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Some very special birds


Mightymariner
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I haven't been out decoying in a long, long time, so today I met with JDog, who had kindly found somewhere for us to go high on the Wolds.

Work has been **** lately so, to be honest, I was just glad to be out. The sun was shining, it was warm. So whether we shot any pigeons was neither here not there to me.

Of course, Johnny was worried in case we didn't shoot any. I didn't care.

We drove to a recently drilled barley field with a small copse at one end which pigeons had been using before dropping in on the field, which, incidentally, had no spilt seed on it.

We were there for 11am and walked a short distance to the copse, both setting up in the shadows on the edge of the copse, with the sun on our left. We put a few dead birds out and my flapper.

Johnny had kindly placed me downwind, believing any pigeons would come to me first.

We didn't have to wait long before the odd bird drifted across, very high and heading for two ash trees behind us. We shot four in 20 minutes. They were all coming from some height, cupping wings and plunging down to the trees.

After a while numbers really started to move, coming across the large drilled field towards us, or from the right, beating up a hedge in the light wind towards the copse. Often birds would appear from nowhere, dropping into the trees or passing over.

After an hour we had a fairly decent pattern, and then the birds really hit the line.

We had groups of 20, 30, 50 and twos and threes coming across the field. It was a great sight, we could see them from a distance. They spotted the pattern and the flapper and would often come across, some dropping like stones from unbelievable height to curl over us. It was some of the best pigeon shooting ever. We had shots left, right, over and behind. At times we had 5-6 birds down but couldn't pick them because so many more were moving.

We tried to let them in over me before we shot, so we could both shoot at the bigger groups but that didn't really work as I couldn't tell when they were far enough in. So we shot alternatively, which worked well. By about 2pm we had about 50 birds down in the pattern and we were pulling in a lot of pigeons.

Some of our shots were very memorable. I think we shot pretty well, probably 2:1.

Eventually, by 3pm, it tailed off and birds started to drop in on the far side of the field. We still pulled in the odd bird but most entering the field headed for the birds on the far end. 

We packed up and picked up as many birds as we could find, before returning with Jasper to pick another three birds down the bottom corner of the field.

We ended with 75 pigeons. I would say it goes down as one of my best-ever days decoying. Pure enjoyment that doesn't happen that often.

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1 hour ago, GingerCat said:

Marvellous shooting and what a day for it. I love it when the close their wings and drop down like stones. Not easy shots either. Well done. 

thats excactly what i like............

now that is pigeon shooting at its best...and a lovely day to-boot............excellent..:good:

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Two things I forgot to mention in my earlier post.

These pigeons were at the other end of the flight line which Ginger Cat and I saw last week, two miles as the pigeon flies from the resting wood.

In case there were no pigeons where we set up I had a reserve place where I thought we might have shot half a dozen. After we had shot fifty or so we agreed that there was no point in moving.

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