Wild, wild woodies

[adzyvilla]

With East anglia firmly in the grip of storm Jorge, ideal conditions for roost shooting on this Saturday afternoon and a slab of fiocci pl 30 to try out, I loaded up, collected the old man and decamped at our usual place. 

30mph southerly winds meant that the birds would be flying slightly differently than usual, and broken cloud with brilliant sunshine and occasional brisk downpours was forecast, although in the end the rain was non existent. The damage of previous storms had not been added to in the intervening 7 days, so I took up my favourite position and settled in. 

It was a good 20 minutes before I even caught sight of a pigeon, as a solitary bird dropped in to a tree on the edge of the wood some 45 yards away, well out of range, but I was cheered by the sight of it. I opened my account a few minutes later as a wickedly fast group flew over, 4 shots resulted in one bird down, duly retrieved by winnie in no time at all. She really is becoming a dab hand at this shooting lark. It would be a long time before I saw a hittable bird again, although keen to put my new carts through their paces, I was popping off at anything that came close. 

A bit later bought down two for three shots in quick succession, with some fine shooting long, head on but very wide birds, far to my left. That was a conundrum for the dog, who has never had to chose from two retrieves in the field before, but after some initial prompting from me, she did some good work with a long retrieve that meant she had to leave the wood and go out onto the park. It was a long time before she had any more work to do though. 

The wind must have shifted enough to effect the flight path as I began to get ones and twos coming in straight driven. Could I hit any? No. God knows what I was doing but I must have missed 6 or 7 and at one point I could have sworn the dog had her head in her paws out of sheer embarrassment. I don't normally struggle with these birds and I was scratching my head to figure out why. A trip to the clay ground might be in order methinks.

Anyway, back to the woods. I decided to give myself a break and moved position closer to the edge of the wood where birds were occasionally settling in. The shooting was dying off at this point as it approached 5 o clock and father had made his way up to my end to see if I'd had enough. I was pretty confident there was action ahead so I said I'd give it a little while before packing in. He took up position some way behind me facing away and had a couple of shots while I waited for my chance. It came eventually, and I managed to take one more to make 4 in total as i caught it coming in to land in classic roost style. There it ended, and we called it a day. Dad didn't get anything for his 7 shots. I had a total of 28 in the end, although probably only a dozen or so at actual hittable birds. 

Might not be able to make it next week, but things may change. I think the cartridges were OK. I need more time with them. They killed well when I connected, and the gun cycled them well, so hopefully it will be the beginning of a new partnership. 

[prem1234]

I nice write up.....and good on for getting out in this weather.

[aga man]

Good report. It has been an exceptional year for roosting.

[marsh man]

2 hours ago, adzyvilla said:

With East anglia firmly in the grip of storm Jorge, ideal conditions for roost shooting on this Saturday afternoon and a slab of fiocci pl 30 to try out, I loaded up, collected the old man and decamped at our usual place. 

30mph southerly winds meant that the birds would be flying slightly differently than usual, and broken cloud with brilliant sunshine and occasional brisk downpours was forecast, although in the end the rain was non existent. The damage of previous storms had not been added to in the intervening 7 days, so I took up my favourite position and settled in. 

It was a good 20 minutes before I even caught sight of a pigeon, as a solitary bird dropped in to a tree on the edge of the wood some 45 yards away, well out of range, but I was cheered by the sight of it. I opened my account a few minutes later as a wickedly fast group flew over, 4 shots resulted in one bird down, duly retrieved by winnie in no time at all. She really is becoming a dab hand at this shooting lark. It would be a long time before I saw a hittable bird again, although keen to put my new carts through their paces, I was popping off at anything that came close. 

A bit later bought down two for three shots in quick succession, with some fine shooting long, head on but very wide birds, far to my left. That was a conundrum for the dog, who has never had to chose from two retrieves in the field before, but after some initial prompting from me, she did some good work with a long retrieve that meant she had to leave the wood and go out onto the park. It was a long time before she had any more work to do though. 

The wind must have shifted enough to effect the flight path as I began to get ones and twos coming in straight driven. Could I hit any? No. God knows what I was doing but I must have missed 6 or 7 and at one point I could have sworn the dog had her head in her paws out of sheer embarrassment. I don't normally struggle with these birds and I was scratching my head to figure out why. A trip to the clay ground might be in order methinks.

Anyway, back to the woods. I decided to give myself a break and moved position closer to the edge of the wood where birds were occasionally settling in. The shooting was dying off at this point as it approached 5 o clock and father had made his way up to my end to see if I'd had enough. I was pretty confident there was action ahead so I said I'd give it a little while before packing in. He took up position some way behind me facing away and had a couple of shots while I waited for my chance. It came eventually, and I managed to take one more to make 4 in total as i caught it coming in to land in classic roost style. There it ended, and we called it a day. Dad didn't get anything for his 7 shots. I had a total of 28 in the end, although probably only a dozen or so at actual hittable birds. 

Might not be able to make it next week, but things may change. I think the cartridges were OK. I need more time with them. They killed well when I connected, and the gun cycled them well, so hopefully it will be the beginning of a new partnership. 

Good report , we were also out on what is our last day shooting in the woods for this year , we find four weeks is enough as today there was very little shooting going on , I shot five and my mate got four before we called it a day at 4.45 , mainly because there was very little action and we were both getting cold , as you say the rain held off but the wind was strong and that is how it has been for the last four weeks , blowing a gale , or very strong winds . 

[adzyvilla]

7 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Good report , we were also out on what is our last day shooting in the woods for this year , we find four weeks is enough as today there was very little shooting going on , I shot five and my mate got four before we called it a day at 4.45 , mainly because there was very little action and we were both getting cold , as you say the rain held off but the wind was strong and that is how it has been for the last four weeks , blowing a gale , or very strong winds . 

I will be in discussion with the keeper during the week to see who else is out (if anyone) next weekend. Some years we have roost shot through until April, literally standing under trees coming into full leaf in our shirtsleeves, and the birds never dried up. Other years, we've knocked it on the head after a couple of weeks, having barely fired a shot. Funny how it goes. If everyone has had enough, I'll dust off the decoys in a few weekends and see what's about. 

[marsh man]

4 minutes ago, adzyvilla said:

I will be in discussion with the keeper during the week to see who else is out (if anyone) next weekend. Some years we have roost shot through until April, literally standing under trees coming into full leaf in our shirtsleeves, and the birds never dried up. Other years, we've knocked it on the head after a couple of weeks, having barely fired a shot. Funny how it goes. If everyone has had enough, I'll dust off the decoys in a few weekends and see what's about. 

We find the first week we get nearly 100% turnout , the second week we get a few excuses , like Norwich are playing at home , or got to take the boy to a football match , the third week we would be down to about 1/2 to 3/4 with the woods being occupied, and then like this week , around half would turn out , you have also got to take in account the afternoons drawing out a lot since the first week as today you could have shot till well after 5.30pm ,

[Old Boggy]

Thank you for posting your interesting and detailed report. You are very lucky to be able to have shooting days out with your father. Something many of us would loved to have done, but for many reasons this wasn't possible.

Our little wood hasn't seen many come into roost. I try to shoot this wood when a much larger wood about half a mile away is also being shot, but this too has seen very few going to roost this year. Normally the larger wood which has a good belt of firs holds hundreds, so anyone shooting invariably sends some down to my wood, but not so this year, so it's back to decoying on rape next time out.

OB

[adzyvilla]

20 minutes ago, Old Boggy said:

Thank you for posting your interesting and detailed report. You are very lucky to be able to have shooting days out with your father. Something many of us would loved to have done, but for many reasons this wasn't possible.

Our little wood hasn't seen many come into roost. I try to shoot this wood when a much larger wood about half a mile away is also being shot, but this too has seen very few going to roost this year. Normally the larger wood which has a good belt of firs holds hundreds, so anyone shooting invariably sends some down to my wood, but not so this year, so it's back to decoying on rape next time out.

OB

I suppose I am lucky to be able to spend this time with my dad, he won't always be there so I'll make the most of it. Nearly 30 years now I've been his shooting companion, although way back then all I got to do was be quiet and still and watch it all happen. I'll never forget the first time he let me take a shot with his air rifle at a rabbit. I missed, but the feeling never left me and cemented my place in the shooting fraternity forever. Thanks dad. 

[mossy835]

with no game keepers to worry about,i will be shooting in woods for weeks to come,good write up on wild, wild woodies,3 of us shot 23 in woods yesterday,very windy but fun.

[adzyvilla]

No new report to post, as the pigeons had other ideas today. Conditions good, plenty of fresh drill around me, lots of birds about and even a few buddies out in other woods. 

All I saw in the end were up with the angels. After a few shots at these skyscrapers, with nothing to show, I decided a nice cup of tea was in order so I packed up and headed for home. I was out for nearly 2 hours all told so I gave it a good go, the shooting gods just weren't smiling on me. 

Still, nice to be out amongst nature, spring has truly arrived so my thoughts turn to the decoys. That's it for flighting/roosting this year for me. 

[mossy835]

2 of us out in the woods today had 20 pigeons.

[adzyvilla]

18 minutes ago, mossy835 said:

2 of us out in the woods today had 20 pigeons.

Good result.