Centrepin Posted August 4, 2021 Report Share Posted August 4, 2021 Up early, out early saw the farmers coming out the house, spent 5 minutes chatting. Drove up to the silos and 100s of birds lifted off the rape and silo area heading towards the sitty trees near the bee hives. That suited me as my current car can't make the far fields where they normally go. Shot a couple from the side of the car that were lazy and sat on the wood pile. Good start with the .410. Drove down to the bee hives and unloaded my gear. Two wirlies out in the Barley and a bouncer right in the margins, set up my hide under a favourite sitty tree and as I was finishing putting some weeds on the straight edges four pigeons came in. Grabbed the MK38 and scared three but the first came down in the margins. The trees erupted with lots of birds going high then to the bottom of the field. Sat in my hide quiet, as I was then expecting a lull. I could hear what sounded like heavy breathing behind me in the trees and bushes. Six pigeon came in from behind me and I don't think I even came close to hitting them. Back to the heavy breathing from behind. So loud I thought it may have been from a horse. Few more pigeons came in I managed one in two shots from the MK38 and two misses with the .410 I grabbed instead of reloading. Back to the heavy breathing. Then the farmer came in to spray off the crop so it went dead for 15 - 20 minutes apart from the annoying heavy breathing. I wondered if it was a squirrel with a sore throat as I've heard them scream alarm before but nothing like this or anything I could see. Stopped when I made a noise. Pigeons started coming in again but circling from high, managed a couple more. Mr Loo hire arrived to set up his porta loos about 50 metres away, festival this weekend in the adjacent field. Pigeons gone. Decided to pack up and call if a day, too many interruptions plus I knew the tractor would be back round within the hour. Heavy breathing again while packing up but no movements and quiet if I spoke. Still no idea what it was so if anyone has any ideas? Sure it must be a squirrel as I've shot loads out of that tree. Packing the car up, I always leave a loaded gun on the tailgate, just in case. Two crows landed in the tree above me and I dropped one with the. 410. Missed the second as I think too many branches. Home for 1000. Shot eight picked five so a productive morning on what is always a hard land. Just damm hard work with the interruptions and whatever was behind me. Nap time in the afternoon then maybe back to catch the evenings flight with my son. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted August 4, 2021 Report Share Posted August 4, 2021 Short and sweet type of morning , you soon know when the odds are against you and you done the right thing ,move on , always another day if the good lord don't want us just yet . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Centrepin Posted August 4, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2021 I've been again tonight with my son. Too many festival goers in the adjacent field, unfortunately the pigeons were far too close to the campers. Safe for us to shoot but frankly not worth the bother of the upset or any possible conflict. We tried a couple of other fields under a known flight line but although I managed to scare a few nothing claimed. My son shot them instead 🙄 Moved to another field and sat watching a young buck playing. Although the land is cleared by the Police for .243 use, we're not. Whilst watching a few deer, we blatantly missed several pigeons on the line so called it a day and came home for a nice cold beer. No shooting now till after the festival... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted August 4, 2021 Report Share Posted August 4, 2021 23 minutes ago, Centrepin said: I've been again tonight with my son. Too many festival goers in the adjacent field, unfortunately the pigeons were far too close to the campers. Safe for us to shoot but frankly not worth the bother of the upset or any possible conflict. We tried a couple of other fields under a known flight line but although I managed to scare a few nothing claimed. My son shot them instead 🙄 Moved to another field and sat watching a young buck playing. Although the land is cleared by the Police for .243 use, we're not. Whilst watching a few deer, we blatantly missed several pigeons on the line so called it a day and came home for a nice cold beer. No shooting now till after the festival... We once had a festival on our estate , I say once because they never had another one after the mess they left . We have got a large wood which is attached to two of the best drives on the estate , the field beside the wood at the time was Winter Wheat and was about three weeks away from being combined , they wanted this field to camp on and the organisers paid good money for it to cut so that the party goers could pitch the tents , so far so good , once it was cut the fire officer wasn't happy with all the ripening straw about so they brought a bailer in and bailed the lot up , this had to be removed as it was classed as a fire hazard , well the weekend music event got underway and the majority of the crowd which ran into the thousands were to lazy to walk across the parkland to use the porta loos so they went into the wood to do whatever youngsters ( and oldies ) do , needles , toilet paper the lot . When they all went we had a skip full of old tents and more skips with general rubbish and god know what , now the worse bit , when the wood was inspected it had human waste everywhere and they closed it for shooting for two years through health and safety , even after that amount of time and we were told it was cleaned out and safe to beat through it we kept finding bottles for a few years after the event . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Centrepin Posted August 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2021 (edited) I hope that doesn't happen here. Lots of cars and vans around last night and people wandering around aimlessly. A few trade stands set up a few campers and a massive coloured marquee. Portaloos are right on the edge of the field so no need to use anything else. Massive industrial genny too. I don't hold the shooting rights, just specific permissions at set times and a gentleman's agreement not to shoot game or deer. The way it's set up I think it'll not impact game shooting but may attract Corvids, Pigeon and Gull for what they can get in the short term. Edited August 5, 2021 by Centrepin Auto correct spells wrong Corvid - Covid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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