Looks like no ones shooting pigeons!

[Krico woodcock]

1 hour ago, GingerCat said:

Just eat them yourself, mince and mix 50/50 with pork. Sausages, burgers, meat balls, the world's your oyster. Never understood people not eating them. 100 birds doesn't actually go that far either. 

☝️☝️☝️.. and it doesn't take long to whip the breasts off a 100 pigeons either. As long as you know what your at. I use beef fat to make pigeon burgers,  and the right ratio of pigeon/ beef fat/ good quality burger seasoning you will make serious top class burgers.  

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, old'un said:

What you say is possible but unlikely, you and I are in a position that allows us to shoot any day of the week but I would say the biggest number of pigeon shooters are those of work age and only able to shoot weekends, that's no good to a farmer, he is more likely to invest in more gas guns.

I don't think that by investing in more gas guns it would solve the problem , all that would do is to push them from a to b and back to a and no gas gun can reduce the numbers , not only that we have got 3000 acres of land in production and you would need a lot of gas guns and that is only on one place , I cannot see the difference with the land owner paying a pest control firm to get rid of mice in the grain store or gassing Rabbits than helping with the cost of keeping Pigeons off his grain crop , after all that is the only reason we are going on his crop in the first place. 

Like you say , a lot of shooter's are working all the week and can only go weekends , if they get a wet Saturday or got other things to do as you have only got to look at the number of members who say they haven't had a lot of time to go due to work and family commitments and how many can , or will be able to take a day off from work with mortgages now to going to go up along with the gas and electricity from today .

I was also told in the Summer in no uncertain terms that we must not do Pigeon shooting for sport , it is purely for crop protection , or with 99% of the pigeons shot in this country on stubble then it is still not sport but ( preventive ) , if that was the case then please tell me what I have been doing it for as long as I can remember , why would you spend 50 quid on cartridges , spend one of your only free days from your family if you don't do it for the sport ? , if I was stopped and asked why am I shooting Pigeons on the stubble's I would tell them the truth , I am doing it for the sport and preventing the dead ones from doing any more damage and if they wanted to make a case of it them I would be only to happy to oblige .

 

[Gas seal]

I would always keep the young pigeons for anyone who wanted pigeon to eat and a few for myself but nowadays not many people ask for them. I’ve eaten a lot of pigeons over the years, mam would make pigeon pie , I don’t eat many nowadays. For regular pigeon shooters it was part of the shooting to sell them and buy cartridges or trade them for cartridges . It will be interesting to see what happens next summer. I doubt that the shooters who pay by the day to shoot them will be concerned about selling them or  the cost of the cartridges . Even the BASC described pigeon as blue grouse. It used to be the poor mans sport. I agree about gas guns that they move pigeons about but in the summer they can be a fire hazard. I’ve used gas guns in different fields when I am shooting to keep them moving but if left out they have to be in a safe place. Gas guns and gas have to be paid for. I don’t hold with the thinking that shooting large numbers on stubble will keep numbers down it will never happen there any to many pigeons and not enough shooters. 

[marsh man]

27 minutes ago, Gas seal said:

I would always keep the young pigeons for anyone who wanted pigeon to eat and a few for myself but nowadays not many people ask for them. I’ve eaten a lot of pigeons over the years, mam would make pigeon pie , I don’t eat many nowadays. For regular pigeon shooters it was part of the shooting to sell them and buy cartridges or trade them for cartridges . It will be interesting to see what happens next summer. I doubt that the shooters who pay by the day to shoot them will be concerned about selling them or  the cost of the cartridges . Even the BASC described pigeon as blue grouse. It used to be the poor mans sport. I agree about gas guns that they move pigeons about but in the summer they can be a fire hazard. I’ve used gas guns in different fields when I am shooting to keep them moving but if left out they have to be in a safe place. Gas guns and gas have to be paid for. I don’t hold with the thinking that shooting large numbers on stubble will keep numbers down it will never happen there any to many pigeons and not enough shooters. 

I certainly agree with you last sentence , to many Pigeons and not enough shooters , you have only got to look on the after sales and in a sporting auction to see that is not as easy as some are led to believe , if they can't get a decent bag in the height of the Summer on stubble then they would find it difficult shooting on one of a number of rape fields on a short Winters day.

As for paid shooters , there would be far to many fields that don't hold enough for someone to pay good money to be there all day , but enough to do damage if left day after day , this is where we come in , we keep an eye on the various fields and shoot it when we think there is enough to shoot , these are the sort of fields where I often spend 2 or 3 hours at a time just to keep the numbers in check , yes from early harvest you could find enough fields to have the odd paid gun but I don't think it would be enough to safe guard the fields , I have took paid shooters out and the amount of homework I done was harder than laying bricks all day , if I ever had to take them again it would only be on the basis where they have got all the gear and I would show them the various fields and let them get on with it .

[old'un]

16 hours ago, marsh man said:

I don't think that by investing in more gas guns it would solve the problem , all that would do is to push them from a to b and back to a and no gas gun can reduce the numbers , not only that we have got 3000 acres of land in production and you would need a lot of gas guns and that is only on one place , I cannot see the difference with the land owner paying a pest control firm to get rid of mice in the grain store or gassing Rabbits than helping with the cost of keeping Pigeons off his grain crop , after all that is the only reason we are going on his crop in the first place. 

Like you say , a lot of shooter's are working all the week and can only go weekends , if they get a wet Saturday or got other things to do as you have only got to look at the number of members who say they haven't had a lot of time to go due to work and family commitments and how many can , or will be able to take a day off from work with mortgages now to going to go up along with the gas and electricity from today .

I was also told in the Summer in no uncertain terms that we must not do Pigeon shooting for sport , it is purely for crop protection , or with 99% of the pigeons shot in this country on stubble then it is still not sport but ( preventive ) , if that was the case then please tell me what I have been doing it for as long as I can remember , why would you spend 50 quid on cartridges , spend one of your only free days from your family if you don't do it for the sport ? , if I was stopped and asked why am I shooting Pigeons on the stubble's I would tell them the truth , I am doing it for the sport and preventing the dead ones from doing any more damage and if they wanted to make a case of it them I would be only to happy to oblige .

 

Don't think farmers are worried about reducing numbers or pushing them off his field A and onto his neighbours field B, plus acreage is not the issue, you can have thousands of acres to shoot over but as those who chase pigeons on a regular bases know, it can take a lot of miles driving around to find pigeons on one or two fields that will shoot.

Getting rid of mice in the grain store or gassing Rabbits is a totally different ball game.

As for gas-guns, they are effective if used correctly and in conjunction with other gizmos such as kit-hawks, as you say, if a farmer is losing a £100 worth of corn a day then they are also cost effective and are there 24/7.

I know that if a farmer puts a gas-gun on a field, I take that field off my drive round list as I know the possible thousand or more pigeons sat in the wood half a mile away will be what I call ‘gas-gun zombie pigeons’ that sit there for hours on end and disappear at the first sight of you or a report from the gun, never to return.

[Scully]

4 hours ago, old'un said:

Don't think farmers are worried about reducing numbers or pushing them off his field A and onto his neighbours field B, plus acreage is not the issue, you can have thousands of acres to shoot over but as those who chase pigeons on a regular bases know, it can take a lot of miles driving around to find pigeons on one or two fields that will shoot.

Getting rid of mice in the grain store or gassing Rabbits is a totally different ball game.

As for gas-guns, they are effective if used correctly and in conjunction with other gizmos such as kit-hawks, as you say, if a farmer is losing a £100 worth of corn a day then they are also cost effective and are there 24/7.

I know that if a farmer puts a gas-gun on a field, I take that field off my drive round list as I know the possible thousand or more pigeons sat in the wood half a mile away will be what I call ‘gas-gun zombie pigeons’ that sit there for hours on end and disappear at the first sight of you or a report from the gun, never to return.

A farmer on whose land I sometimes shoot asks me to disconnect the battery to his gas gun while I’m shooting, and ‘dunt furget to connect it up again when you’re done’! 🙂

They seem to work quite well on pigeons in my experience, but there’s one at the far end of the village which is a constant regardless of the time of year, in an attempt to keep corvids out of his grain sheds. 
I’ve told him to let me shoot a few and hang them upside down around his sheds, which is the best deterrent I’ve ever found, but he just smiles and mumbles to himself. He lets me shoot rabbits and pigeons, so I don’t know what his reluctance is. 🤷‍♂️

[Scully]

21 hours ago, marsh man said:

 

I was also told in the Summer in no uncertain terms that we must not do Pigeon shooting for sport , it is purely for crop protection , or with 99% of the pigeons shot in this country on stubble then it is still not sport but ( preventive ) , if that was the case then please tell me what I have been doing it for as long as I can remember , why would you spend 50 quid on cartridges , spend one of your only free days from your family if you don't do it for the sport ? , if I was stopped and asked why am I shooting Pigeons on the stubble's I would tell them the truth , I am doing it for the sport and preventing the dead ones from doing any more damage and if they wanted to make a case of it them I would be only to happy to oblige .

 

If you want to go through this again I’ll come out to play! 
Whomever told you (🙂) was correct. Wood Pigeon, along with corvids, are a pest species and can only be shot under the terms of the GL’s.

We all know WHY we shoot them, and why we take days off work ( I take off loads of days; one of the perks of being self employed ) and spend our hard earned cash to shoot them, but that applies equally to anything we shoot, but that doesn’t alter the fact they can be shot for pest control reasons ONLY. You cannot shoot a pigeon ‘for the pot’, unlike game birds. 

They are NOT a game bird, but a PEST SPECIES, and as such have no closed season, and cannot be shot for sport and only as part of the terms of the GL. I really don’t know how much clearer I can make it. 
 

22 hours ago, Krico woodcock said:

☝️☝️☝️.. and it doesn't take long to whip the breasts off a 100 pigeons either. As long as you know what your at. I use beef fat to make pigeon burgers,  and the right ratio of pigeon/ beef fat/ good quality burger seasoning you will make serious top class burgers.  

Correct, it doesn’t take long at all. I’m assuming the remainder of the breasted bird is dumped? 

[Krico woodcock]

Yes Scully, after I have them breasted, the carcasses are left where no one will stumble across them,  other than a fox, and he will find them for sure. 

[Scully]

2 minutes ago, Krico woodcock said:

Yes Scully, after I have them breasted, the carcasses are left where no one will stumble across them,  other than a fox, and he will find them for sure. 

Grand. 👍