Hot weather shooting.

[Accuspell]

I have tried, but I cannot stay out in the daytime shooting. Even in the shade I find it unbearable. What do you lot do to withstand the searing heat of the afternoon? Also, having shot a pigeon or two, how do you keep them in this weather?

[Scully]

27 minutes ago, Accuspell said:

I have tried, but I cannot stay out in the daytime shooting. Even in the shade I find it unbearable. What do you lot do to withstand the searing heat of the afternoon? Also, having shot a pigeon or two, how do you keep them in this weather?

We just try to plan our location which will suit us best throughout the day, bearing in mind the route of the sun,,but as we all know it isn’t that easy as terrain dictates. 
Im in the process of getting a cool box ( or several ) in which I can keep birds ( or their breasts ) until the day is done. hessian sacks are ok to keep flies off, but they don’t stop the meat warming through, which isn’t ideal. 

[marsh man]

23 minutes ago, Accuspell said:

I have tried, but I cannot stay out in the daytime shooting. Even in the shade I find it unbearable. What do you lot do to withstand the searing heat of the afternoon? Also, having shot a pigeon or two, how do you keep them in this weather?

Having worked outside all my life the normal hot weather don't bother me , with this abnormal heat it is different , I only go in the afternoons for around three hours , I try and find a tall hedge or better still a mature tree and get underneath that , better still if the wind is from the West so the sun is on your back and not looking into it , as for keeping the pigeons , I find using a damp sack to keep them in will keep them alright till I get home and stick them in the old fridge I keep in the garage , if you only shooting a few you can use a old cool bag with a block of ice in it , stick one in and zip it up , all sorted and they will stay fresh .

[Weihrauch17]

48 minutes ago, Accuspell said:

I have tried, but I cannot stay out in the daytime shooting. Even in the shade I find it unbearable. What do you lot do to withstand the searing heat of the afternoon? Also, having shot a pigeon or two, how do you keep them in this weather?

I like you have no desire at all to shoot in this heat and birds spoil in no time.

[marsh man]

11 minutes ago, Weihrauch17 said:

I like you have no desire at all to shoot in this heat and birds spoil in no time.

The easiest part of Pigeon shooting is when you pull the trigger at a Pigeon that have just came into your decoys , the hardest part is getting that pigeon to come into your decoys in the first place , the more you learn about field craft the better you will do , a Pigeon can hold about a cup full of corn in it's crop , in this hot weather it will leave the wood at first light and with all the corn about it don't take long to fill it's crop up , it will then return to the wood mid morning to digest his feed and stay in the shade of the trees , when it start cooling down a bit they will then start returning to a field to fill it's crop up again to last them till the next morning when they will do it all again , so why go at the hottest part of the day when the bulk of Pigeons are cooling off in the shade of the large trees ? .

Go later and stay later is the way to go when it is cooling down  , rather than go in the morning when it is heating up , and if you look after your bag they will easily keep fresh till you get home , when you arrive home put them on a cold concrete floor or better still put them in the fridge to cool off , you can then prepare what you want to keep and put the rest in the freezer to use at a later date . easy really , just go when it's suitable to go rather than roasting in the sun with very little action to be had. GOOD LUCK

[Accuspell]

29 minutes ago, marsh man said:

The easiest part of Pigeon shooting is when you pull the trigger at a Pigeon that have just came into your decoys , the hardest part is getting that pigeon to come into your decoys in the first place , the more you learn about field craft the better you will do , a Pigeon can hold about a cup full of corn in it's crop , in this hot weather it will leave the wood at first light and with all the corn about it don't take long to fill it's crop up , it will then return to the wood mid morning to digest his feed and stay in the shade of the trees , when it start cooling down a bit they will then start returning to a field to fill it's crop up again to last them till the next morning when they will do it all again , so why go at the hottest part of the day when the bulk of Pigeons are cooling off in the shade of the large trees ? .

Go later and stay later is the way to go when it is cooling down  , rather than go in the morning when it is heating up , and if you look after your bag they will easily keep fresh till you get home , when you arrive home put them on a cold concrete floor or better still put them in the fridge to cool off , you can then prepare what you want to keep and put the rest in the freezer to use at a later date . easy really , just go when it's suitable to go rather than roasting in the sun with very little action to be had. GOOD LUCK

There's some good tips there.  I haven't learned much over the years. I have been shooting for over 50 years but my record is still only 32, and that was over freshly drilled peas. I still struggle to get more than 5 or 6. I do as well with the air rifle and roosting when the leaves are off.

[sam triple]

Was out last Saturday backed up against a big hedge and under the shade of a tree it was lovely until you came out of the shade into the sun and it was like a furnace door opening 

[Old Boggy]

This last few weeks I’ve been setting up in the shade of a small shave of trees facing east overlooking a rape stubble (now disced and rolled) and there has been a cooling north easterly sea breeze coming off the marsh. I’ve been going out for just a few hours (to suit my domestic arrangements) generally somewhere between 12 and 4. As Marsh man has said, this probably isn’t the best time of day to go but my hide has been most comfortable and I have no wish (or stamina)to shoot large numbers. On Thursday whilst out I received a couple of phone calls and both callers were amazed that I was out in the searing heat. They could not believe how cooling my position was.

The bags were modest barely reaching double figures but thoroughly enjoyable nontheless.

The rotary was abandoned in favour of a flapper and a number of half shell flocked decoys. The birds that were about decoyed confidently unlike on a couple of previous sessions where they avoided the rotary like the plague. Those shot were taken in immediately and put in a cooler bag with a few ice blocks and remained in good condition until I got home and processed them.

I would much rather shoot a few pigeons in a cool position than shoot many more in uncomfortable conditions.

OB

 

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[marsh man]

2 hours ago, Old Boggy said:

This last few weeks I’ve been setting up in the shade of a small shave of trees facing east overlooking a rape stubble (now disced and rolled) and there has been a cooling north easterly sea breeze coming off the marsh. I’ve been going out for just a few hours (to suit my domestic arrangements) generally somewhere between 12 and 4. As Marsh man has said, this probably isn’t the best time of day to go but my hide has been most comfortable and I have no wish (or stamina)to shoot large numbers. On Thursday whilst out I received a couple of phone calls and both callers were amazed that I was out in the searing heat. They could not believe how cooling my position was.

The bags were modest barely reaching double figures but thoroughly enjoyable nontheless.

The rotary was abandoned in favour of a flapper and a number of half shell flocked decoys. The birds that were about decoyed confidently unlike on a couple of previous sessions where they avoided the rotary like the plague. Those shot were taken in immediately and put in a cooler bag with a few ice blocks and remained in good condition until I got home and processed them.

I would much rather shoot a few pigeons in a cool position than shoot many more in uncomfortable conditions.

OB

 

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Morning Chris ..... Very good post .... Like you say, you can use a bit of common sense and avoid sitting directly into the sun , we both live fairly close to the sea and very often have the advantage of a sea breeze which maybe the guys who live inland don't have , believe it or not , last Saturday when it was very hot my young friend who pick up was shooting under the tree where I have mentioned before on the Pea stubble , he went just before me with his lady friend ,  I went on another Pea stubble field that was two fields away , I was partly under a tree and it was hot but easily bearable , he was getting a nice lot of shooting and I rang him up to see how he was doing , he said he was getting a lot of shooting but wasn't shooting that well , I then said , is the sun in your eyes , he replied , partly that and also we are bloody freezing and he had just rung his dad up to bring him and his girl friend a jumper or coat to put on , mind you they both had shorts on and only a tee shirt so maybe with the breeze it was a bit cool , but in my younger days if I had been in the same situation I would have found other ways to keep warm and the shooting might had been put on hold , I am sure you would had been the same ,