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Scaring Pigeons in the Rain


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I had a request for some fresh pigeons in the week, and Mrs PC having survived the Knee operation I was allowed out this Saturday. I received a phone call in the week from a farmer who was having trouble with pigeons on his crop, he was frustarted that using banger ropes and rockets they kept coming back. I said that I had a foolproof methed using a rotation machine with birds mounted in a way that the white wing feathers were exposed and this put the fear of god into the pigeons and in some cases they died of shock at the very sight of it. He said carry on.

With me receiving the request I sought the assistance of fellow PW member Bunny_Blaster as I was not sure if I could fullfill the request. He went out Friday afternoon in the pouring rain and managed to deceive forty birds. Now we set out this morming in heavy rain and terrible windy conditions. We viewed the field and it had approx twenty birds down and as we walked the edge another twenty came out of the trees. We decide to look around for other birds and also procure a bacon and egg sandwich on crusty bread with brown sauce for DB. He devoured this while we watched a barley field with a few pigeons sitting on the wires, after twenty minutes nothing attempted to drop in so we moved off.

We returned to the first field and set up in the rain as it seemed to be drying up, it was now 12.00 and we put out ten thawed birds out with two on the magic rotation device.The first bird crossing the field came straight to us, we fired a warning shot and the bird dropped which allowed the dog to bring it back to the hide. The day was long and tedious, we scared a few birds and the dog retreived them at a good pace but as the day went on it became sunny and the birds stopped so we ended the day at 17.00 and the dog place his retreived birds in front of the hide in total thirtynine. It was just good to out.

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39 Pigeons

Edited by pigeon controller
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Nice one P C , what crop were you shooting over ?

We had heavy rain and strong wind nearly all day , about 2pm it looked as if it was easing up , ( or was I convincing myself ) so off I went , sat in my motor on the edge of a Pea field and the wind got stronger and the rain got heavier so drove the two miles back home , after a cup of tea and a read of the paper it eased up again so back I go again , this time the cloud was breaking up and a few pigeons were on the move , set up by 3 . 45 and shot till just after six for 17 , not a big bag but like you say it was good to be out , and how wet it was just after dinner I was more than happy with what I got .

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9 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Nice one P C , what crop were you shooting over ?

We had heavy rain and strong wind nearly all day , about 2pm it looked as if it was easing up , ( or was I convincing myself ) so off I went , sat in my motor on the edge of a Pea field and the wind got stronger and the rain got heavier so drove the two miles back home , after a cup of tea and a read of the paper it eased up again so back I go again , this time the cloud was breaking up and a few pigeons were on the move , set up by 3 . 45 and shot till just after six for 17 , not a big bag but like you say it was good to be out , and how wet it was just after dinner I was more than happy with what I got .

Turnips

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It is good to see you reporting again. Other regular shooters should take a leaf out of your book and do the same.

Interesting to read that you were shooting over turnips too. I suspect a lot of opportunities over that crop in June are missed.

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2 hours ago, JDog said:

It is good to see you reporting again. Other regular shooters should take a leaf out of your book and do the same.

Interesting to read that you were shooting over turnips too. I suspect a lot of opportunities over that crop in June are missed.

A few years ago I shot some good bags down the marsh on sugar beet at this time of the year the crop is still short enough to shoot over and decoys on cradles show up well , it could well have been the bits and pieces growing amongst the beet plants that were drawing the pigeons .

Like you say , crops like Turnips , Broccoli and even game covers are worth keeping an eye on during this month while other crops are still a few weeks away from harvesting  .

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1 minute ago, marsh man said:

A few years ago I shot some good bags down the marsh on sugar beet at this time of the year the crop is still short enough to shoot over and decoys on cradles show up well , it could well have been the bits and pieces growing amongst the beet plants that were drawing the pigeons .

Like you say , crops like Turnips , Broccoli and even game covers are worth keeping an eye on during this month while other crops are still a few weeks away from harvesting  .

We have shot over two hundred off this farm on turnips in the past, we also have had good bags on other farms on Typhon and Lucerne. The time period between March and June when the buds are available has always been a difficult time to decoy . The birds need to feed and clover and the above crops are around.

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Nice one pc confidence to go out seems to be growing all around i went thursday it felt great to be out again.some people i know who were shooting  within days of the ban cashed in and got onto some of my perms while i was being cautious.

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8 hours ago, pigeon controller said:

We have shot over two hundred off this farm on turnips in the past, we also have had good bags on other farms on Typhon and Lucerne. The time period between March and June when the buds are available has always been a difficult time to decoy . The birds need to feed and clover and the above crops are around.

We grow a lot of Fodder Radish for the sheep and that don't get a lot of attention from the pigeons, the reason might be the time of the year it is planted ( end of July / early August ) when there is a lot of other food available.

I cant say I have shot over Typhon ? ,  but I have shot many times over Lucerne , Linseed and Mustard to name a few crops when things get slow . 

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Well I have had a change of job which leaves me with much less free time than I had before so there was no way I was going to miss an opportunity to be out. Not sure JDog was so keen to be out but luckily the weather did break and his old bones weren’t chilled too much.

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57 minutes ago, marsh man said:

We grow a lot of Fodder Radish for the sheep and that don't get a lot of attention from the pigeons, the reason might be the time of the year it is planted ( end of July / early August ) when there is a lot of other food available.

I cant say I have shot over Typhon ? ,  but I have shot many times over Lucerne , Linseed and Mustard to name a few crops when things get slow . 

Good advice to our newby shooters, find the crop they are feeding on and ask permission. 

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