Flocked up on a Friday

[Clodhopper]

Today was my only day off this week and I was hopeful of finding a few as the drills have been out during the past week and I have a good number of pigeons in my area. I went out yesterday morning for a recce but thick fog  put paid to that as I could only see a couple of hundred yards at best.

JDog and I decided on a pincer movement this morning whereby he would check his land on the high ground and I would check mine on the marsh and we would meet in the middle to finalise our master plan. Well that was the theory.

I checked over the first farm and it had a few down but not enough to bother with. The second is much bigger, around 4000 acres and has a block of spring Barley of around 400 acres. There were a lot of birds here. In the region of 1000 pigeons but they were in a couple of big flocks that were very jumpy and were near constantly lifting and dropping. A quick chat with the farmer enlightened me to another area of drilling a mile away that was smaller and had birds on. Off I went and found around 500 birds down feeding and others joining. This looked likely to produce a bag. We walked the birds off and set up in a shallow ditch. 12 dead birds and a flapper made up the pattern. We waited and waited some more. Birds passed high over and showed no interest at all. After an hour we decided it was not going to work so we upped sticks and headed off in search of another opportunity. We spied a good line going into a field near a disused railway line so set up there and gave it an hour. Needles to say nothing happened here either. We managed four. At this point the sprayer and fertiliser spreader turned up so we decided to give up for the day as all we had seen was big flocks moving around the area and showing no great desire to feed. It was somewhat frustrating as we had seen over 2000 birds but just could not get to grips with them.

The pub seemed a much better option where a couple of pints of  Guiness went down nicely whilst chatting to another local farmer who also has a few pigeons. Oh well there is always next time.

 

[mossy835]

well done you did go and see,allways next time wish i had that amount down here,big flocks with no intrest of decoying.

[Clodhopper]

3 minutes ago, mossy835 said:

well done you did go and see,allways next time wish i had that amount down here,big flocks with no intrest of decoying.

It was frustrating to say the least but that is all part of it. The good days will just seem a little bit better.

[marsh man]

I went out around dinner time today to look rather than shoot as yesterday there was very little moving from mid / late afternoon and like you say there are some very big flocks about and do get a bit frustrating when the whole flock lift off and move somewhere else .

The one good thing is at the moment we have got a lot of pigeons in the area and hopefully the omen look good in the days to come .

By the way , nice write up Clodhopper

[Clodhopper]

9 minutes ago, marsh man said:

I went out around dinner time today to look rather than shoot as yesterday there was very little moving from mid / late afternoon and like you say there are some very big flocks about and do get a bit frustrating when the whole flock lift off and move somewhere else .

The one good thing is at the moment we have got a lot of pigeons in the area and hopefully the omen look good in the days to come .

By the way , nice write up Clodhopper

My mistake today was to get too excited about it all. With it being my only available day until next weekend I was keen to get out. I should have really know that with the big flocks a good day was unlikely.

[JDog]

Clodhopper’s demeanour changed dramatically from high excitement at a field with 500 pigeons on it to abject misery once it became clear that they would not return to our decoy pattern.

Despite having had many thousands of days out pigeon shooting I too get excited then disappointed at days like today.

[marsh man]

The thing is with us is there is always another day, but with people like Clodhopper it is a bit more annoying when having a whole day to go pigeon shooting might be far and few between and then seeing large amounts of pigeons and not being able to get on terms with the ones you see .

Today weather wise was one of those dark afternoons with not a breath of wind , I did see a lot that were bunched up on a fresh drilled barley field , there were three fields besides each other , the pigeons were leaving the wood playing follow the leader and within minutes there were 4 / 500 , it would have been easy to have got excited but they were all going to one spot and ignoring the other fields that had the same crop in , I like to see pigeons coming and going and spread over a bigger area rather than all piling in one spot .

Tomorrow should be a far better day after early rain , brightening out , mild with 15 m p h winds , the weather is playing ball and hopefully the pigeons do the same . 

[dad]

Hundreds in my area too lots of barley drilled. I was on rape saturday got a call from farmer barley is in now about 60 acres pigeons already on it dont shoot sunday but went for a look pigeons all over it so went early monday we shot 3 they weren't on it but we thought they would arrive. we got another call 80 acres put in sunday 1oclock my mate decided to have look 45 mins later hes back nothing on it. We could see another farm putting in beans in the distance so packed up and went for a look nothing on way home we found 2 small barley drills together with about 800 birds in trees and down  so early start tuesday about 500 still there so set up and shot poorly 28 should have been 40 they didnt really come back. Got a call 2pm 80 acre field got 3500 on it too late now early start wednsday arrived 10am not much down but plenty in the trees 2 seperate hides packed 5pm 24 each enough birds high in the blue sky for a good day but they wouldnt comit i couldnt see any barley on top decided to try another day thursday again nothing on it but we had seen hundreds in the trees on a ajoining farm that we thought were waiting to come to our barley i set up my mate sat in car too watch 2 birds came in quite a few came to our trees 1oclock ajoining farm phoned 1000 on my rape couldnt shoot today so rape saturday.

[Clodhopper]

3 hours ago, dad said:

Hundreds in my area too lots of barley drilled. I was on rape saturday got a call from farmer barley is in now about 60 acres pigeons already on it dont shoot sunday but went for a look pigeons all over it so went early monday we shot 3 they weren't on it but we thought they would arrive. we got another call 80 acres put in sunday 1oclock my mate decided to have look 45 mins later hes back nothing on it. We could see another farm putting in beans in the distance so packed up and went for a look nothing on way home we found 2 small barley drills together with about 800 birds in trees and down  so early start tuesday about 500 still there so set up and shot poorly 28 should have been 40 they didnt really come back. Got a call 2pm 80 acre field got 3500 on it too late now early start wednsday arrived 10am not much down but plenty in the trees 2 seperate hides packed 5pm 24 each enough birds high in the blue sky for a good day but they wouldnt comit i couldnt see any barley on top decided to try another day thursday again nothing on it but we had seen hundreds in the trees on a ajoining farm that we thought were waiting to come to our barley i set up my mate sat in car too watch 2 birds came in quite a few came to our trees 1oclock ajoining farm phoned 1000 on my rape couldnt shoot today so rape saturday.

Very similar to what we experienced today. Lots of birds but they were not really on it.