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Beany kind of bonus.


motty
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I had a little tip-off from Bigmat a week ago. He told me there was an old volunteer bean field that was receiving attention from a lot of pigeons. My other searches drew a blank, so i checked it out. There were birds there, but I didn't have permission. I used to have permission until another shooter bought the rights for himself. This has since expired, so I expected the following phonecall to the farmer to be positive. "Knock yourself out" were the words that I can recall.

I did wonder exactly what the pigeons were feeding on, as the field is littered with 2 foot tall bean plants and any number of weeds. The bean plants are sporting some nice, small and tender pods, that I think the pigeons had been enjoying most.

I decided to set up, not knowing what to expect. I used my hushpower o/u 20 bore, to get used to it a bit more. I am starting to get the hang of using it. A decent number of birds turned up, and I fired 25 quiet shots (all the remaining shells I had) for 16 pigeons. I could have then gone on to the 12, but decided to leave the ever growing throng in peace. This was last Saturday afternoon. My intention was to return another day, and hit them properly.

Jules was invited to help me tackle the pigeons. I strongly suspected a 100+ day. With the previous information gleaned, I knew where would be good spots for hides. I was just out of the shade of an ash tree, while Jules was to be allocated a position some 50 yards to my left, in a dry ditch. We could easily cover anything that came in a good radius.

Only magnets were required - enough to get the attention of the birds who had obviously become accustomed to feeding relatively undisturbed. We were shooting by around 12.30. It was slow to start with. Jules was getting concerned that he might need to move, as the earlier customers had shown more interest in my side of the killing field. He really needn't have worried. It wasn't long before we both had warm barrels, and Jules was getting more of the action. I guessed that this might happen.

I begun with the hushpower again, but soon moved on to my trusty 687 game gun that had not been fired in some time. It didn't take me long to get back in the swing with it; it is like an old friend. Jules was making good use of his A400. After a mediocre start, he started nailing everything. At certain times he didn't miss. I began to predict which ones he would struggle with, which are invariably fast, going away birds. Most other things were being cleanly put to sleep. It was also great fun rebounding birds back and forth to each other as they tried to make an escape. I feel we have perhaps underused this kind of set up in the past, and one which we agreed we will make more use of. I know Peter Theobald and his mate regularly set up hides around 50 yards apart. This kind of set up means, though, that you might poach each other's birds, and Jules (being a greedy sod) did it to me a few times!

The action didn't seem to relent, as wave after wave headed for the field. It was certainly far busier than I had anticipated! I have already viewed some of the film I got, and it looks pretty decent.

Anyway, as always, it did come to an end, and at around 5.30 we called it a day. It still took well over an hour to pack up, as we only had one dog out, and we hadn't really picked up during our time there. The final bag was a lovely 235 pigeons and 3 crows.

 

IMG-20200520-WA0001.jpg

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Well done the Eminems. I make it over 400 in two outings for the Premier League's leading scorers.

How nice it must be to give each other mutual invites to shoot. You will note how some of my invitees merely refer to my age and senility rather than asking me out.

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15 minutes ago, JDog said:

Well done the Eminems. I make it over 400 in two outings for the Premier League's leading scorers.

How nice it must be to give each other mutual invites to shoot. You will note how some of my invitees merely refer to my age and senility rather than asking me out.

when you next shoot 100...............her madge will send you a card........if you get your eye in you could end up like captain Tom..

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15 minutes ago, muncher said:

I have to admit, I thought I would be lucky to shoot 30. I was very surprised at how the numbers increased. The dry dyke made it a very hot hide due to no breeze at all cooling me of.

Still plenty of pigeons and crows dropping on there this evening! 

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33 minutes ago, Big Mat said:

Still plenty of pigeons and crows dropping on there this evening! 

Not surprised. They did start coming again just before we left the field.

15 minutes ago, pigeon controller said:

Great write up and result, good fieldcraft in the way that you found the perfect hide positions for the second visit.

Nice to see a good productive report on Pigeon Watch again, keep us informed.

Shame you're not posting as much, but I totally understand why.

1 hour ago, JDog said:

Well done the Eminems. I make it over 400 in two outings for the Premier League's leading scorers.

How nice it must be to give each other mutual invites to shoot. You will note how some of my invitees merely refer to my age and senility rather than asking me out.

You never know, there may be an invite coming your way at harvest. I rarely make comments on other's appearance, lack of marbles or age.

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4 hours ago, 7daysinaweek said:

Enjoyed your posts as usual Motty.

Did you open up a crop to find out what was enticing them?

What a great day.

atb

7diaw

I didn't open up any crops, but the ones I looked at/felt appeared empty.

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that guy did you a favour not renewing the shooting rights , so will you just go as normal now from now on , or just when he needs you , with a score like that he would be a fool not to let you carry on well done. must admit I found it hard to put the 20 bore mossy hushpower down then start banging away with the 12.

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25 minutes ago, kenholland said:

that guy did you a favour not renewing the shooting rights , so will you just go as normal now from now on , or just when he needs you , with a score like that he would be a fool not to let you carry on well done. must admit I found it hard to put the 20 bore mossy hushpower down then start banging away with the 12.

I shall carry on there. In fact, he phoned me while we were there to see how we were getting on, and finding out if I could move a gun on for him.

The 20 is fun to shoot. No ear defenders required, and no recoil.

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45 minutes ago, Big Mat said:

It's a good job I didn't have the time, or equipment to bother going to ask permission on there, I'd not have done it justice 😂

Mat it's the only way to get better, practice practice etc . Mind you somedays we all seem like we need more practice.

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