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The Quiet Period


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Last weekend DB was away for Easter so I was flying solo but after previous weeks result not very confident, as this is the “Quiet Period” which happens every year in our neck of the woods due to the birds feeding on various buds and flowers. After a good look around all I could find were two rape fields with pigeon activity. These fields had birds in the trees around the edge of the field but not feeding when I viewed. So I decided to walk them off and see the reaction. The first field the birds were playing follow the leader, one drops in and they all follow individually , spook and  they all lift off. So I put a shot across the field and the birds disappeared in to the distance.

The second field was down a long track to the rape and the birds were in the trees, as I drove down they just moved the other trees so I decided to set up on  a small section of very low rape by the gate which had lots of pooh on it so they had been feeding .With  the act of setting up caused them to move off the field but I was confident that they would come back.

After an hour I had one return so I packed up, I looked at the other rape and it had no birds.

So this weekend DB was home and we went out at 09.00 he had been out in the week looking and had found only one field with birds on it which is a small clover field. It had about fifty birds on it when we looked on our way out. We could not see any flightlines out of the city but we presume they had been out first light. We went out and looked at the rape and pea fields with no birds, further clover fields had no birds so it was back to the small clover field.

We were set up for 12.00 and waited for the birds to return, straight away we had two in the pattern which was encouraging but it was very slow shooting with flurries of birds returning then no birds. We were debating on going to buy some paint so we could watch that dry!!!

We agreed to pack up at 17.00 and picked up 35 pigeons.

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You can fully understand why as many people drop out of Pigeon shooting as what what come into it , the o s r is now losing it's appeal and is well into flower , most of the Spring drilling around our way have more or less finished and like you say the fresh buds and nest building is more appealing to a Wood Pigeon than drifting out to the various fields , so where do you get a bit of shooting at this time of the year ? , Muncher who shoot up North Norfolk way is still getting good numbers on well hammered o s r and I would imagine he will be getting a few on Peas , or if he isn't it will be anytime soon as his Peas go in a few weeks before ours, If you are lucky enough to have access to good Clover fields then you might get a few off these fields but the times I have shot Clover leys is normally from mid afternoon till around 6 / 7 pm.

I had two little dabbles in the last few days , one was on our Peas that have been above the ground for about a week , these I would have normally left for a few more days to let the new arrivals get used to them , but the gas guns have done there job on the o s r and if the farm manager notice the Pigeons building up he is more than likely to stick a gun on them , I laid out all my decoys which were nearly 30 and left the battery gadgets at home , the ones that came in were like the old days , straight in with no flaring off , as it was slow I let my dog pick each one up and after a couple of hours there wasn't another Pigeon to be seen and I just managed to reach double figures with 11 picked .

Yesterday I gave the Peas a miss and went on a thin bit of o s r as it had a headland of grass where I could drive round , 40 / 50 got out of the wood and nothing off the rape , it was now gone 2pm so I thought I will give it a couple of hours and listen to the football match between Norwich and Newcastle to help pass the time , again  I had the odd one come back and it was nice sitting in the sunshine watching the Swallows flitting over the rape flowers , after the match where Norwich lost 3.0 it was time to head off home , this time I didn't reach double figures and only had to lay out 8 when  I  got home .

So we are the lucky ones , we have the time and a lot of land to go on , how much harder it is for the guys who are working all week and haven't got any crops that would draw a few birds in , some will stick it out for better things to come while sadly others will call it a day and offer all there gear for sale and look for a more rewarding pastime .   

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1 hour ago, marsh man said:

You can fully understand why as many people drop out of Pigeon shooting as what what come into it , the o s r is now losing it's appeal and is well into flower , most of the Spring drilling around our way have more or less finished and like you say the fresh buds and nest building is more appealing to a Wood Pigeon than drifting out to the various fields , so where do you get a bit of shooting at this time of the year ? , Muncher who shoot up North Norfolk way is still getting good numbers on well hammered o s r and I would imagine he will be getting a few on Peas , or if he isn't it will be anytime soon as his Peas go in a few weeks before ours, If you are lucky enough to have access to good Clover fields then you might get a few off these fields but the times I have shot Clover leys is normally from mid afternoon till around 6 / 7 pm.

I had two little dabbles in the last few days , one was on our Peas that have been above the ground for about a week , these I would have normally left for a few more days to let the new arrivals get used to them , but the gas guns have done there job on the o s r and if the farm manager notice the Pigeons building up he is more than likely to stick a gun on them , I laid out all my decoys which were nearly 30 and left the battery gadgets at home , the ones that came in were like the old days , straight in with no flaring off , as it was slow I let my dog pick each one up and after a couple of hours there wasn't another Pigeon to be seen and I just managed to reach double figures with 11 picked .

Yesterday I gave the Peas a miss and went on a thin bit of o s r as it had a headland of grass where I could drive round , 40 / 50 got out of the wood and nothing off the rape , it was now gone 2pm so I thought I will give it a couple of hours and listen to the football match between Norwich and Newcastle to help pass the time , again  I had the odd one come back and it was nice sitting in the sunshine watching the Swallows flitting over the rape flowers , after the match where Norwich lost 3.0 it was time to head off home , this time I didn't reach double figures and only had to lay out 8 when  I  got home .

So we are the lucky ones , we have the time and a lot of land to go on , how much harder it is for the guys who are working all week and haven't got any crops that would draw a few birds in , some will stick it out for better things to come while sadly others will call it a day and offer all there gear for sale and look for a more rewarding pastime .   

Well done PC….your usual perseverance paying off yet again, even though it might not have been the bag you’d hoped for. 
Marshman: 

I agree. Although at this time of year when things go ‘quiet’ for me too I tend to just resign myself to the fact I probably won’t be shooting a lot for a month or two, and if something shows up unexpectedly then it’s a bonus! 
I had a really good year on peas last year starting in early June and shooting good bags weekly through until September, but I don’t think this year will follow suit sadly.
This is mainly down to the fields that have been planted this year, and one farm in particular where I shot the biggest bag not growing peas at all. 
I shot over 600 on one small block which was in a great location and difficult to access / watch which worked in our favour as no one else bothered with it and gave us multiple 100 plus days. 
This year there’s a much bigger block of peas that are easier to access/watch…..they have multiple butterfly shooters who like to have a pop so I predict not getting the same uninterrupted shooting this year, but here’s hoping!! 

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1 hour ago, Wilts#Dave said:

Well done PC….your usual perseverance paying off yet again, even though it might not have been the bag you’d hoped for. 
Marshman: 

I agree. Although at this time of year when things go ‘quiet’ for me too I tend to just resign myself to the fact I probably won’t be shooting a lot for a month or two, and if something shows up unexpectedly then it’s a bonus! 
I had a really good year on peas last year starting in early June and shooting good bags weekly through until September, but I don’t think this year will follow suit sadly.
This is mainly down to the fields that have been planted this year, and one farm in particular where I shot the biggest bag not growing peas at all. 
I shot over 600 on one small block which was in a great location and difficult to access / watch which worked in our favour as no one else bothered with it and gave us multiple 100 plus days. 
This year there’s a much bigger block of peas that are easier to access/watch…..they have multiple butterfly shooters who like to have a pop so I predict not getting the same uninterrupted shooting this year, but here’s hoping!! 

Peas are very unpredictable , one field can produce good numbers and three or four near by ones can be a dead loss , we have got three fields this year and the ones I shot the other day were a bit earlier than a average year which is normally when the plant is 4 / 5 inches high , I dare say the type of Peas make a difference as well with some going as vining Peas and some going for seed , we tend to do better on the seed Peas than the vining Peas with the ripe pods breaking open and leaving seed Peas scattered far and wide , if you haven't got Peas then I must admit it would be a extra lean spell with laid barley being the earliest crop to look forward to ? .

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1 hour ago, pigeon controller said:

I had a report from bunny_blaster last night that he had covered a lot of ground and managed 75 off a pea field. Well done to him.

I dare say it would also depend on the quantity of Pigeons you have got in your area , like you reported in one of your threads when B B got 600 and you also got a very good bag the same day , you would need a very high number of Pigeons to get those sort of bags as the fields you and B B were on would have been only two fields of a number of fields where pigeons would be feeding on .

We are nowhere at the top of the league when it comes to Pigeon numbers but I would say there are a lot of places that hold less pigeons than us , one thing I have found is to go off the beaten track and try and find the odd field that no one else is looking at , the ones that are close to public roads would be looked at on a daily basis where in the middle of no where you can often find a few on weeds and poorly grown crops , we have got a lot of marsh land so it might be easier for us than the ones who live in a built up area but sometimes the fields that can produce are out there , the hard bit is finding them .

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2 hours ago, ditchman said:

being that im on the pigeon shooting section.......anyone know whats happened to JDog and his reports ?

Hasn't been on for a month. 

Don't think he's been given a holiday. 

He's been on utube with his mate recently. 

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On 24/04/2022 at 21:35, marsh man said:

Peas are very unpredictable , one field can produce good numbers and three or four near by ones can be a dead loss , we have got three fields this year and the ones I shot the other day were a bit earlier than a average year which is normally when the plant is 4 / 5 inches high , I dare say the type of Peas make a difference as well with some going as vining Peas and some going for seed , we tend to do better on the seed Peas than the vining Peas with the ripe pods breaking open and leaving seed Peas scattered far and wide , if you haven't got Peas then I must admit it would be a extra lean spell with laid barley being the earliest crop to look forward to ? .

Very area dependant isn’t it, as you find some people shoot huge numbers on crops that never/rarely produce for you and at different growth stages….that’s the unknown of pigeon shooting really, as is how they’ll totally ignore some fields but predictably pile into others when the right crops are grown! 
The peas I shot a lot over on one farm in particular are a pea grown specifically for bird seed, a maple pea which as you’d expect the pigeons really seem to like. It’s small and when they go ripe/rock hard is when they really seem to go for them. 
There aren’t any vining peas here so never shot over them! 

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Peas have kept me going at this time of year and beyond for a few years now. All vining peas planted at different stages across half a dozen fields. The farms I am most interested in are due to be drilled next week- so my lean spell may be coming to an end- hopefully.

Late afternoons seem to be the productive time of day locally.

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12 hours ago, the hitman said:

Peas have kept me going at this time of year and beyond for a few years now. All vining peas planted at different stages across half a dozen fields. The farms I am most interested in are due to be drilled next week- so my lean spell may be coming to an end- hopefully.

Late afternoons seem to be the productive time of day locally.

Going back to Peas , I find the early planted ones tend to be better than the later ones , the early ones are vined around the last week in June , at this time of the year very few grain crops are ready , the Pigeons have got less choice and seem to hit the Peas hard , where the later ones clash with the ripening grain fields , this is also the time when most young pigeons are brought up and the parents are regurgitating the milk from the early grain , still up your way everything might be late compared to us so it could workout the same timing for you for late Peas and then a later harvest .

P S , Our Winter barley is normally ready for combining between the second and third week in July .

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1 hour ago, pigeon controller said:

Todays effort consisted of six and a half hours driving,  visiting some fields three times and the most pigeons seen equals eight. 
So we admitted defeat and I came home to play with the grandkids and DB went fishing to catch some carp off the surface.

I didn't drive as many miles as you did but I did finish with the same result , although I did see more than eight , not many more but I walked around a few fields and the odd one or two flew out of the trees , either eating the buds , or in the shade from the bright sunshine , when it's like this it make you wander where the next bag will come from , still we have seen this before and no doubt we will see it again , I recon the next bag will be off Peas when all the buds that Pigeons eat have broke out into leaf which will be about the third / last week in May , or so I hope .:good: 

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On 25/04/2022 at 10:20, marsh man said:

I dare say it would also depend on the quantity of Pigeons you have got in your area , like you reported in one of your threads when B B got 600 and you also got a very good bag the same day , you would need a very high number of Pigeons to get those sort of bags as the fields you and B B were on would have been only two fields of a number of fields where pigeons would be feeding on .

We are nowhere at the top of the league when it comes to Pigeon numbers but I would say there are a lot of places that hold less pigeons than us , one thing I have found is to go off the beaten track and try and find the odd field that no one else is looking at , the ones that are close to public roads would be looked at on a daily basis where in the middle of no where you can often find a few on weeds and poorly grown crops , we have got a lot of marsh land so it might be easier for us than the ones who live in a built up area but sometimes the fields that can produce are out there , the hard bit is finding them .

I believe PC and I live in one of the best areas for pigeons in the country. We have large towns and cities that hold huge numbers of birds as well as masses of woodland. That big day we had saw huge numbers coming to the field, it was the busiest flight line I’ve ever seen. Every 30-60 seconds groups of up to 200 odd birds were arriving. I’d go to say it’s one of my best summer farms and I’m lucky enough to be the only person who shoots it so I can leave it until the right day. 

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22 minutes ago, bunny_blaster said:

I believe PC and I live in one of the best areas for pigeons in the country. We have large towns and cities that hold huge numbers of birds as well as masses of woodland. That big day we had saw huge numbers coming to the field, it was the busiest flight line I’ve ever seen. Every 30-60 seconds groups of up to 200 odd birds were arriving. I’d go to say it’s one of my best summer farms and I’m lucky enough to be the only person who shoots it so I can leave it until the right day. 

Incredible , and I really hope you have many more similar days to come :good:

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