pigeon controller Posted July 17, 2023 Report Share Posted July 17, 2023 Life has been a bit hectic at present so I will have to do a few quick catch up reports. Saturday 24th June, we went out looking for barley to shoot and covered all our normal farms with no luck. Some of the barley seemed to be about four feet high with large heads but nothing laid at all. We decide to split and look further afield, still with no luck when DB had a call from Topgunners as they had some barley which had just been whole cropped and it was covered with birds. It was now 13.00 and I made way to the motorway to get there as soon as I could only to be confronted with a massive roadblock as the traffic signals at one of the lower junctions had failed. I reached the field at 14.00 and we were set up in DB’s gear for 14.30. We had three in the hide and had set it up on a middle hedge so you could shoot at decoys both sides. We were very disciplined with one shooting and two commenting!!. It was very hot and we had to pick up the birds after every ten shot and these were put in carp sacks attached to the hide to allow the wind the pass through. The picture shows one hundred in the sack with another on the other side of the hide. We packed up at 19.30 and the total for the day was 146 it was too hot to lay them out for the traditional bragging shot. Friday 30th June , I had a call to try and reduce the number of corvids around the lamb feeders , I arrived at 10.30 to find the field black all over and as I drove in they all lifted off to the adjoining farm ( I think they recognise the Disco)I had no decoys so just set up within range of the feeders. It was slow at the beginning but once I had a few down they came in well, I just shot badly. I had two guns in the hide one with lead shot and the other with steel shot for the pigeons. With two different velocities ( that’s my excuse ) I packed up at 16.00 and picked up 49 Corvids and 5 pigeon. Saturday 1st July, DB was away so I was flying solo, I had seen some birds on Wednesday on barley so went straight to that field only to find it totally devoid of birds. So started to drive about and look. I was getting to end of our permissions when I found a field barley which had holes all round it with birds feeding hard in the extreme heat. There was a strong wind from the west and so I set up under a large ash tree with the wind off my back and a large hole in front of me. The idea was to drop the birds as they rose to clear the tree and drop them in the hole. I call this “ Tin Can Shooting , as its the same shot over and over, you have to be disciplined to only shoot at the precise moment. I shot for five hours and picked up 81 birds and lost six. Again no picture due to the heat. Saturday 8th July I had a call to shoot some barley which I had looked at in the past weeks, the information was it was covered so I committed to shoot it. When I arrived it had about twenty birds down in a hole, well out in the field. I spooked them out and they returned to the field and straight back to the hole. The feeding spell on this farm is always towards the afternoon so I was confident that they would return in numbers. So I set up my hide in the tram tracks close to this hole and put out six thawed birds on cradles. It then poured down with rain for twenty minutes and this was the pattern for the day. I packed up at 16.00 and tried to get away before thunder storm hit but got soaked in the end. I only managed 23 birds. I will put a picture of the hide in the equipment section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCB56 Posted July 17, 2023 Report Share Posted July 17, 2023 Well done PC and another good report. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted July 17, 2023 Report Share Posted July 17, 2023 We were beginning to worry where one of the main men had got to as we are coming up to the peak of the Pigeon decoying ( season ) and the reports had been a bit thin on the ground , but we needn't had worried as he have to cover a lot of ground and can't be everywhere at once . Great report as per norm , one thing I noticed was you picking up 81 with only six lost , that is good going even if you have got a dog , Well done on all accounts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pigeon controller Posted July 17, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2023 1 hour ago, marsh man said: We were beginning to worry where one of the main men had got to as we are coming up to the peak of the Pigeon decoying ( season ) and the reports had been a bit thin on the ground , but we needn't had worried as he have to cover a lot of ground and can't be everywhere at once . Great report as per norm , one thing I noticed was you picking up 81 with only six lost , that is good going even if you have got a dog , Well done on all accounts I had to shoot only when I could pick up, would have been a 200 bird day if I could just shoot and not pick up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted July 17, 2023 Report Share Posted July 17, 2023 4 hours ago, pigeon controller said: I had to shoot only when I could pick up, would have been a 200 bird day if I could just shoot and not pick up. That is retraint for you , I take a dog but I try and avoid laid barley and tend to stick to where I can pick them up , wheat is not to bad but barley can be a nightmare and not only that , in the very hot weather it make my dog pant so much if he have a job in finding what he is looking for . The keeper took his boy on Saturday afternoon and it was blowing nigh on a gale , we were shooting over stubble but he had a standing field of barley on the other side of the hedge , he had to go early and I went over to see how it got on , the boy had a nice lot of shooting and they had lost two , one was just off a grass track which we found straightaway and the other dropped in the standing stuff about ten yards out , my dog went in and just couldn't pick up any scent at all , we were standing a couple of feet from the edge and I noticed a few feathers lying on the stalks , when my dog got within a yard or so his head went down and after a lot of shufferling about he ended up finding it , if this had gone on all afternoon I would have had one very worn out dog and for sake of a few pigeons I would had setteled for some where that would that would had made life a lot easier. Up until the Peas started to produce a bit of shooting we were bemoaning about the lack of Pigeons , not only in my area but on the forum in general , move fast forward about two months then you wouldn't think we were in the same area , Saturday we shot just over 50 and that was in under three hours and that inclued setting up , finding the lost ones and clearing up , today I went for a look and despite the rain showers over the weekend the farm pressed on with the combining and several more fields were down to straw , walking round there were pigeons on most fields and the one that had the most was the one the combine had only just left , might be a fraction early but over the last 5 / 6 weeks I have only had two young ones and one of those were last week . Have you had many young uns lately ? MM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pigeon controller Posted July 17, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2023 We are having a few young birds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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