A wind too good to miss.

[JDog]

It would be fair to say that it has been a frustrating time decoying pigeons of late. Last week Mighty Mariner and I were diddled by a flight line going wide, recently Clodhopper added his brains to proceedings and the pigeons just avoided us, and most weekends Jacko fails miserably to produce the goods so I had basically given up temporarily.

That is until yesterday when I was watching beans being harvested only to find two hundred pigeons on an adjacent wheat stubble. The problem was that no pigeons joined them in the hour I watched so I had no idea where they were coming from. Today's cunning plan was to get there ahead of the flight. I was there in the sun with Barney snuffling around by 1pm and I never saw a pigeon until 2.30. Then I saw a few on a well known line so without wasting more time I dashed off to a small spinney and set up with the strong wind from behind.

Pigeons came straight from the off in groups of ten to fifteen and swirled on the wind to get into the decoys. This was not anywhere near as exciting as it should have been because most were young birds and the shooting was a bit too easy. I packed up after exactly 1 hour as there was no challenge to proceedings and of the thirty birds I picked only five were old birds and I had picked those ones out carefully.

[old'un]

Well done for getting out and shooting a few, I know what you mean about young birds at this time of year, they have very little sense of danger and decoy so easy, mind you they do make good eating.

Have you seen much rape going in around your neck of the woods?

[JDog]

1 minute ago, old'un said:

Well done for getting out and shooting a few, I know what you mean about young birds at this time of year, they have very little sense of danger and decoy so easy, mind you they do make good eating.

Have you seen much rape going in around your neck of the woods?

Some of the young birds are already in the freezer.

Yes much more rape than last year. Some was sown very early and looked ropey until the rains came last week. Now most of it looks very good. 

[JTaylor91]

I wondered if you were out today. I noticed a fair breeze when I managed to get away from the desk for half an hour.

[Vetty]

Nice shooting and what a nice wind it as been

[old'un]

21 minutes ago, JDog said:

Some of the young birds are already in the freezer.

Yes much more rape than last year. Some was sown very early and looked ropey until the rains came last week. Now most of it looks very good. 

Funny how your area does not seem to have the same problem as areas further south, think You had a far bit of rape to go at last year, the last couple of years in this area the rape as all failed due to flea beetle, apart from 3 farms that managed to get it through the winter, mind you most of the farms that usually sow rape have moved over to spring beans which gave me some decent bags in the spring, there was some spring rape sown this year but all that also failed due to flea beetle.

I have yet to have a drive around to see if much as gone in this year (been decorating) hopefully a few will take the risk and put some in.

[clangerman]

30 is still a good show i try not to pick squeakers of a bit of free movement in the pattern lot of them seem to look round confused rather than feed don’t think adults are hungry enough to be keen yet all 22 from today were empty even at past 3 o’clock 

[pigeon controller]

Well done JDog , good report

[marsh man]

I found the of majority young ones we got last Saturday were in very good condition and nearly as big as the parents , as all ready, said they are the best ones to eat with most of them eating nothing but grain since been hatched .

With all this hot weather the flies have been a nightmare , the last time I was out I brought home 31 as the lad I was shooting with didn't want any , my dog brought back about a dozen and these were left in the hide , mistake no 1 , the flies were having a field day and laying eggs all over them, when I got home I laid them out , checked them over and pulled off what eggs I could see , I then put 10 at a time in vegie boxes that stack on top of each other , then mistake no 2 was covering the boxes up with an old sheet , this stopped any flies landing on the dead birds but it also trapped the warm air from their bodies , come next morning I checked them again before they went in the freezer and three had the tiny maggots under the wings , these were put in a plastic bag with the top tied up and stuck in the freezer for decoys , can't sell them but they wont be wasted so to speck .

[JDog]

Good enough to eat.

 

[the hitman]

3 hours ago, JDog said:

Good enough to eat.

 

Well done- they must have all been head shots.

Good write up - glad you had some sport in the wind, and some quality meat for the chef.

Hitman

 

[JDog]

2 hours ago, the hitman said:

Well done- they must have all been head shots.

Good write up - glad you had some sport in the wind, and some quality meat for the chef.

Hitman

 

Yes all shot through the head. One or two stray pellets penetrated the breast on a couple.

[GingerCat]

Good work