Excuses , Excuses , Excuses

[marsh man]

Not all , but most of us have been having a lean time these last few weeks and if I relied on shooting Pigeons to survive I would now be skin and bone and down to my last shilling , well thank god I only do it as a hobby and protect the crops when and if necessary and don't rely on the proceeds to keep my head above water , as I have already reported I have now gone through the drilling ( season ) without shooting a pigeon on any drilled field , the only pigeons I have been shooting lately have been on rape .

On one block of rape we have got a tenant farmer who farm near by and have got two fields of rape that join our fields , throughout the winter he have had a gas going off to keep what pigeons were about on the move , well yesterday on my travels I walked the dog round ours and didn't hear the gun go off , as I got near the wood I could see a few pigeons leaving the wood and dropping into a thin patch , this needed investagating a bit more to see if taking a few pigeons out of the freezer was on , on entering the field a good 200 got off with nearly as many getting out of the wood , this looked a bit more promising and with a fine day forecasted to day it was worth taking four clean pigeons out of the freezer , two for the magnet and two for floaters , the first slight setback when I got home was the good lady asking me if I could take her for her 2nd jab in the morning , what time ? , 11.45 she said , so to keep the peace I said yes of course I will  , getting to the medical centre there was already a big q but once she joined the q it didn't take that long before she was out and we were heading home , after a bite to eat and a cuppa I was finally heading out , my first port of call was popping in to see the tenant farmer to make sure it was alright driving on the grass strip around the headlands , pulling into the farm the first person I saw was his wife , as I hadn't seen her for a few years she was keen to have a good ole yarn and it took ages before I told her what I was here for , she then said pop over and see her husband in the work shop as he would like to see me as well , so after putting the world right he said yes drive where you like except over the crop.

The time was now 2.30pm and it was going to take me a good half an hour to drive to my spot and set up , as expected a load got out of the wood and the Oak trees around the rape fields , I found a nice little place to set up but the sun was strong and it was dead in front , no problem , I will put the decoys to one side and that should stop me looking into the sun , or so I thought , having parked my motor up I was ready for any action , within the first couple of minutes two swung wide and headed straight for my setup , one I couldn't see and the one I did take on went into the sun and the first miss of the day which wasn't going to be the last , the next one wasn't so lucky and at least I had one , things did improve after I put some flock shells on top of the rape but I still had several either turned into the sun or came out of it , I was finding the ones that were coming out were slightly easier than trying to connect when it was a job seeing them , by now it was getting around 5pm and I had a few shells left in my second box , I will give it till 5.30 or run out of shells , well it got to about 20 past five and I missed my last shot of the day , having most of the bag already in the hide I had three more to pick , after I found them it made 27 picked , although I might have sounded I was mumping a bit, I had a cracking afternoon and really enjoyed it , although if it hadn't been for my wifes jab , yarning and the sun I might have had a few more , but who really cares  .  THANKS for reading .  MM

P S  I did get my first young one for this year, and hopefully several more to come .

[JDog]

That is a good bag for anyone at this time of year.

[clangerman]

good effort at least they were there for you had a call from one of those farmers who exaggerates for tomorrow tempted not to even go 

[Morkin]

Well done old son as they say ,You ended up gitten a few better than sitten indoors and thanks for sharing it may you have many more.

[JTaylor91]

Good read, thanks for posting.

[Old Boggy]

Well done John, you did well and many thanks for a most enjoyable read. 

Thanks for posting.

OB

[Centrepin]

Glad your getting them, my bag last week was 1 pigeon 1 shot, 1 crow 4 shots. Other than my friendly circling buzzard not a bird to be seen.

[WalkedUp]

Good read, up here that would be a great bag for a full day in April let alone a couple of hours. 

[Ian willetts]

Well deserved bag mm you kept every one happy even your good lady I know what it’s like one of my perms is my old school mate and he likes a catch up when I pop in to the farm .So takeing time to talk to the farmer and his wife would have been good company for them keep it up mm I really enjoy your in-depth write up as if we were al watching your day thanks   

[Mr wilberts]

Well done that man! You need to earn brownie points to then use them 😂

[Spr1985]

A good read mm, it’s nice to read how the whole day pans out sometimes rather than just from the point of setting up the hide onwards. In the times that we are all going through it must be nice to have some interaction with people too. 

[marsh man]

Many THANKS for all the above kind comments , when I first started game shooting , wildfowling and Pigeon shooting the only thing on my mind was the bag,  in the early days when the shooting parties came to the hall they were mainly made up of  old boys who were then at the later stages of their life , come lunch time I couldn't make out why they lingered on and took their time coming back out to face whatever weather we had on the day and should be spending more time shooting before it got dark .

Now I am the same age as a lot of the old boys, I now realise their is far more to shooting than the bag and if now if I was in the same position as the gentlemen in the early shooting parties I wouldn't be in any hurry to get back out after sitting near a log fire enjoying a drink while letting your roast dinner settle down a bit .

In some ways I spent more time shooting when I was working than I do now I am retired , most of my life when I was working revolved around shooting , many a time I would set up in my dinner break and on a Friday we could finish work at 3pm , at 10 past three I was in the hide ready to shoot my first Pigeon and if that was in mid Summer I would often be their till 8pm , time I got home and laid the bag out it was always going to be a late tea , the next day ( Saturday ) we done it all again although I did get get home a bit earlier for tea , Sunday was a day out together , although it normally involved going to the game dealers first to off load the previous weeks bag 

At the time it was like being a shooting junkie and it didn't help much with me doing a lot of my shooting on the place where I earned a living , now I still shoot on the place but the bags are far less important , I have often said I would now sooner have two easy afternoons than one long day and if the weather is wet or cold then I will leave it till the next day , or the next one after that and so on , I have enclosed a photo of the first young Pigeon this year , to me it is like seeing your first Swallow , you know Summer is just around the corner and hopefully we will all have a better year than the last  .        GOOD LUCK 

 

[kenholland]

keep the missus happy now that you are jab free of that , you can plan you shoots a bit early now , good luck next time.

[lakeside1000]

On 17/04/2021 at 20:35, marsh man said:

Not all , but most of us have been having a lean time these last few weeks and if I relied on shooting Pigeons to survive I would now be skin and bone and down to my last shilling , well thank god I only do it as a hobby and protect the crops when and if necessary and don't rely on the proceeds to keep my head above water , as I have already reported I have now gone through the drilling ( season ) without shooting a pigeon on any drilled field , the only pigeons I have been shooting lately have been on rape .

On one block of rape we have got a tenant farmer who farm near by and have got two fields of rape that join our fields , throughout the winter he have had a gas going off to keep what pigeons were about on the move , well yesterday on my travels I walked the dog round ours and didn't hear the gun go off , as I got near the wood I could see a few pigeons leaving the wood and dropping into a thin patch , this needed investagating a bit more to see if taking a few pigeons out of the freezer was on , on entering the field a good 200 got off with nearly as many getting out of the wood , this looked a bit more promising and with a fine day forecasted to day it was worth taking four clean pigeons out of the freezer , two for the magnet and two for floaters , the first slight setback when I got home was the good lady asking me if I could take her for her 2nd jab in the morning , what time ? , 11.45 she said , so to keep the peace I said yes of course I will  , getting to the medical centre there was already a big q but once she joined the q it didn't take that long before she was out and we were heading home , after a bite to eat and a cuppa I was finally heading out , my first port of call was popping in to see the tenant farmer to make sure it was alright driving on the grass strip around the headlands , pulling into the farm the first person I saw was his wife , as I hadn't seen her for a few years she was keen to have a good ole yarn and it took ages before I told her what I was here for , she then said pop over and see her husband in the work shop as he would like to see me as well , so after putting the world right he said yes drive where you like except over the crop.

The time was now 2.30pm and it was going to take me a good half an hour to drive to my spot and set up , as expected a load got out of the wood and the Oak trees around the rape fields , I found a nice little place to set up but the sun was strong and it was dead in front , no problem , I will put the decoys to one side and that should stop me looking into the sun , or so I thought , having parked my motor up I was ready for any action , within the first couple of minutes two swung wide and headed straight for my setup , one I couldn't see and the one I did take on went into the sun and the first miss of the day which wasn't going to be the last , the next one wasn't so lucky and at least I had one , things did improve after I put some flock shells on top of the rape but I still had several either turned into the sun or came out of it , I was finding the ones that were coming out were slightly easier than trying to connect when it was a job seeing them , by now it was getting around 5pm and I had a few shells left in my second box , I will give it till 5.30 or run out of shells , well it got to about 20 past five and I missed my last shot of the day , having most of the bag already in the hide I had three more to pick , after I found them it made 27 picked , although I might have sounded I was mumping a bit, I had a cracking afternoon and really enjoyed it , although if it hadn't been for my wifes jab , yarning and the sun I might have had a few more , but who really cares  .  THANKS for reading .  MM

P S  I did get my first young one for this year, and hopefully several more to come .

Well done John, its always an effort to get out at our age but sometimes it can be worth it, I took 10 hard earned birds on Friday evening on the rape at the back of the old skip yard, but the bulk of them were up on the main track near the concrete pad, so I am up there this evening to have another go, most of the rape is in flower with a lot of bald patches all over the fields ,sadly nothing on any of the peas yet, maybe that will change once they show green on top, we will see. 

Nice write up and keep at it, regards to the wife, hope she didn't have any effects from the jab, we are waiting for our second appointment , probably this week sometime,👍

[marsh man]

13 minutes ago, lakeside1000 said:

Well done John, its always an effort to get out at our age but sometimes it can be worth it, I took 10 hard earned birds on Friday evening on the rape at the back of the old skip yard, but the bulk of them were up on the main track near the concrete pad, so I am up there this evening to have another go, most of the rape is in flower with a lot of bald patches all over the fields ,sadly nothing on any of the peas yet, maybe that will change once they show green on top, we will see. 

Nice write up and keep at it, regards to the wife, hope she didn't have any effects from the jab, we are waiting for our second appointment , probably this week sometime,👍

Morning Alan , Glad you are still finding a few down on the marshes and each one you get is richly deserved .

Up to now my wife haven't moaned about the jab at all , everything else yes but not the jab  , I should be hearing about my second one any day now as my first one was three weeks after hers , I will moan about mine a lot even if it was the same as my first one when I didn't feel a thing , nice to be waited on now and again don't you think .