Repaying the favour.

[Clodhopper]

JDog has been very kind over recent months as my permissions have been light on pigeons and work has got in the way of proper reconnaissance. Having recently seen a few going into a spring rape drilling we had arranged to meet up on Saturday, however, as he not so accurately stated in another post, I had my underwear draw to attend to along with the small matter of putting 90 thousand day old chicks in sheds. We would have been fine to shoot had the lorry not turned up 3 hours later than expected.  
 

Fast forward to today and we met up at 4 pm with a few birds already feeding. We could only really shoot 1 of the 3 fields due to the proximity of horses, a road and the prevailing wind. The very nice lady horse owner was made aware of our presence, I had to drag JDog away from her, he was getting a little too excited.  
 

We set up facing the strong afternoon sun but with the easterly breeze on our backs. It was a nice change to be down on my patch, on the marsh, a mile from the sea wall. The birds would hopefully come out of a village half a mile away, curl behind us and drop into the pattern. 
 

This did not really happen but they did come from all other angles, some decoying and some intent on dropping into some nearby beans that were 1 ft high but not on land I had permission to shoot.
 

JDog kept knocking them down, I was a little off the mark to say the least playing catch up and killing the bird with the second barrel on numerous occasions. Not ideal but at least we were getting a few. 
 

The action never really got going and we packed up after just short of 3 hours shooting and managed to pick 33 birds with another 2 we could not find.  Jasper did a fine job picking up and finished off by submerging himself in probably the smelliest dyke in the district and then hoping into the back of the car ready for the journey home.  
 

These fields should provided a bit of sport over the coming weeks especially as there are some peas going in on the adjoining fields. 

 

[aga man]

Very nice. As you say some sport to come off there in the coming weeks, no doubt.

[JDog]

Very enjoyable it was too.

When we were at the cars having finished our session lots of pigeons were going into a Spring rape field which we had bagged off and an even stronger line close by headed into standing beans. This was 8pm.

[Jacko3275]

Well done you two .. 90 thousand chicks how bigs your shoot and can I have a cheap invite

 

ill do a  couple of day beating if you need anyone 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Jacko3275

[Clodhopper]

7 hours ago, Jacko3275 said:

Well done you two .. 90 thousand chicks how bigs your shoot and can I have a cheap invite

 

ill do a  couple of day beating if you need anyone 

Unfortunately mate they were day old chickens. We struggle to get them to fly well enough to make a decent drive! But yes they are cheap, about 3 quid in Tesco.😀

[Shotguneddy]

Could u not of put your hide in that taller grass with hedge as darker background behind u and brought decoys in a bit so they are still in killing range 

[JDog]

8 minutes ago, Shotguneddy said:

Could u not of put your hide in that taller grass with hedge as darker background behind u and brought decoys in a bit so they are still in killing range 

If I may answer for Clodhopper, that ‘taller grass’ was in fact reeds in a 2m deep ditch with 300mm of water in it. Had we set up on the hedge we would have had to mountaineer into and out of the ditch every time we attended to the decoy pattern.

[Clodhopper]

28 minutes ago, Shotguneddy said:

Could u not of put your hide in that taller grass with hedge as darker background behind u and brought decoys in a bit so they are still in killing range 

That is what I first thought when I looked at the field but it soon became apparent that the ditch was too big.

[marsh man]

Nice report Clodhopper , your marshes look slightly different to the ones I am used to as most of ours are now for grazing and hay with good money been made from letting them to a major horse charity , the ones I used to rent for the shooting had crops as far as the eye could see and produced some excellent shooting , both pigeon , game and wildfowl , cover was a bit sparse but you made use of the reeds beside the dykes or the odd telegraph pole , if there was neither reeds or poles you got down the side of the bank with no hide at all , I had some old Black and White photos taken by my brother 40 odd years ago , my dogs were not allowed to run in for obvious reasons as it wouldn't be very healthy to be in line of gunshot from a few yards away , quality of photos are not great but you can see what it was like . 

[Clodhopper]

There aren’t many left to grass in my area nowadays. There are odd pockets that remain. 
 

Lovely photos. Thanks for sharing them. You don’t want to be twisting and leaning backwards when you are perched on the edge of a drain like the one in your photos!

[motty]

A good report of a worthwhile bag. I'm sure the Dog was kept entertained!