Is There Anyone Now Who Shoot Pigeons For A Living?

[marsh man]

After ready the thread Jacks Game it got round to Archie Coates , when he was is the army he came home on his weekends and shot enough pigeons to pay for his expenses and no doubt put a few bob in his pocket.

When he came out of the forces he took the plunge and shot pigeons for a living , the land owners and estates paid him, and as far as I know he didn't get any income for taking people out pigeon shooting , and I believe at the time there was one or two others that were full time pigeon shooters.

We are told that the pigeon is the number one pest in agriculture and yet as far as I know no one is employed full time to shoot them .

On my place they used to employ a full time warrener who caught rabbits for six months of the year and then help the keeper for the other six months , then when the head keeper retired he took the job over , they then employed a warrener for three days a week , they also employed a chap to catch the squirrels but never considered taking on somebody part time let alone full time to shoot pigeons .

I think one of the problems is there are to many who would kindly shoot them for nothing let alone expect to be paid to do it.

So is there anyone out there who do it for living and not relying on paid clients ? 

 

[panoma1]

I think your right MM, why would anyone pay for something that a queue of people would offer to pay them to do it?

In Coats's day there were not many pigeon shooters about, so he had it mostly to himself....now there are almost as many people after shooting as there are pigeons!

Bit like seasonal workers....why is an employer going to pay a local to do a job, when he can get an Eastern European to do it for a fraction of the money?

Supply on demand or as dear old Maggie used to say ad infinitum "let the market decide"  which was great for those controlling the market............but carp for those working for it!

[Harnser]

It’s not possible to make a living from shooting pigeons . The cost of cartridges ,the cost of fuel just doesn’t add up to making a profit . Maybe there are people out there who make a few bob charging people to shoot pigeons ,but I very much doubt they can make a living from it . At 30 p a bird for pigeons at the game dealer it’s not rocket science to realise you would go skint very quickly .

harnser

[PPP]

At game dealer rates and average salary you would need to shoot 400 per day 5 days per week, with a normal 40 hour week that’s 50 pigeons per hour to make a living... if you then net off cartridges making 5p profit per bird based on £200 per thou and shooting one for one you would need to shoot 5 times this amount so 250 birds per hour or 16,000 per week, and sell that size..Every week including roosting/flighting in windy winter...

Good luck everyone.

Harnser makes a good point, above assumes walking to and from shoot and having game dealer collect and no cap ex for initial equipment or replacement..

[Westley]

I can not say that I was ever paid to shoot pigeons,  BUT,  I was given cartridges by the Farmers,  in order to do the job.  I then had an outlet for the birds and either chose more cartridges or cash as payment. I was also invited to shoot with them on their 'Game Days',  as well as all the duck and goose shooting. The geese could do more damage than the pigeons.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Westley

[marsh man]

4 minutes ago, Harnser said:

It’s not possible to make a living from shooting pigeons . The cost of cartridges ,the cost of fuel just doesn’t add up to making a profit . Maybe there are people out there who make a few bob charging people to shoot pigeons ,but I very much doubt they can make a living from it . At 30 p a bird for pigeons at the game dealer it’s not rocket science to realise you would go skint very quickly .

harnser

I didn't mean shooting pigeons off your own back to make a living from what you shot , I know that would be impossible as your 30p quoted is now down to 15p.

What I meant was being paid by a consortium of farmers or large estates , I was reading in one of the sporting magazines a while back where one of the goose guides used to be employed by one of the big Pea producers for the duration of the Pea campaign to control the pigeons.

My brother was employed by Coypu control and I am not sure if he sold the pelts as a perk , I know he had to cut the tip off the tail as prof of how many he got , but he was paid an income off the main body who organized Coypu Control until they finally got rid of them . 

 

[islandgun]

Id happily pay for a day or two pigeon shooting

[PPP]

25p per pigeon here, same as Partridge....

Estate pays 50p per Squirrel tail, youngest son is paying his mates 25p and pocketing the difference

[Scully]

We only get cartridges bought for us, but at a restaurant I drop all manner of game at I get paid in food! I like food, I eat nothing else. 🙂

[marsh man]

3 minutes ago, PPP said:

25p per pigeon here, same as Partridge....

Estate pays 50p per Squirrel tail, youngest son is paying his mates 25p and pocketing the difference

I took my pigeons to the dealer last Sunday and they were 15p fresh ,10p frozen and have been that price for a few weeks now.

The chap who used to catch the Squirrels on ours would stick them in a chest freezer and when he had around 200 he would take them down to Saxmundam , Wild Game Company and got 50p each and I think at one time they went up to 60p , what they are now I couldn't tell you .

Might be worth your boy making a few enquiries about selling the tail less Squirrels , never now he might end up like Alan Sugar😊

[PPP]

13 minutes ago, marsh man said:

I took my pigeons to the dealer last Sunday and they were 15p fresh ,10p frozen and have been that price for a few weeks now.

The chap who used to catch the Squirrels on ours would stick them in a chest freezer and when he had around 200 he would take them down to Saxmundam , Wild Game Company and got 50p each and I think at one time they went up to 60p , what they are now I couldn't tell you .

Might be worth your boy making a few enquiries about selling the tail less Squirrels , never now he might end up like Alan Sugar😊

Great idea! Thanks

[scolopax]

 

Not quite the same but there is a well known deer stalking guide who turns his attention to guided pigeon shooting over the harvest, I believe in the midlands. Up to a week ago his parties had accounted for over 19,000 birds in this short season.

 

going by his regular FB updates he must be doing very nicely out of it depending on the landowners cut of course.  teams of mainly Danish guns out and individual bags of three figures an almost daily occurrence, with some BIG bags to some lucky guns. I do not know what he charges but he will not be providing the service for free

such shooting providers are the modern day equivalent of the professional shot of yesteryear.

Edited September 18, 2018 by scolopax

[Prospero]

I do pest control for a living and have been paid many times to shoot ferals around buildings etc. Woodies sadly not, but I have a couple of farms that I do the moles for and they often ask me to take care of a few woodies when I am out and about, but I can't charge them for it!

[CharlieT]

One must also remember that Archie Coates derived his income from writing. Both he and his wife were both regular contributors to the top country sport and shooting magazines as well as publishing many books books. 

[marsh man]

It also helped when he was shooting large numbers of pigeons he could send them abroad with the recently opened export market , so he was getting paid to control them and then doing the processing on the shot birds and selling them on for good money .

It no doubt helped being an ex major in the army with most of the estates at the time had some military back ground .

I did read somewhere that the first person to pay him and have him on standby was Lord Rank who paid him £1000 a year, if that was right it would have been a good chunk of his yearly income , I dont know if he did from the start but he was also sponsored by Eley for his cartridges , the only time I saw him in real life was on a Eley stand at one of the C L A Game Fairs , a big bloke with hip problems and seemed very blunt when he spoke , that might have been caused by his army training .  

[mudpatten]

Since you raised the point, he was actually a rather difficult man to get on with, but that may have been, in part, down to his frustration with his his increasing immobility. I met him on a number of occasions, also being based in Hampshire, and I found him really hard work.

He often invited Colin Willock, former Shooting Times contributor Town Gun, to shoot with him. Pillock often referred to him as Major Disaster since he tended to get a bit over wrought when things went wrong.

I think he was on a full Majors pension which might have had a lot to do with his ability to survive financially as a professional pigeon shooter.

Despite my jaundiced opinion he`s still the Father of modern pigeon shooting.

Edited September 19, 2018 by mudpatten

[Whitetail]

Arch

2 hours ago, marsh man said:

It also helped when he was shooting large numbers of pigeons he could send them abroad with the recently opened export market , so he was getting paid to control them and then doing the processing on the shot birds and selling them on for good money .

It no doubt helped being an ex major in the army with most of the estates at the time had some military back ground .

I did read somewhere that the first person to pay him and have him on standby was Lord Rank who paid him £1000 a year, if that was right it would have been a good chunk of his yearly income , I dont know if he did from the start but he was also sponsored by Eley for his cartridges , the only time I saw him in real life was on a Eley stand at one of the C L A Game Fairs , a big bloke with hip problems and seemed very blunt when he spoke , that might have been caused by his army training .  

Early on he realised that there wasn't any money in selling birds in the feather and was processing them before sale, don't be to hard on him over his bluntness a lot of his hip problems in latter life were brought about by being tortured by the nazis after he was captured in ww2 

[mossy835]

how people make a living out of pigeon shooting i dont know, i know some one went out with jim albourn, last year and shot 5 all day.cost more in petral,

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, mudpatten said:

Since you raised the point, he was actually a rather difficult man to get on with, but that may have been, in part, down to his frustration with his his increasing immobility. I met him on a number of occasions, also being based in Hampshire, and I found him really hard work.

He often invited Colin Willock, former Shooting Times contributor Town Gun, to shoot with him. Pillock often referred to him as Major Disaster since he tended to get a bit over wrought when things went wrong.

I think he was on a full Majors pension which might have had a lot to do with his ability to survive financially as a professional pigeon shooter.

Despite my jaundiced opinion he`s still the Father of modern pigeon shooting.

THANKS for the new information , very interesting , I often wonder how he would approach pigeon shooting in this day and age with the different battery machines like the peckers and magnets that seem part of everyday equipment  ?

Like a previous poster said , in his day there was a lot less pressure on the pigeon population than there is today and I do believe they were a lot easier to decoy then than they are now . 

[Mice!]

On ‎18‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 21:23, PPP said:

25p per pigeon here, same as Partridge....

Estate pays 50p per Squirrel tail, youngest son is paying his mates 25p and pocketing the difference

Good lad, place is crawling with squirrels still though??? 🤔

[Old Boggy]

15 hours ago, Whitetail said:

Arch

Early on he realised that there wasn't any money in selling birds in the feather and was processing them before sale, don't be to hard on him over his bluntness a lot of his hip problems in latter life were brought about by being tortured by the nazis after he was captured in ww2 

I head somewhere, that in later life, due to his mobility problems, his wife Prue used to set him up in his hide, put out the decoys, leave him to it and then pick him up at a pre-determined time. On one occasion, she left him with no cartridges. It was of course in the days before mobile phones.

If that story is true, I can imagine the language being somewhat colourful on her return.

OB

PS A couple of years ago, I did handle his old Webley 700 (bequeathed by him to Will Garfit) and it was so worn, you could punch wads out with the muzzles !!