Thoughts On Why Members Don't Post As Often ?

[marsh man]

Mr JDog started the ball rolling in stating posts on Pigeon shooting are getting less and less than when he first came on the forum , why should this be ? .

Well some thoughts spring to mind , up until a few years ago we were completely left alone to get on with our way of life , we had a fair / good market with our shot pigeons and cartridges were a fair price .

Then the tide started to change , game dealers were packing up so you had to take your pigeons further afield to off load them  , and once off loaded the returns in money hardly covered the fuel in getting there and back , next in line was the cartridges were getting more and more expensive along with the fuel to do your reccy .

For most of us the increase in cartridges and fuel was nothing compared to what was to come next when Mr Packham came out of the woodwork and nearly single handed put paid to Pigeon shooting overnight and even now the debate still go on with rules and updates .

Just as we got over this scare the world was put upside down with the start of a pandemic that affected each and everyone of us in some way , with jobs being lost , isolation for the elderly and travel restrictions .

For some members that might had been the final straw that broke the Camels back , even now we are not fully out of the woods and the G L will soon be reviewed again and no doubt we will have another hurdle to cross .

So after rabbiting on a bit , my question is are there still as many serious Pigeon shooters about and on the forum ? . 

[WalkedUp]

I only shoot pigeon during the summer as the majority of the land I have is left fallow over winter. I had a good day on turnips once during a frost. 

[oowee]

90% of my shotgun work is corvids so not much to report on the pigeons in Somerset. The places I shoot are often so filthy that the last thing I want to do is take a picture. Not at all concerned by Packham or the pandemic but I don't like to post pics of a good day out with the shotgun or a night with the rifle. 

I also feel a significant difference between pest control and pigeon shooting where some feel the need to recycle the carcass into the food chain. 

 

[bluesj]

I mostly shoot corvids not really any number of pigeons on the bits of ground i shoot.

[marsh man]

11 minutes ago, WalkedUp said:

I only shoot pigeon during the summer as the majority of the land I have is left fallow over winter. I had a good day on turnips once during a frost. 

I would imagine a lot of the pigeon shooters on the forum only shoot pigeons during Summer months , either from early Peas , laid grain crops and then stubble , I can still go on parts of estate but this time of the year  most of my time is spent wildfowling and attending game shoots with this Saturday being the next one .

[WalkedUp]

Just now, marsh man said:

I can still go on parts of estate but this time of the year  most of my time is spent wildfowling and attending game shoots with this Saturday being the next one .

Yes the same for me. I will be out on game or wildfowl, last night was out lamping. Just not enough hours in the day between work, family and other shooting commitments. 

[Lsto]

I only really got into pigeons this year, that said due to various reasons this year I haven't had a chance to get out in months. I love reading people's posts on here, wether it's long stories or a simple paragraph, it's nice to see what people are doing and just nice to see people get out.

A reason round where I live is just getting permission. Most farms I used to shoot have gone from doing the farmer a favour in exchange for a bottle or two round Christmas, to paying hundreds of pounds a year to join a club to shoot a few hundred acres. At one stage I had 2 farms which I mainly lamped due to working during the day or ferreted at the weekends, and now I have 1 farm which I have to pay to shoot, which I share with a lot of others, and I'm only allowed to shoot during the daylight hours. I have a few warehouses in London which I shoot ferals and that is free, and as a parent with a young family I cannot justify spending hundreds of pounds on something just for me. I loved lamping but I simply cannot afford to do it anymore. Permissions are hard to come by and if you do get one it seems there is always someone with deeper pockets to keep it for themselves.

[ditchman]

shooting/shooting people are slowly getting ground down..........drip drip drip effect....little continuos changes in legislation.........packam et al are sadly winning whether we accept it or not...and the organisations we the shooter have put in place have not stepped up to the mark ...and it is too late now...........

[Walker570]

I have now lost almost all of my likely pigeon shooting ground wherehas I used to have about 1000 acres on the shoot I ran.  I have just two local farms and there I am restricted to very short spells as land today is no sooner harvested than it is back down to whatver crop. Recenly had one farm call to ask could I sort some on some drillings but that week I already had six out of the seven days booked doing something else.     I think the fact that land now gets turned over and planted so quickly does make a difference where just twenty years ago you could expect a field of stubble to lie undisturbed for a few weeks.

[Wilts#Dave]

The whole Packham debacle followed by Covid was a massive pain in the bum…..the biggest hurdle for us was our game dealer shutting the doors during Covid, as they used to collect as regularly as we needed. 
I have struggled to find a reliable outlet for larger numbers ever since, have managed to get rid of them so far but with the freezers usually running fairly full. 
Had a good year though really, from June until now shot over 2000, and managed to find somewhere to shoot most weeks. 
Winters have never been the same here since rape stopped being widely grown so will unlikely get much opportunity to shoot many from now until the spring sadly! 

[ditchman]

dont be surprised in the years to come....to retain/apply for a liecence...you will need a full doctors report and a qualified mental specialist report....you will have to sit an exam....cough up £250 quid for the certificate plus the another £500 quid for risk assesments ...method statments...(site specific and generic) doctors fees...mental specialist report...and insurance......meat handling liecence........

you may laugh...but think about it....

when i got my liecence...it was one page of questions "who are you where do you live stuff".......£1-10s-6d....postal order....week later ...drops on the matt.....

now look at the kefuffell at getting one

[marsh man]

4 minutes ago, Wilts#Dave said:

The whole Packham debacle followed by Covid was a massive pain in the bum…..the biggest hurdle for us was our game dealer shutting the doors during Covid, as they used to collect as regularly as we needed. 
I have struggled to find a reliable outlet for larger numbers ever since, have managed to get rid of them so far but with the freezers usually running fairly full. 
Had a good year though really, from June until now shot over 2000, and managed to find somewhere to shoot most weeks. 
Winters have never been the same here since rape stopped being widely grown so will unlikely get much opportunity to shoot many from now until the spring sadly! 

We have had a lot of posts on various threads about crop protection and chucking the pigeons ( pests ) away in the hedge when the session is over , I personally couldn't do that and I imagine a lot of other members feel the same way , one of our regular posters was P C ( Pigeon Controler ) he stopped shooting when his freezers were full with 1200 pigeons , although he stated he was off loading 600 today , so hopefully he will have a bit of room now in the freezers to continue shooting , 

[clangerman]

as partner shot 42 today and mr hide in the wrong spot only 11 not something I really wanted to share think I would know better plugging them for fifty years lol 

[Wilts#Dave]

34 minutes ago, marsh man said:

We have had a lot of posts on various threads about crop protection and chucking the pigeons ( pests ) away in the hedge when the session is over , I personally couldn't do that and I imagine a lot of other members feel the same way , one of our regular posters was P C ( Pigeon Controler ) he stopped shooting when his freezers were full with 1200 pigeons , although he stated he was off loading 600 today , so hopefully he will have a bit of room now in the freezers to continue shooting , 

Regardless of anyone else’s views, I’d not (and my Dad certainly wouldn’t) ever consider just shooting pigeons to throw them in the hedge. 
I worked hard to get some contacts who would have larger numbers at a time which meant we could go out…..I certainly could have gone out on more occasions and shot more but kept it to one day a week max mostly for that reason alone. Dad had no days out alone either when he could have, so as not to fill the freezers prematurely. 

It’s the one thing that has made us think much more about what we shoot, rather than the price of cartridges for example. 

[marsh man]

28 minutes ago, ditchman said:

dont be surprised in the years to come....to retain/apply for a liecence...you will need a full doctors report and a qualified mental specialist report....you will have to sit an exam....cough up £250 quid for the certificate plus the another £500 quid for risk assesments ...method statments...(site specific and generic) doctors fees...mental specialist report...and insurance......meat handling liecence........

you may laugh...but think about it....

when i got my liecence...it was one page of questions "who are you where do you live stuff".......£1-10s-6d....postal order....week later ...drops on the matt.....

now look at the kefuffell at getting one

I am not laughing because I know we will be in a world of restrictions and changes for the rest of our time and more than likely forever , like I say , every time they put more demand on getting a s g c it will the final straw for a certain amount of people who might already be thinking about calling it a day , then you might reach a certain age say 75 where you might need more medical reports .

In the past we have gone on land through word of mouth , now it is could easily become law where you will need to carry all the paperwork , to be on the safe side I now carry a copy of my s g c , written permission off the land owner with two telephone numbers who the enquirer could get in touch with , my pigeon permit if we are roost shooting and a field map of the various crops I am shooting over , it might be a bit over the top but word of mouth might no longer be enough if the law is called out , also I have to give the estate my s g c number and the date it expire and I also let them know I am insured by my B A S C membership . 

[Fellside]

I don’t think the relative lack of posts is driven by a drop off in activity. Certainly in my personal network of shooting enthusiasts there has not been any let up. As we are now well in to the game season and duck flighting, pigeons on beach mast etc. etc. we are busy shooting. 

I think it is more likely that some members are deterred by the type of stroppy attacks posted by a small few on PW. Some people are unlikely to venture any conversation in an unrefereed ‘bull ring’ type of environment, rather like Twitter or similar. The art of ‘disagreeing agreeably’ is sometimes lacking. Personally, while I am willing to politely counter the ‘Punch and Judy’ types, it can be tedious. I would suggest some aren’t willing to do so…. or even risk contributing at all. In fact I know this to be the case for some. 

I’ve literally no idea how forums are managed, it’s so far outside of my skill set - but wonder could better refereeing be possible?

 

[Houseplant]

I have seen good forum after forum fall due to the influence of Facebook etc.  My guess is that a similar thing is at least in part at play here. 

[ditchman]

8 hours ago, marsh man said:

I am not laughing because I know we will be in a world of restrictions and changes for the rest of our time and more than likely forever , like I say , every time they put more demand on getting a s g c it will the final straw for a certain amount of people who might already be thinking about calling it a day , then you might reach a certain age say 75 where you might need more medical reports .

In the past we have gone on land through word of mouth , now it is could easily become law where you will need to carry all the paperwork , to be on the safe side I now carry a copy of my s g c , written permission off the land owner with two telephone numbers who the enquirer could get in touch with , my pigeon permit if we are roost shooting and a field map of the various crops I am shooting over , it might be a bit over the top but word of mouth might no longer be enough if the law is called out , also I have to give the estate my s g c number and the date it expire and I also let them know I am insured by my B A S C membership . 

ive just been thinking about how much things have changed........

when i first had my shotgun certificate i used to borrow a neighbors double 410 and go off shooting....underage...in charge of a firearm !!!.....i have been stopped no end of times by the local bobbies PC Sutherland and PC Ward....never ever asked for my certificate...always asked to see my game liecence (which i allways had).....i also remember being chased along the river bank by the water baliffs....i used to run like the wind cause i never had a rod liecence.........

thats how much things have changed

[Robden]

41 minutes ago, ditchman said:

ive just been thinking about how much things have changed........

when i first had my shotgun certificate i used to borrow a neighbors double 410 and go off shooting....underage...in charge of a firearm !!!.....i have been stopped no end of times by the local bobbies PC Sutherland and PC Ward....never ever asked for my certificate...always asked to see my game liecence (which i allways had).....i also remember being chased along the river bank by the water baliffs....i used to run like the wind cause i never had a rod liecence.........

thats how much things have changed

Reminds me of the time me and a pal got caught poaching Redmire Pool in the late 70s. Both took a few slaps..........never did it again........well, not there anyway.

[wymberley]

11 hours ago, ditchman said:

dont be surprised in the years to come....to retain/apply for a liecence...you will need a full doctors report and a qualified mental specialist report....you will have to sit an exam....cough up £250 quid for the certificate plus the another £500 quid for risk assesments ...method statments...(site specific and generic) doctors fees...mental specialist report...and insurance......meat handling liecence........

you may laugh...but think about it....

when i got my liecence...it was one page of questions "who are you where do you live stuff".......£1-10s-6d....postal order....week later ...drops on the matt.....

now look at the kefuffell at getting one

I'm amazed that we got away with this. The further we withdraw for Europe legislationwise, hopefully we'll continue to do so.

[wymberley]

10 hours ago, marsh man said:

I am not laughing because I know we will be in a world of restrictions and changes for the rest of our time and more than likely forever , like I say , every time they put more demand on getting a s g c it will the final straw for a certain amount of people who might already be thinking about calling it a day , then you might reach a certain age say 75 where you might need more medical reports .

In the past we have gone on land through word of mouth , now it is could easily become law where you will need to carry all the paperwork , to be on the safe side I now carry a copy of my s g c , written permission off the land owner with two telephone numbers who the enquirer could get in touch with , my pigeon permit if we are roost shooting and a field map of the various crops I am shooting over , it might be a bit over the top but word of mouth might no longer be enough if the law is called out , also I have to give the estate my s g c number and the date it expire and I also let them know I am insured by my B A S C membership . 

If that had a negative affect, who'd do the graft? No matter what they may be doing rarely any of the folk who you see on a farm can be called youngsters.

[yickdaz]

7 hours ago, Houseplant said:

I have seen good forum after forum fall due to the influence of Facebook etc.  My guess is that a similar thing is at least in part at play here. 

Hit the nail on the head, that is exactly what has happened shooting groups on Facebook have taken over 

[JDog]

There is just as much pigeon shooting going on as in the past so that cannot be used as an excuse for the lack of posts. 

For those who have posted and had little response I understand your reluctance to post more. Some are nervous about posting, possibly because of their lack of education and I understand that. Others are lazy and too selfish to share their experiences on a forum, relying on others to post.

i remember reading a post from Pigeon Controller some years back. He had been out and had a cracking day as usual and after sorting the pigeons in his garage he retired to his upstairs office to craft out a report with photos. He took quite a while ignoring the requests from his wife to go down to dinner, preferring to contribute to the forum at the expense of irritating his wife. Some regular pigeon shooters should take a leaf out of his book.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

7 hours ago, Houseplant said:

I have seen good forum after forum fall due to the influence of Facebook etc.  My guess is that a similar thing is at least in part at play here. 

 

42 minutes ago, yickdaz said:

Hit the nail on the head, that is exactly what has happened shooting groups on Facebook have taken over 

And PW is left for the Golden Oldies!  

[wymberley]

49 minutes ago, JDog said:

There is just as much pigeon shooting going on as in the past so that cannot be used as an excuse for the lack of posts. 

For those who have posted and had little response I understand your reluctance to post more. Some are nervous about posting, possibly because of their lack of education and I understand that. Others are lazy and too selfish to share their experiences on a forum, relying on others to post.

i remember reading a post from Pigeon Controller some years back. He had been out and had a cracking day as usual and after sorting the pigeons in his garage he retired to his upstairs office to craft out a report with photos. He took quite a while ignoring the requests from his wife to go down to dinner, preferring to contribute to the forum at the expense of irritating his wife. Some regular pigeon shooters should take a leaf out of his book.

Wasn't aware that frequent posting was obligatory. An excuse for not doing so is entirely different to a reason for not doing so.

Insulting the members is unlikely to improve the situation. And, finally,

HAVE YOU SEEN MY WIFE?