Frustrating Days

[pigeon controller]

Called out on Thursday to the seventy five acre rape field I've shot before. I arrived at the field at 09.00 and after walking the length of the field I was set up for 10.00 and waited. When I viewed the field it a had a few birds flighting the far edge and I presumed I would get a steady flow of birds to the pattern. To stop boring you  I had all my birds between ten and eleven  and it just stopped I hung on till 14.00 and packed up picking twentynine birds . Farmer happy Me frustrated.

We setout today to look at new rape fields now the game season has closed. Of the three farms no birds. We then traced our way past the fields that have produced in the past. We went past five farms and the same thing happend on all of them. A good number of birds around the rape not feeding, walk out onto the field they just lift off and disapear. As time was getting on we decided to cut our losses and head back to the farm we shot last week as we did we picked up on a flightline to the field from a large wood . As we drove down the treelined track to the field we were pushing more birds out of the trees. When we were two thirds of the way down the track we came across a car  and when we arrived at the rape field we could see the shooter in his hide which was light brown against a conifer hedge and stood out very well. The flight line was straight over the hide and birds were flairing at the decoys or hide but within shot. We counted twenty birds over the hide and not a shot, as we came into view an arm came over the hide with a wave. We do not know who the shooter was but he was missing a great chance to make a bag.

We drove back to the otherside of the farm and found a large flock sitting in the trees, so we decided to set up and keep them on the move by shooting at the flock whenever they came over the field. It was now 14.00 and we were set up, so the barrage began. We normally shoot one at a time but DB put two shots into the flock and I followed on with two more , this had the effect of making them rise higher in the sky above us. When they passed over four more shots straight into the flock again and they started to split up in shear panic, it was amazing that one bird was hit and dropped like a stone. Once they were all out of site we started to get birds returning in groups of ten to twenty and out of that group you would get two or three actually decoy. We shot till 16.30 when all activity stopped and picked up seventy three birds so it was a reasonable result after all the frustration and we had covered over a hundred miles 

 

 

29 Pigeons

73 Pigeons

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Well done to both of you!

[Old Boggy]

Thanks for your excellent weekly report once again.

You look more pleased with the bag of 29  than that of 73. Well done anyway.

OB

 

[GingerCat]

Nicely done.

[pigeon controller]

1 hour ago, Old Boggy said:

Thanks for your excellent weekly report once again.

You look more pleased with the bag of 29  than that of 73. Well done anyway.

OB

 

I feel self conscious about grinning like a Chesire Cat.

I well remember after my shrink tests the comment " Do you smile when you shoot" 

Thanks for your comments.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

8 hours ago, pigeon controller said:

I feel self conscious about grinning like a Chesire Cat.

I well remember after my shrink tests the comment " Do you smile when you shoot" 

Thanks for your comments.

How would you know?

[Wilksy II]

Hard earned bags PC well done! It just shows that even though the other shooter was in the right spot he still wasn’t making the most of it, and I’ll try the flock splitting up trick, But I’ve found the pigeons will just clear off to a quiet field, have you seen any signs of imminent drilling on your patch PC? 

[aga man]

Good bags PC. Great effort.👍

[pigeon controller]

34 minutes ago, Wilksy II said:

Hard earned bags PC well done! It just shows that even though the other shooter was in the right spot he still wasn’t making the most of it, and I’ll try the flock splitting up trick, But I’ve found the pigeons will just clear off to a quiet field, have you seen any signs of imminent drilling on your patch PC? 

We passed a few fields that have been drilled in the past two weeks with no bird activity some had now greened up.

With regard to the flock splitting , we did it in frustration so they would not feel safe as a flock and it worked for us. Yes they could have gone to another field if they wanted but as it was late in the afternoon they returned to the field we were on.

[pigeon controller]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

How would you know?

Exactly, I perhaps need. A reverse head cam to see. I think they were trying to say it's in my psyche.

[oowee]

Excellent write up 👍 and still a great bag. 

I am missing the shotgun stuff at the moment seem to spend all my time with the rifle 😞 

I hope I have not forgotten how to use it. 

[pigeon controller]

9 minutes ago, oowee said:

Excellent write up 👍 and still a great bag. 

I am missing the shotgun stuff at the moment seem to spend all my time with the rifle 😞 

I hope I have not forgotten how to use it. 

The wooden bit goes on your shoulder and the thin metal tubes you point at the target, I hope this helps!!!!!!!!

[TIGHTCHOKE]

24 minutes ago, pigeon controller said:

Exactly, I perhaps need. A reverse head cam to see. I think they were trying to say it's in my psyche.

Yes I am sure that was what was meant. I know when connecting with a long bird or clay, I have a smile on my face as confirmed by people I have been shooting with.

I don't think you need the reversed camera as we can take it from your wonderful write ups that you enjoy what you do so well.

Keep up the good work.

Edited February 17, 2019 by TIGHTCHOKE
Puctuation!

[Wilksy II]

42 minutes ago, pigeon controller said:

 

With regard to the flock splitting , we did it in frustration so they would not feel safe as a flock and it worked for us. Yes they could have gone to another field if they wanted but as it was late in the afternoon they returned to the field we were on.

It’s good, it just shows you that anything is worth a try

[pigeon controller]

1 hour ago, Wilksy II said:

It’s good, it just shows you that anything is worth a try

Thinking about it at length we normally walk or shoot them off and they lift off as a tight flock . On this occasion we both shot and put the " fear of God " into them and the split in all directions which then allowed them to return in smaller groups and made them shoot able.