Is Shooting Over Spring Drillings Now A Thing Of The Past ?

[marsh man]

Well we are now into April ,and although weather wise March was nothing to write home about the farmers still got on with planting both Spring wheat and barley , these two drillings were once eagerly looked forward to as a good day would normally be on the cards , now it come and go without a shot being fired , sometimes the drill disturb bits from last years crop and a few Pigeons might show an interest but as far as the drilling go then it is a non event .

We haven't got no Spring Beans going in as ours are all Winter and are now 8/9 inches tall , the next to go in which used to be good are the Peas , now if the seedbed is right then you will not see a single Pea seed , maybe a few where the drill first go on the field but that is about it , we do grow Sugar Beet and spuds and in May the game covers go in but non of these crops are any good to shoot reasonable numbers on and by then we can tick over on the growing Peas .

Some places might be entirely different with the farmer still using old drills or the ground hard and lumpy but sadly for us who like a bit of Pigeon shooting we don't no longer get the really good shooting at Spring time like we once did .

So have YOU done any good ?

[sam triple]

I was due to shoot some spring drillings beginning of March but it’s not stooped raining since it was drilled everything now is about a month behind 

[marsh man]

7 minutes ago, sam triple said:

I was due to shoot some spring drillings beginning of March but it’s not stooped raining since it was drilled everything now is about a month behind 

Yea , I must admit we have had a lot of rain and it have been cold with it , not the ideal weather to sit on some cold ole hedge , just looked out of the window and it is still a light rain after a day of non stop rain , not the ideal start to April 

[old'un]

Was waiting for spring drilling, fields were sprayed off end of February and hopefully sown in mid March but it just did not happen because of the rain.

last time I had some shooting on spring sown crops was about 3-4 years ago on a field of beans, shot it on and off for nearly two weeks and killed a lot of pigeons, most I had seen of a field of spring sown crops for a very long time, they just did not want to leave it.

[old'un]

16 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Yea , I must admit we have had a lot of rain and it have been cold with it , not the ideal weather to sit on some cold ole hedge , just looked out of the window and it is still a light rain after a day of non stop rain , not the ideal start to April 

think we had your rain yesterday, poured down most of the day, not a drop today, even had the sun come out a few times and it went really warm, weather looks to be improving next week and the week after a heatwave.

[marsh man]

24 minutes ago, old'un said:

Was waiting for spring drilling, fields were sprayed off end of February and hopefully sown in mid March but it just did not happen because of the rain.

last time I had some shooting on spring sown crops was about 3-4 years ago on a field of beans, shot it on and off for nearly two weeks and killed a lot of pigeons, most I had seen of a field of spring sown crops for a very long time, they just did not want to leave it.

Strangely enough the last time we had some excellent shooting was also on Beans , we had four fields down the marsh that were put in by broadcasting , why they done it this way then I couldn't tell you but after they finished it you knew it was only a matter of time before the local Pigeon population found them as the Bean seed laid everywhere , within three or four days the Pigeons had found them in good numbers so we invited a mate of mine to cover one of the fields , we shot the fields all day on the Saturday and shot close on 300 , as there were still loads about we decided to shoot it again on the Sunday as we were all back to work on the Monday , so first thing Sunday I went to the dealers and then straight back to the Beans on the way back , the numbers were down from the day before but we still had a good day , by the following weekend they had cleared all the loose ones up and we never shot any more until it was cut , I still remember it well as the farmer had a straw burner for his heating and he bailed all the Bean stubble up , this was the last time I shot Pigeons on Bean stubble from a bail hide in the middle of the field made from the crop .

[Gas seal]

Hi marsh man I would say it was. Machines now are very efficient and don’t leave much grain on top. I don’t think pigeons do any damage to newly drilled grain fields. We have lots of stock doves on drilling’s, more each year , and jackdaws . I’m still shooting over rape and just started on Lucerne and sprouted beans. I was told pigeons are also going on clover fields. I find pigeons prefer Lucerne and clover when it’s started to grow and more are eating ivy berries. 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Well I was out in the Fens on Thursday morning, it was dry and the farmer was spraying the recently planted been fields.

 

It was dry enough for the tractor to be on the fields, but not the wood pigeons!

 

Still waiting for the soil temperature to rise and then the mustard will be drilled, probably 2 weeks away at the moment.

[Centrepin]

Fields ploughed and water logged. Waiting for Barley to go in. Hides prepared and birds getting used to them. Rape in other fields about knee high but sagging with wind and rain, very few flowers on. Some of my perm impossible to access(for me).

Best day so far, 12 Crow when field ploughed and gulls screaming in. Crow as usual lost caution and fighting gulls.

Very few pigeon seen at all.

Most of Crows/pigeon are around the grain silos and there's normally too many people around to shoot safely. 

[marsh man]

10 hours ago, Gas seal said:

Hi marsh man I would say it was. Machines now are very efficient and don’t leave much grain on top. I don’t think pigeons do any damage to newly drilled grain fields. We have lots of stock doves on drilling’s, more each year , and jackdaws . I’m still shooting over rape and just started on Lucerne and sprouted beans. I was told pigeons are also going on clover fields. I find pigeons prefer Lucerne and clover when it’s started to grow and more are eating ivy berries. 

Each new drill they buy, or come on the estate to do a demo is far more efficient than the previous one and it's amazing the speed they go without overlapping from one to another , our Peas will be going in at some time this month when the fieldsman from the Pea contract say they can now be drilled , last year the farm foreman rang me up to say the Peas are now in , I went out the next day and I thought he was kidding as you could not see a single Pea seed , it wasn't till I scraped away some soil with my foot and low and behold I found one about five inches down as the weather had been so dry they had to drill them down a bit deeper than they would normally had done , needless to say the field was devoid of any bird life and I dare say that this will be the same although with all this rain we have had they won't need to put them in as deep as last year .

Lucerne bring back a lot of memories around this time of the year when one of the farms used to grow a fair bit , now we haven't had any for years , we also had a few fields of Linseed , this was a hit and miss crop , one year would be good and the next year a dead loss , Centrepin mentioned Mustard , again a very good crop , we still grow some fields but these are mainly to enhance the land .    MM 

[old'un]

13 hours ago, marsh man said:

Strangely enough the last time we had some excellent shooting was also on Beans , we had four fields down the marsh that were put in by broadcasting , why they done it this way then I couldn't tell you but after they finished it you knew it was only a matter of time before the local Pigeon population found them as the Bean seed laid everywhere , within three or four days the Pigeons had found them in good numbers so we invited a mate of mine to cover one of the fields , we shot the fields all day on the Saturday and shot close on 300 , as there were still loads about we decided to shoot it again on the Sunday as we were all back to work on the Monday , so first thing Sunday I went to the dealers and then straight back to the Beans on the way back , the numbers were down from the day before but we still had a good day , by the following weekend they had cleared all the loose ones up and we never shot any more until it was cut , I still remember it well as the farmer had a straw burner for his heating and he bailed all the Bean stubble up , this was the last time I shot Pigeons on Bean stubble from a bail hide in the middle of the field made from the crop .

the thing that eventually put paid to most shooting over drilled crops was direct drilling, although I have seen the odd field that was direct drilled with a fair amount of seed on the top, also a lot of the smaller farms cannot afford the direct drilling rigs and follow the plough, harrow and sow method, talking of which, I have never seen maize direct drilled, think it needs a weed free seed bed and warm open soil to get off to a good start, usually sown in May, its one of the crops I keep a close eye on once it starts to poke its head through as it can produce some big numbers of corvids, it can also produce some good shooting when the crops been cut.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

The first of our mustard went in today!

[marsh man]

On 02/04/2023 at 10:12, old'un said:

the thing that eventually put paid to most shooting over drilled crops was direct drilling, although I have seen the odd field that was direct drilled with a fair amount of seed on the top, also a lot of the smaller farms cannot afford the direct drilling rigs and follow the plough, harrow and sow method, talking of which, I have never seen maize direct drilled, think it needs a weed free seed bed and warm open soil to get off to a good start, usually sown in May, its one of the crops I keep a close eye on once it starts to poke its head through as it can produce some big numbers of corvids, it can also produce some good shooting when the crops been cut.

As you say , Maize can be very good when cut and even better when the game season finish and any Maize cover crops are flattened , I find that Crows and Rooks are more interested than Pigeons and once the game covers get blown about then the Corvids seem to find the field first , most of our Maize is grown for Winter cattle feed , the cutting is contracted out and normally it is all over in a day or two at the most , this leave a very short window as the tractors will get on the fields more or less straight away while conditions are dry 

Now the Rape is all but over, but in truth it never even begun this last Winter , the local Pigeons near me are on the grazing fields that have a lot of Clover mixed with the grass , these are very hard to get amongst as every field for nearly five miles are now purely for livestock , it seem there is more money in letting the fields to these big horse charities than growing crops , the letting is from the April the 1st to the 1st of November so any day now the first load of livestock will be let loose on the marshes for the next several months.

We will also soon be in the darling buds of May time and that is normally quiet until the Pigeons once again leave the woods , our Peas are due to go in around the middle of this month and I do start getting a few once they are 3 / 4 inches high , this carry on until any Winter barley get knocked about or laid , time the grain become to hard the combines will soon be earning there keep and then we join the ever growling list of stubble shooters and protecting the crops is all but finished for another year 

  

[Old Boggy]

11 hours ago, marsh man said:

As you say , Maize can be very good when cut and even better when the game season finish and any Maize cover crops are flattened , I find that Crows and Rooks are more interested than Pigeons and once the game covers get blown about then the Corvids seem to find the field first , most of our Maize is grown for Winter cattle feed , the cutting is contracted out and normally it is all over in a day or two at the most , this leave a very short window as the tractors will get on the fields more or less straight away while conditions are dry 

Now the Rape is all but over, but in truth it never even begun this last Winter , the local Pigeons near me are on the grazing fields that have a lot of Clover mixed with the grass , these are very hard to get amongst as every field for nearly five miles are now purely for livestock , it seem there is more money in letting the fields to these big horse charities than growing crops , the letting is from the April the 1st to the 1st of November so any day now the first load of livestock will be let loose on the marshes for the next several months.

We will also soon be in the darling buds of May time and that is normally quiet until the Pigeons once again leave the woods , our Peas are due to go in around the middle of this month and I do start getting a few once they are 3 / 4 inches high , this carry on until any Winter barley get knocked about or laid , time the grain become to hard the combines will soon be earning there keep and then we join the ever growling list of stubble shooters and protecting the crops is all but finished for another year 

  

I agree that maize can be good when cut but I’ve seen acres of drilled maize with plenty left on the surface and no interest at all shown by pigeons. There are acres upon acres grown around here (Kent) all for biofuel so it’s a bit hit and miss whether any reasonable bags can be made once cut. However, one year the maize was flattened by strong winds and rain and much of the cobs were left on the ground untouched by the combines. This provided good shooting right through to when the field was direct drilled with wheat and the pigeons were still finding cobs when the wheat was 9 to 12 inches tall.

Our rape is now in flower but there’s a large area on the edge of one field that’s been hammered and is therefore concentrating the birds. That is where I’ll be heading later this week in the hope of getting a few.

OB

[old'un]

don't know what others are seeing but nearly every farm I shoot as put winter beans in, some of the farms must have 200+ acres in, think its something to-do with the cost of fertilizer as beans are good at fixing nitrogen in the soil.

One of the smaller farms I shoot (about 200 acres) is sowing nearly half the farm with a mix of wild flowers and seed plants, the fields were barley and I was waiting to see what he was going to put in but he said its cheaper to sow this mix plus he gets paid for doing it.

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, Old Boggy said:

I agree that maize can be good when cut but I’ve seen acres of drilled maize with plenty left on the surface and no interest at all shown by pigeons. There are acres upon acres grown around here (Kent) all for biofuel so it’s a bit hit and miss whether any reasonable bags can be made once cut. However, one year the maize was flattened by strong winds and rain and much of the cobs were left on the ground untouched by the combines. This provided good shooting right through to when the field was direct drilled with wheat and the pigeons were still finding cobs when the wheat was 9 to 12 inches tall.

Our rape is now in flower but there’s a large area on the edge of one field that’s been hammered and is therefore concentrating the birds. That is where I’ll be heading later this week in the hope of getting a few.

OB

Good morning Chris ( OB ) , Your above Maize field that produced a nice lot of sport are the one off we keep our eyes open for , these can turn up after some adverse weather conditions or something went wrong during the growing period , no where near as regular now but we have had Pea fields that came ripe a few days before they were due to be cut and were left to go to seed and rarer still we have had whole fields of Winter wheat get blown down as flat as a football pitch , now with shorter and stronger stems this is now very unlikely but we still see the odd Pea field left , or part of it that were to ripe to lift.

Our rape is now coming into flower and the fields I mentioned a few weeks ago near Cromer are well and truly into flower as we went that way Sunday and it now look like a sea of Yellow.

Hope you manage to have a few hours sport on the damaged rape , when I was a bit more able I have had some nice bags by lugging the gear to the middle of a field and setting up in the tall rape that over look the flattened bits , these are often caused by the the area waterlogged in the Winter and don't get sprayed due to the softness in the soil , these can be magnets as they don't get any disturbance , anyhow , with things now warming up and the countryside beginning to come to life it is just nice to be out and enjoying it for a few hours , all the best     MM

[kitchrat]

Yes, I agree, most drillings these day leave little for the poor old pigeons! Same at harvest, the modern, short-straw varieties don't get blown down the same and the combines are good at picking it up and process the reduced volume very well. With the straw not being laid, the combine can cut higher, leaving tall stubble which interferes with landing areas, as well as making the machine more efficient by reducing volume. The final straw (pun intended!), I suspect, is the chaff cutters. This drops a layer of chaff over what seed, if any, is left on the ground or passes through the combine (falling to earth faster of course) and then, pigeons can't/won't scratch it off.

There is sometimes the exception to these "rules", my 109 on badly drilled barley last month being an example. Even then, it was all over in a day, I just got it right for once!

As for maize, all the cover crops of maize failed round here this season but even last year, with good maize, the corvids stripped the cobs during game season, so we had no sport.

What happens about this biofuel? Don't they just harvest the whole crop, as if it were for cattle-feed,leaving no hope of cobs on the ground? Then, of course, pigeons can't open whole cobs and the corvids will get it. Much better when it's smashed up after being game cover, (in my dreams!)

[Old Boggy]

1 hour ago, kitchrat said:

Yes, I agree, most drillings these day leave little for the poor old pigeons! Same at harvest, the modern, short-straw varieties don't get blown down the same and the combines are good at picking it up and process the reduced volume very well. With the straw not being laid, the combine can cut higher, leaving tall stubble which interferes with landing areas, as well as making the machine more efficient by reducing volume. The final straw (pun intended!), I suspect, is the chaff cutters. This drops a layer of chaff over what seed, if any, is left on the ground or passes through the combine (falling to earth faster of course) and then, pigeons can't/won't scratch it off.

There is sometimes the exception to these "rules", my 109 on badly drilled barley last month being an example. Even then, it was all over in a day, I just got it right for once!

As for maize, all the cover crops of maize failed round here this season but even last year, with good maize, the corvids stripped the cobs during game season, so we had no sport.

What happens about this biofuel? Don't they just harvest the whole crop, as if it were for cattle-feed,leaving no hope of cobs on the ground? Then, of course, pigeons can't open whole cobs and the corvids will get it. Much better when it's smashed up after being game cover, (in my dreams!)

You`re right, when grown for biofuel, the whole crop is harvested leaving none, or very few cobs on the surface.  That`s why strong winds and heavy rain can be a bonus for the pigeon shooter but not for the farmer as cobs can be left for a long time on the ground and can provide many weeks of shooting. This is in contrast to a flailed cover crop over a smaller area that is cleaned up very quickly by both corvids and pigeons.

OB

[243deer]

7 minutes ago, Old Boggy said:

You`re right, when grown for biofuel, the whole crop is harvested leaving none, or very few cobs on the surface.

Just an aside. The subsidy for this practice is now going to end. Subsidies for biofuel foodstock will be based on using 'waste' products only. I am sure there will be loopholes found but the premise is that we should be using land for growing food or for conservation. Approx 50 acres of land in front and behind my place are being sown with wild flowers at the end of this years crops as it pays better than renting out for cropping as mentioned above. These fields are right next to roost woods so it will be interesting to see how well they do.

[Old Boggy]

Just now, 243deer said:

Just an aside. The subsidy for this practice is now going to end. Subsidies for biofuel foodstock will be based on using 'waste' products only. I am sure there will be loopholes found but the premise is that we should be using land for growing food or for conservation. Approx 50 acres of land in front and behind my place are being sown with wild flowers at the end of this years crops as it pays better than renting out for cropping as mentioned above. These fields are right next to roost woods so it will be interesting to see how well they do.

I sincerely hope that you are right as a farm near me has recently taken over three other farms and only grows maize for biofuel plus the odd field of wheat. This particular farm does however have its own digester and takes in maize from most of the surrounding farms. 

[the hitman]

On 01/04/2023 at 18:49, marsh man said:

Well we are now into April ,and although weather wise March was nothing to write home about the farmers still got on with planting both Spring wheat and barley , these two drillings were once eagerly looked forward to as a good day would normally be on the cards , now it come and go without a shot being fired , sometimes the drill disturb bits from last years crop and a few Pigeons might show an interest but as far as the drilling go then it is a non event .

We haven't got no Spring Beans going in as ours are all Winter and are now 8/9 inches tall , the next to go in which used to be good are the Peas , now if the seedbed is right then you will not see a single Pea seed , maybe a few where the drill first go on the field but that is about it , we do grow Sugar Beet and spuds and in May the game covers go in but non of these crops are any good to shoot reasonable numbers on and by then we can tick over on the growing Peas .

Some places might be entirely different with the farmer still using old drills or the ground hard and lumpy but sadly for us who like a bit of Pigeon shooting we don't no longer get the really good shooting at Spring time like we once did .

So have YOU done any good ?

I had a drive around my patch, where about half of the fields to be drilled have been. I didn’t see a single pigeon on any of them. I did however see a good number on a heavily grazed rape field, which is where I will be heading when the weather permits this week.

I have peas still to go in so chitting peas might be better than drilled.

If I recall I didn’t shot anything on drillings last year- however that won’t put me off looking.

[marsh man]

24 minutes ago, the hitman said:

I had a drive around my patch, where about half of the fields to be drilled have been. I didn’t see a single pigeon on any of them. I did however see a good number on a heavily grazed rape field, which is where I will be heading when the weather permits this week.

I have peas still to go in so chitting peas might be better than drilled.

If I recall I didn’t shot anything on drillings last year- however that won’t put me off looking.

Looking is all part of the package and I still get excited when an unexpected field turn up , which nowadays don't happen very often , tonight when I went down the marsh the tractor was drilling sugar beet , I have never shot any Pigeons on drilled sugar beet and it is not very difficult to find out why , first of all the seed is drilled deep into the soil and very few , if any seed lay on the surface , even if any was lying about I am not sure if Pigeons would even eat it with all the dye around the outside..

All our grain Spring drilling is in and forgot about by now with no signs of Pigeons , this we now come to expect so it is no longer a disappointment , Peas would be next and again we look ( just in case ) but looking is a force of habit and it wouldn't be the same if we never looked , we don't seem to get any till they are well up and then the best time for us is in the mid afternoon , up your way it might be entirely different but one I do know is , they certainly are not getting any easier  .   GOOD LUCK on your rape .  

[charlie b]

my mate has started direct drilling he part exed the old one which did a good jobof burying most of the seed last year i didnt even realise it was sown the previos crop was rape wich self seeded he drilled winter wheat when the rape was six inches high then sprayed it off with round up never shot a single bird cant see him doing any thing different from now on

[Centrepin]

I've been out this morning, land still waterlogged for well over 50% but the farmers must think its worth it as the Barley has gone in. Thousands of little red seeds on the surface and the field black with corvids.

Dropped 2 straight out of the car, picked 1 and put on bouncer by a permanent hide. Didn't have much time to spare. 20 shots, 7 picked. Not a pigeon in sight and as I drove off corvids descending again.

Next visit Monday but who knows if anything will still be there 🤔 

[Wilts#Dave]

I must admit, I’ve not shot a big bag on spring drillings for a good few years now….peas can produce, but find drilling not as productive as it used to be! 
Going back 10-20 years ago spring drillings used to produce some great shooting…..as you say a lot is due to the advance in farming technology, which makes sense. 
I remember one farm we used to shoot on, the chap only had a few fields and used really old kit , open top combine etc and his ground used to produce some brilliant shooting!