a few more days before we see them coming down here in any numbers .

A few years ago , I went to have a go at pigeons on a stubble field in late September that is about eight miles from mine and around a mile from the sea , when I got there I could see around two hundred Pinks on the next door neighbours stubble that had just recently arrived , while I was setting up there was more coming off the sea that were very high , as soon as they saw the ones already settled they tilted there wings and came to the ground as if they had just fallen from the sky , no sooner had one lot landed the next lot were in view and this went on all the while I was there , time I packed up the numbers must had ran into the low 1000s .

I didn't shoot many pigeons but I had one of them days I will never forget.

PS ..... Hope Mr JDog is keeping well and look forward to reading his posts after his recent break.