Unexpected bag

[yickdaz]

Found some birds in an area we sometimes get a few on clover this time of  year the grass hadn't been cut and was waist high so they wouldn't be on that but they were on a field opposite that is supposed to be barley but it was very low and choked up with weed thats what the birds were after watched for 20 mins and a steady line was coming in from a few different directions  a good 300 or so got up off the field as I walked over with the gear it looked good, no sooner set up and had birds in set the rotary up and all hell broke lose they piled in for an hour must of shot 50 then they tailed off and ended up a trickle for the next 3 hrs an enjoyable session not shot a bird since Easter weekend due to not having any to go at so it was nice to see birds at last and over decoys picked 83 lost about 8 

[7daysinaweek]

That sounded like a 'Golden hour' followed by a cracking few hours you had there YD and 83 is fantastic by any standards. Great stuff!

[JTaylor91]

Sounds like a brilliant way to spend an afternoon. It’s never about the bag but 83 is cracking. Thanks for posting.

[Centrepin]

Well done, it's nice to have a good day

[mossy835]

well done nice you found some birds.

[WalkedUp]

Very good bag on clover, well done 👍 

edit - not clover, just looked at the tone of the picture 

Edited June 12, 2021 by WalkedUp

[pigeon controller]

Great result, well found.

[clangerman]

good bit of recon got you a nice few lot more than the sunburn i had in return for less than double digits yesterday nice effort well done 

[marsh man]

Brilliant bag after your lean period over the last few months , I often wonder where the next bag is coming from when things are slow , these last few weeks I have been getting little bread and butter bags off rape and then when it got to the flowering stage I moved onto the Peas , up until now you might a couple of hours in the mid afternoon and that would be it , yesterday I moved all my gear from one side of the field to the other side because when I went doing the week I noticed a flight line was going down the hedge to a little block of Fir trees .

Rather then struggle with one load I took half and then walked back for the rest , one advantage in having time on your hands , time I set up under a large single tree it was getting on for three o clock and I had the shelter from the overhanging branches from the very hot sun , odd pigeons came in from the start and for once I was hitting more than I was missing , sport was never frantic but I was happy with what I was getting , after an hour the sun was lower and the eye rubbing had begun along with the odd sneeze , I moved some of the decoys to one side so I wasn't looking directly into the sun , this partly worked but if a pigeon came from the sun direction then he or she lived to fight another day .

By half past five the what little wind we had had dropped and it was becoming very hot , another 20 minutes and I have had enough , a nice cold drink in my garden seemed a good idea , after storing the decoys and the bits and pieces in the hide which will be used again later in the week all I had to carry back was my gun , cartridge bag and 24 pigeons , all in all a perfect afternoon out . 

[Old Boggy]

16 hours ago, yickdaz said:

Found some birds in an area we sometimes get a few on clover this time of  year the grass hadn't been cut and was waist high so they wouldn't be on that but they were on a field opposite that is supposed to be barley but it was very low and choked up with weed thats what the birds were after watched for 20 mins and a steady line was coming in from a few different directions  a good 300 or so got up off the field as I walked over with the gear it looked good, no sooner set up and had birds in set the rotary up and all hell broke lose they piled in for an hour must of shot 50 then they tailed off and ended up a trickle for the next 3 hrs an enjoyable session not shot a bird since Easter weekend due to not having any to go at so it was nice to see birds at last and over decoys picked 83 lost about 8 

Ah, so that`s what pigeons look like, I was beginning to wonder. Excellent bag and a good report. Thanks for posting.

1 hour ago, marsh man said:

Brilliant bag after your lean period over the last few months , I often wonder where the next bag is coming from when things are slow , these last few weeks I have been getting little bread and butter bags off rape and then when it got to the flowering stage I moved onto the Peas , up until now you might a couple of hours in the mid afternoon and that would be it , yesterday I moved all my gear from one side of the field to the other side because when I went doing the week I noticed a flight line was going down the hedge to a little block of Fir trees .

Rather then struggle with one load I took half and then walked back for the rest , one advantage in having time on your hands , time I set up under a large single tree it was getting on for three o clock and I had the shelter from the overhanging branches from the very hot sun , odd pigeons came in from the start and for once I was hitting more than I was missing , sport was never frantic but I was happy with what I was getting , after an hour the sun was lower and the eye rubbing had begun along with the odd sneeze , I moved some of the decoys to one side so I wasn't looking directly into the sun , this partly worked but if a pigeon came from the sun direction then he or she lived to fight another day .

By half past five the what little wind we had had dropped and it was becoming very hot , another 20 minutes and I have had enough , a nice cold drink in my garden seemed a good idea , after storing the decoys and the bits and pieces in the hide which will be used again later in the week all I had to carry back was my gun , cartridge bag and 24 pigeons , all in all a perfect afternoon out . 

Sounds like you also had a cracking afternoon MM.

24 at this time of year is a really good bag. 

I`ve seen more woodies in my garden than I`ve seen out and about . No peas grown on my farms. Just waiting for a field of triticale to be cut for biofuel and hopefully get a few.

OB

[aga man]

Great bag Daz, no doubt left you wanting more☺

Well shot👍

[marsh man]

6 hours ago, Old Boggy said:

Ah, so that`s what pigeons look like, I was beginning to wonder. Excellent bag and a good report. Thanks for posting.

Sounds like you also had a cracking afternoon MM.

24 at this time of year is a really good bag. 

I`ve seen more woodies in my garden than I`ve seen out and about . No peas grown on my farms. Just waiting for a field of triticale to be cut for biofuel and hopefully get a few.

OB

Afternoon Chris , Now all the buds have broken into leaf the Pigeons have at long last started leaving the woods and having a change of diet , apart from the Peas we have got very few crops that would draw Pigeons at this time of the year , mind you , with all the hot weather we have had this last week or so everything is beginning to catch up , they say around these parts that by the time the Norfolk Show comes around the rows on the sugar beet fields should be touching each other , two or three weeks ago that saying look very remote , now the plants are only a inch or so away from each other and the Norfolk Show would have been in two weeks time if it hadn't been cancelled again due to the virus .

A week ago you could only see the odd flower on the Peas , now yesterday the field was covered in flowers and by the end of next week you will see the small pods appearing .

For the last two or three years our Winter barley was ready to be cut by the third week in July which is only a month away , if this weather kept up for any amount of time I recon the grain harvest will start in four or five weeks time and then we will see the first reports on stubble shooting , or laid patches if we get the wind and rain at the right time , one way or the other we have got plenty to look forward to over the next few weeks  MM

 

[yickdaz]

On 13/06/2021 at 09:20, marsh man said:

Brilliant bag after your lean period over the last few months , I often wonder where the next bag is coming from when things are slow , these last few weeks I have been getting little bread and butter bags off rape and then when it got to the flowering stage I moved onto the Peas , up until now you might a couple of hours in the mid afternoon and that would be it , yesterday I moved all my gear from one side of the field to the other side because when I went doing the week I noticed a flight line was going down the hedge to a little block of Fir trees .

Rather then struggle with one load I took half and then walked back for the rest , one advantage in having time on your hands , time I set up under a large single tree it was getting on for three o clock and I had the shelter from the overhanging branches from the very hot sun , odd pigeons came in from the start and for once I was hitting more than I was missing , sport was never frantic but I was happy with what I was getting , after an hour the sun was lower and the eye rubbing had begun along with the odd sneeze , I moved some of the decoys to one side so I wasn't looking directly into the sun , this partly worked but if a pigeon came from the sun direction then he or she lived to fight another day .

By half past five the what little wind we had had dropped and it was becoming very hot , another 20 minutes and I have had enough , a nice cold drink in my garden seemed a good idea , after storing the decoys and the bits and pieces in the hide which will be used again later in the week all I had to carry back was my gun , cartridge bag and 24 pigeons , all in all a perfect afternoon out . 

We don't have any peas around here apart from one rare occasion years ago so from spring drilling it's usually laid barley or wheat when we get another chance so that was a rare bag in-between those crops

[Old Boggy]

17 hours ago, marsh man said:

Afternoon Chris , Now all the buds have broken into leaf the Pigeons have at long last started leaving the woods and having a change of diet , apart from the Peas we have got very few crops that would draw Pigeons at this time of the year , mind you , with all the hot weather we have had this last week or so everything is beginning to catch up , they say around these parts that by the time the Norfolk Show comes around the rows on the sugar beet fields should be touching each other , two or three weeks ago that saying look very remote , now the plants are only a inch or so away from each other and the Norfolk Show would have been in two weeks time if it hadn't been cancelled again due to the virus .

A week ago you could only see the odd flower on the Peas , now yesterday the field was covered in flowers and by the end of next week you will see the small pods appearing .

For the last two or three years our Winter barley was ready to be cut by the third week in July which is only a month away , if this weather kept up for any amount of time I recon the grain harvest will start in four or five weeks time and then we will see the first reports on stubble shooting , or laid patches if we get the wind and rain at the right time , one way or the other we have got plenty to look forward to over the next few weeks  MM

 

Morning John,

No peas grown on the farms that I shoot and another farm that has peas where I`ve been looking, has had very few pigeons on at any time of day. For some inexplicable reason pigeons either go mad on peas or as our friend Ditchman commented in another thread, they totally ignore them. Perhaps it`s the different types grown. 

As a consequence, I`ve not been out for a couple of weeks and having consulted my shooting diary, noted that our triticale was cut on 7th.July in 2019 and on 23rd.June last year. These were the first two years for this biofuel crop so I`m hoping that this years will be cut very soon as the stubble had previously given me a few good weeks of shooting due to the fact that the stubble was left round until spring drilling of beans or maize. The other likely scenario would be if the pigeons start on the `milky` wheat where they take advantage of the shorter stemmed varieties now grown and manage to land with outstretched wings on the top of the crop. Another possibility are a few fields of barley grown for the first time in ages around here where, as you say, could be laid due to rain and wind.

Just have to wait, keep looking and be ever hopeful.

I`m pleased that others are managing reasonable bags at this time of year and it`s good to read of their reports.

OB

[marsh man]

3 hours ago, yickdaz said:

We don't have any peas around here apart from one rare occasion years ago so from spring drilling it's usually laid barley or wheat when we get another chance so that was a rare bag in-between those crops

I often wonder where the guides take their clients when most of the crops are at the half grown stage ? , at one time we had regular shooting from the end of one shooting season to within a few weeks to the next , that was on the uplands , on the marshes we could go all the year round , one crop we no longer grow is Lucerne , this was normally a good pigeon draw , Linseed was another , a bit like Peas , some fields were good while others didn't produce at all , one big farm I used to go on started to grow Broccoli , within a few years they joined up with other farms to form one big growing group , at the peak when I went on they grew 800 acres of the stuff and the E U work force lived on a holiday camp , the travelling started to get expensive as the amount of fields were getting a fair way from my house and I started to restrict it to 15 miles from my home , this was a good pigeon crop in the early stages of growth , now with all the regulations about gun shot we can no longer go on some salad crops and on one farm you cannot shoot when the Peas are in pod , still compared to some counties we don't go to long before we can find some going onto something worth shooting . GOOD LUCK over the next few months .

[Wilts#Dave]

Great session that, just can’t beat a busy spell like that first hour!! 
Long may it continue 😁👍🏼