Sunday 4th Sept 2022

[old'un]

Tell you what, although I have been shooting pigeons for 55+ years I still dont understand them.

something that just crossed my mind, were your 60 decoys dead birds or plastic?

[kitchrat]

I'm sure there are a few times when more is better but the effort of carrying 100 dead birds 150 yards plus makes my legs go weak. Plastics don't have the same effect. These pros that can drive up in huge trucks full of bodies etc live in a different world and can almost control the farms.

Other points, round here they are VERY fussy about dead birds, either put them on cocktail sticks or get them in, every 4 or 5 kills.

Again, round here, the incomers seem to have decided where they are going before they arrive, ie from their distant vantage points. They just "flock-stream" after the group in front so the number of decoys in your spread makes no difference - the die is cast. You might attract the 1st group but when you shoot at them the chain is broken and it's back to square 1. 

23 hours ago, old'un said:

Years ago an old boy said to me, shoot much before 10am and you will be home by midday, never a truer word said.

 

If 60 decoys did not pull them I would say they did not want where you were setup, how many times did you walk them off?

"Years ago an old boy said to me, shoot much before 10am and you will be home by midday, never a truer word said."

Yes but you might have 40 in the bag in time for a late breakfast and cup of coffee! (as I did last week)

[old'un]

6 minutes ago, kitchrat said:

Yes but you might have 40 in the bag in time for a late breakfast and cup of coffee! (as I did last week)

Ok if you are just doing it for your self but not if you are doing pest control.

[marsh man]

The beauty of Pigeon shooting is there are no guarantee ways in set up's , decoy pattern and the number of decoys used , some people are not happy with one magnet out ,they will put out two and a flapper in between , good luck to them but where do you stop ? , You set up the way YOU think is best and some days you will get it right and the next day you are back to the drawing board .

For many years I hardly ever used a man made decoy , I would take out a dozen dead birds out the freezer either the night before or even on the morning of the shoot , these were already set up in a frozen state , I would have two metal baskets balanced on the edge of the inside of the freezer and lay the dead birds on there backs with the head and neck pocked through the  mesh inside the bottom of the basket then when you take out and turn them over they are in a sitting position , this can be done for the magnet as well by setting up two on a wing spreader and then freeze the pair so all you have to do is to put them on the arms and you are ready to go .

This was when I sold every bird I shot and I tried not to waste a single bird , the ones I reused for decoys would still be hard when I packed up and these would go back in the freezer until they were sold and a new set would be laid out to take the last lots place .

Now I no longer shoot enough to run up the dealers and the small amount I shoot now end up at the butchers on our local market place and the pub on the estate try to include local produce on the menu , sometimes they can hear me shooting so you can't get much more local than that .  

[martinj]

21 hours ago, old'un said:

Tell you what, although I have been shooting pigeons for 55+ years I still dont understand them.

something that just crossed my mind, were your 60 decoys dead birds or plastic?

mixture of shell and full body plastiques plus the birds I shot. I picked up as I went along positioning the dead birds head up with a stick through the chin. I don't have a freezer large enough to store more than 2 dead birds for the whirly - well, the freezer IS large enough for 12 birds or more but Mrs. J would have something to say about that!

No carrying heavy kit for me in this spot, I can drive round the field. I drop my kit off then hide the car under some trees.

a 2 pigeon magnet setup is jokingly called a "Chinook setup" round these parts (near RAF Odiham,) they fly around here frequently. Not that I've ever done that.

BTW I touch up my decoys with a mixture of Primer paints 1. to make them resemble pigeons, 2. to make them look all the same. I have come to the conclusion that the people who make decoys have never seen a pigeon in their lives and one batch of decoys looks quite different to those of another manufacturer. When doing this I keep a dead pigeon on my bench and use that as inspiration for colour matching. Probably waay too anal but it keeps me occupied and gives me confidence

I agree a lot of the time they know where they are going and it'd difficult to tempt them in with anything (except maybe 60 decoys, who knows?)

For info as we have a common interest, I was walking the dogs 2 weekends ago, passing a large field of fresh barley drilling (not on my permission) there were about 160 pigeons feeding on the far side and I saw a large flock heading in to join them. As I watched, the incoming flock just extended back into the distance until there were about 600 birds with their wings folded, trying to land among the feeding birds. Eventually those on the ground panicked because of the size of the influx and there were pigeons everywhere, swirling round and flying off to find somewhere less crowded. 

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by martinj

[old'un]

I am lucky I have my own freezer down the shed although the wife does use it for her overspill from the house (her) freezer.

I used to have two six foot freezer when we were doing pigeon shooting semi professionally, my mate who also had two freezers did farm contract work and was virtually a full time pigeon shooter, we used to cover some big estates and shot thousands of pigeons a year, the advent of rape (late 60s) helped us gain a lot of farms to shoot over.

I don't do so much now (getting old) but I still cover about 12 farms closer to home.

Driving to my spot, unfortunately all the farms I shoot sow right up-to the hedge, so cannot drive to my spot, although where I can I do drive down the grass field to get me a bit closer to my chosen spot, failing that its a case of walking with all my gear, only problem with that is if I shoot a bag full it turns into two trips to the car and back.

When you put your dead birds out have you ever tried putting the birds on a 3 foot skewer?

Still don't agree you need all those decoys.

Edited March 15, 2023 by old'un

[martinj]

18 minutes ago, old'un said:

 

When you put your dead birds out have you ever tried putting the birds on a 3 foot skewer?

Still don't agree you need all those decoys.

No but I did use a pigeon floater at the weekend but I don't usually bother with that

[old'un]

No, what I meant was when you put your dead birds out on the ground instead of a stick under their beck.

Its a 3 foot or there about’s piece of round dowelling 10mm dia, or if you can find some nice straight hazel branches just as good, put a point on both ends then shove the stick through the birds rear-end and up into the head, then push the other end into the ground at a low angle, been using this method for 40+ years, presents the birds perfectly and raises them slightly above the rape.

[kitchrat]

On 14/03/2023 at 17:23, old'un said:

Ok if you are just doing it for your self but not if you are doing pest control.

No need to be a bit critical, it kept them off the field for that day and the 40 in my freezer never came back. No point in sitting in a hide looking at the sky for another 6 hours in the hope of an odd pigeon. I too am an "Old Un" and suffer if I'm immobile too long! Cheers in Sport!!

[marsh man]

On 20/03/2023 at 10:56, kitchrat said:

No need to be a bit critical, it kept them off the field for that day and the 40 in my freezer never came back. No point in sitting in a hide looking at the sky for another 6 hours in the hope of an odd pigeon. I too am an "Old Un" and suffer if I'm immobile too long! Cheers in Sport!!

I agree with what you saying and if I am honest the reason I am on a field nowadays is not all about crop protection , although I have got the time I have got other things to do at home rather than sit on a empty field in the cold for very little activity .

On a normal day I would potter about in the garden , minor repairs and decorating in the morning and then the afternoons are free for whatever I want to do , take yesterday for instance , the morning was dry and fairly sunny and it was the first time this year I cut the grass on our front garden , after I cleared up it was time for a cuppa and a bite to eat when the mid day news was on the box , then in the afternoon it was time to do my rounds and look at the rapidly growing rape fields , apart from one all the rest were free from Pigeons , the one that had a few on is fairly hard to drive to and I walked all the way round to see how near I could get to and luckily enough the game cover is now flattened and I can drive down the strip and get pretty near to where I want to go , this field will only produce a small amount of shooting and yesterday afternoon we got a lot of heavy showers so that would had been a non starter , today it started off fairly wet but have improved now and a couple of hours might be on the cards if the rain hold off , so as much as I like Pigeon shooting I have to think about my own welfare as well as the field I am trying to protect , yes I will sit about if I am getting some sport but in the cold and wet conditions with nothing on the move then to me it is more like an endurance test than crop protection and I will leave it alone till my aging body can tolerate the conditions .

[kitchrat]

On 25/03/2023 at 10:07, marsh man said:

I agree with what you saying and if I am honest the reason I am on a field nowadays is not all about crop protection , although I have got the time I have got other things to do at home rather than sit on a empty field in the cold for very little activity .

On a normal day I would potter about in the garden , minor repairs and decorating in the morning and then the afternoons are free for whatever I want to do , take yesterday for instance , the morning was dry and fairly sunny and it was the first time this year I cut the grass on our front garden , after I cleared up it was time for a cuppa and a bite to eat when the mid day news was on the box , then in the afternoon it was time to do my rounds and look at the rapidly growing rape fields , apart from one all the rest were free from Pigeons , the one that had a few on is fairly hard to drive to and I walked all the way round to see how near I could get to and luckily enough the game cover is now flattened and I can drive down the strip and get pretty near to where I want to go , this field will only produce a small amount of shooting and yesterday afternoon we got a lot of heavy showers so that would had been a non starter , today it started off fairly wet but have improved now and a couple of hours might be on the cards if the rain hold off , so as much as I like Pigeon shooting I have to think about my own welfare as well as the field I am trying to protect , yes I will sit about if I am getting some sport but in the cold and wet conditions with nothing on the move then to me it is more like an endurance test than crop protection and I will leave it alone till my aging body can tolerate the conditions .

Thank you for your support. As it happens, since the end of the game season, when beating gets in the way, I have been out after pigeons over 30 times (decoying and roosting) , plus numerous reconnaissance trips, for an average bag of about 15. That includes my blow-out day of 109. So I think I'm doing my bit of crop protection!! 

Cheers

[marsh man]

3 hours ago, kitchrat said:

Thank you for your support. As it happens, since the end of the game season, when beating gets in the way, I have been out after pigeons over 30 times (decoying and roosting) , plus numerous reconnaissance trips, for an average bag of about 15. That includes my blow-out day of 109. So I think I'm doing my bit of crop protection!! 

Cheers

An average bag of 15 for 30 times out is not to be sneezed at and I would be well pleased with a result like that , I am out and about most days of the week and for most of those times the gun have been left in the gun cabinet as seeing enough to take the trouble setting up have been very few , now the clocks have changed I visit various parts of the estate to see if they have found anything else to there liking apart from rape and the most I have seen lately have been on the estates park land , these were munching away on the Clover that is now growing on the grazing fields , with the cattle having a free hand to roam where they like the chance of having a few shots is virtually nil .

So with very little else happening it is just a matter of walking around the various rape fields , you get to know all the tell tail signs when you approach the field , Pigeons sitting on dead tree branches , droppings under the trees and of course Pigeons moving from A to B , if none of these are noticed then there is good chance that nothing , or very few Pigeons are doing any damage , so it is now a case of bidding your time and live in hope .