First shoot

[Neilsmith]

Hi all,

Had our first shoot the other day, first drive was duck mostly wild that flew out nice and high great shooting, next we pushed maize cover back to wood/pen only 2 pheasants in it, there are normally loads there when we feed rides in the afternoons, next drive again maize cover was good amount of birds, is it worth dogging the wood through on shoot morning to push birds out into cover crop.

 

[decoy1979]

Hi, personally i doubt it is worth it unless your cover is large enough to act as sanctuary. In the past we have had the guns line out and fairly quietly walk on to pegs but this is pushing belts or woodland so plenty of cover for birds to just run ahead.

It is worth bearing in mind that birds move out to certain pieces of cover at different times of day. Could it be you were trying to shoot it before they had drawn out or had been scared back to the wood by either sound of shooting from the duck drive or something else?

Maybe get to the cover earlier to see what time the birds are there on a non shoot day? If you think they have moved back to the wood by the time you get there maybe try putting someone on stop?

Good luck

 

[snow white]

Don’t forget that if it’s a nice dry day or crisp frosty day the birds will be in the fields not in the woods as they like to forage in the open

[ChrisWill184]

On a shoot we had, there was a ditch that the birds used to like with a decent amount of cover but there were always a decent few more in a wooded area that was poor to drive the way you would want to, the opposite way to the ditch which was very near our boundary.

What we did was to include the pushing of the wood through to the ditch as a drive but have the guns positioned away from where we wanted the birds to go to like up the opposite side of the wood. That way the guns acted as our stops and still got a couple of shots from the birds that broke the wrong way and the rest of the birds were allowed to leak, run, fly out to the ditch at the other end. We then returned the ditch as the next drive. Worked well most of the time, when there were birds there!

[Neilsmith]

Thanks for advise, had our second shoot and much better, lots of birds in all cover crops,  bag was 75 but only 6 standing guns and a walking gun.

Was a frosty morning as opposed to a wet morning last time, but also changed drives around, so will see if it works next shoot.

 

[twenty]

On ‎29‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 09:48, Neilsmith said:

Hi all,

Had our first shoot the other day, first drive was duck mostly wild that flew out nice and high great shooting, next we pushed maize cover back to wood/pen only 2 pheasants in it, there are normally loads there when we feed rides in the afternoons, next drive again maize cover was good amount of birds, is it worth dogging the wood through on shoot morning to push birds out into cover crop.

 

Hello Neil,

I don't know the date of your first shoot, but on a syndicate that I shoot on, the keeper had informed us that even when the clocks went back it made a big difference to the numbers of birds in the first drive cover,

The first drive was a maize cover, before the clocks changed the birds went from wood to cover around 7-9am,........guns were on peg and live at 9.45am and the bag was impressive.

The following week after the clocks went back, it was very different, obviously the clocks had not changed for the birds,(sunrise), so they still moved from wood to cover at the same time (still 7-9am to them), but in theory Guns were making there way to peg at 8.30am, so influenced the birds movement to cover, consequently the bag was lower.

[Perazzishot]

If the birds are getting fed in the drive in the afternoon why would you expect them to be there in the morning?

[Dave at kelton]

If birds are in a spot at a particular time of the day that is the time to shoot it. You will always struggle to get birds when they prefer to be somewhere else. That’s my experience from running a small syndicate shoot for 25 years.