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Missed the boat


pigeon controller
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I had a phone call on Tuesday, can you come a sort these bloody crows out. So gear in the Disco and off I go, when I arrive at the five fields it has a few crows around the edges. So I watched it for ten minutes to try and see a flightline at all and decided on a tree on the edge of the field. Its  a good walk down to it and it took about ten minutes to set the hide up and get set up. I had no decoys but started to call on the primos and the first two customers came in sweet as a nut. Two down and put out. Ive been shooting steel since last January so going back to lead with Proper Cartridges 32/6s gave me some fine shooting. Crow shooting is my Nemisis as I tend to have a mental block on giving lead and shoot at the bird direct and miss. So each shot was taken with a deliberate lead and some more to great effect. One I paced out to sixty paces which fell stone dead. So after three hours of shooting I packed up as the birds were aware of my position and would not come near even to the call. I finished with fifty two corvids.

Saturday we drove straight to the cut maize field we had seen the week before, I had looked at it on Thursday and it had no birds on it except a few crows. As we approached the field we could see birds joining from all directions and when we viewed it from the gateway it must have had four or five hundred pigeons down. We then noticed Bunny_Blasters vehicle parked in the corner of the field and he was walking towards us. He said that the birds had been on it all week but at times they just left it alone. As its a shared permission we left him to it and wished him luck. To be honest the farmer had asked him to shoot the crows last week so this week was payback. We drove around for a further hour but could not see any other areas with birds down. We had passed the field of direct drilled wheat over mustard that we shot last week and had seen birds down so we returned to find no birds. We watched it for ten minutes and three birds flighted across it. The game shoot had been out on Thursday and possibly spooked them. It was now 12.45 so we decided to go for broke and set up on the field in the same hide position as last week.

We shot it till 15.30 when DB had seen a few birds going to a small copse of mature oaks at the end of the field and decide to walk down and roost shoot it . I continued in the hide and stopped shooting at 16.00 and attempted to take a selfie with my camera ( you will see the results) and then packed up and picked up DB at the far end of the field. I picked up twenty Pigeons and thirtyfive corvids and DB had a further six pigeon at roost.     

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52 Corvids
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20 Pigeons and 35 corvids

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Well done PC you managed to find a few in the end. The pigeon didn’t want to play ball on the maize, disappearing for most of the day and what birds were around we struggled to decoy. We had to constantly change the pattern to keep the birds interested. They eventually came back late afternoon and we managed 93 pigeon and 57 Corvids. We thought we were in for a mega day but it didn’t work out. It was hard work but as you know that’s pigeon shooting. 

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21 minutes ago, bunny_blaster said:

Well done PC you managed to find a few in the end. The pigeon didn’t want to play ball on the maize, disappearing for most of the day and what birds were around we struggled to decoy. We had to constantly change the pattern to keep the birds interested. They eventually came back late afternoon and we managed 93 pigeon and 57 Corvids. We thought we were in for a mega day but it didn’t work out. It was hard work but as you know that’s pigeon shooting. 

Well done Ben, as you say " that's pigeon shooting" . It's been a long time since I have seen so many birds down but they were in a flock and stayed in a flock.

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Great report PC. 2 good bags, maybe not quite up to your usual standards, but good for most of us. Interesting what you say about lead, if I start to think about it I may as well go home, I need a clear head and just shoot when it feels right. Mostly certainly not the best method but it seems to suit me.

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10 hours ago, Clodhopper said:

Great report PC. 2 good bags, maybe not quite up to your usual standards, but good for most of us. Interesting what you say about lead, if I start to think about it I may as well go home, I need a clear head and just shoot when it feels right. Mostly certainly not the best method but it seems to suit me.

I don',t think there are any clear rules stating where and when to shoot over decoys , or with most shooting comes to that , as you say , you shoot when it feels right , that's fine when the target allows you to do that , at other times you shoot on instinct , you devise your own method and if it work then so be it .

Well done P C on your bags of corvids and pigeons .

One question , with you shooting now and again by yourself , have you thought about having your own dog ? not only for company but to save you going out after winged pigeons and for finding ones that you cant , you know as well as me , it don't matter how good a shot you are you will still get wounded game and to tell you the truth , I would no longer go shooting now without a dog . 

 

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2 hours ago, marsh man said:

I don',t think there are any clear rules stating where and when to shoot over decoys , or with most shooting comes to that , as you say , you shoot when it feels right , that's fine when the target allows you to do that , at other times you shoot on instinct , you devise your own method and if it work then so be it .

Well done P C on your bags of corvids and pigeons .

One question , with you shooting now and again by yourself , have you thought about having your own dog ? not only for company but to save you going out after winged pigeons and for finding ones that you cant , you know as well as me , it don't matter how good a shot you are you will still get wounded game and to tell you the truth , I would no longer go shooting now without a dog . 

 

Yes I had a Sprocker from Bigbird who was on the forum. He was eighteen months old was my first gun dog and very boisterous but a lovely dog. I had him for six months but he developed a lump which was removed he then developed more lumps. The vet said he could have chemo and last a further six months but I decided to let him go in my arms.My seventieth birthday card from my wife stated " I promise that the bearer of this card shall have a Springer Spaniel on demand"  and I will.

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Edited by pigeon controller
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6 hours ago, pigeon controller said:

Yes I had a Sprocker from Bigbird who was on the forum. He was eighteen months old was my first gun dog and very boisterous but a lovely dog. I had him for six months but he developed a lump which was removed he then developed more lumps. The vet said he could have chemo and last a further six months but I decided to let him go in my arms.My seventieth birthday card from my wife stated " I promise that the bearer of this card shall have a Springer Spaniel on demand"  and I will.

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Sorry to hear about your problems with the Sprocker , very sad for a dog at such a young age .

On a more cheerful note , excellent news about your forth coming companion , he or she will certainly get a lot of work and will be very well looked after .

Many happy returns on your belated birthday:yay:

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1 hour ago, marsh man said:

Sorry to hear about your problems with the Sprocker , very sad for a dog at such a young age .

On a more cheerful note , excellent news about your forth coming companion , he or she will certainly get a lot of work and will be very well looked after .

Many happy returns on your belated birthday:yay:

Thanks

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