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A 1st go at the barley drillings


RyanMc
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A 1st attempt at the pigeons & crows on fresh drillings yesterday (Saturday 16th April). 

Done a bit of spotting the few days prior to see a good number of birds building up on the fields, the area was pretty barron since November. 

Managed to get away at 11am, hit the field and watched for 30mmins to see if there were any definite flight lines. I eventually settled on a spot near the right side of the field with a large grazing field rising behind me. The birds seemed to be moving overhead towards a wooded area and other crop fields in the distance and into the wind. Setup the pattern of shell decoys and a simple flocked pigeon spinner/whirly at the head of the pattern. I also added half a dozen crow decoys to the front and right of the pigeons to match what I had noticed previously in the binoculars. Nice sunny broken cloud day with a fair breeze and warm. Nice to be out and and about.

 

Setup and ready to go around 12:15 - ready to go in anger with my fairly new Kofs Sceptre SXE sporter O/U and 100 Eley olympic blues & Gamebore clear pigeon, bot of a mixed bag. Have to say I preferred the olympic blue 28g Eleys in the end! Clean kills with 7.5 shot at 28g even on the crows to 40 yards. The Gamebore also left the bores filled with residue and unburnt powder. A complete novice (not that I'm any expert, this will be my first full season) friend joined me, his Eley pigeon selects and 30 year old Lu Mar Scirocco 28" Game O/U were doing the job when he connected and were clean firing also. 

I got 2 crow and a pigeon on the floor before he arrived. after that it was a tad quiet for spells, then it would turn hectic for 5 minute stints. The Decoys were working fairly well, every bird down replaced a false decoy to try make the pattern more natural. We had crow and pigeon land in the patterns so definitely something was right, some work needed from our end for hte corws, they can spot the slightest movements a mile away! After a few hectic rallies we had approx 15 down, not ashamed to admit that there were some misses on difficult birds as well as the odd sitting duck that we should not have missed!

 

After a few hours we had a total of 27 on the deck, 10 crows and 17 woodies. 3 not pictured below they were at the hide when clearing up.

Hopefully get a few more days soon on them and keep the farmer happy!

 

IMG_20220416_170534~2.jpg

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A very good start to what will hopefully be a long decoying career , you will find that virtually every day will be slightly different from your last one , there could be a number of reasons why this should be , one of the main reasons is normally the weather and wind direction , plus a load of other things like the field had just been sprayed , or the next door neighbour have just planted a good crop that Pigeons like , the more time you spend out the more you will learn and the day will come where you call your mate up to help you carry a large bag off a field simply because you had put yourself in the exact right position and took full advantage of the situation .

THANKS for posting     MM

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to bag a few first time out is more than good enough pige are all about using your eyes fri binoculars showed they were only taking grit from the beans but feeding on barley drill next door luckily hide in boundary hedge with only odd decoys out gritting saw us pull enough over for 64 

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24 minutes ago, Centrepin said:

A good read.

To get crow landing in your pattern you're doing something right.

Try some top cover if the crows see you or get very close into the net and don't move till your ready to fire. If you don't kill them first time they soon become educated.

Thanks everyone. Had a few goes at it last year but not a planned day. Went well i thought. 

To the above quote... It might be the ever-growing forehead... Forgot my cap and the sun was shining.😁

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