Jump to content

This is where the pigeons have gone.


Recommended Posts

I have seen something similar in northern France, where the guns had built hides in the tops of trees, consisting of wooden floors and then wire "walls" plus camo netting.
They had plastic full  bodies decoys all around and one or two live birds tethered on poles, on a perch. When they pulled the string the perch moved and the bird flew up and landed again (bit like a tree fitted flapper).
The brothers involved had about 4 - 5 hides covering a 50+ acre woodland and they shot there at roost time.

This was all before electronic flappers, rotarys, etc., I have no idea if they still use live birds, but I would have thought a flapper would do as good a job.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Cranfield said:

I have seen something similar in northern France, where the guns had built hides in the tops of trees, consisting of wooden floors and then wire "walls" plus camo netting.
They had plastic full  bodies decoys all around and one or two live birds tethered on poles, on a perch. When they pulled the string the perch moved and the bird flew up and landed again (bit like a tree fitted flapper).
The brothers involved had about 4 - 5 hides covering a 50+ acre woodland and they shot there at roost time.

This was all before electronic flappers, rotarys, etc., I have no idea if they still use live birds, but I would have thought a flapper would do as good a job.

interesting read that........in a very warm woodland that is edged by conifers i once shot pigeons (roost)  from a scaffold platform that was erected the full height of the conifers (less 6 feet)..the surrounded by camo netting .....so when standing fully up your head and shoulders were at tree top height....it was a weird veiw of your shooting area

the sport was awesome......the only downside was several birds once shot got caught up in the trees..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Throughout Western France and Spain and Eastern Portugal hundreds of thousands of pigeons have passed through for two months. Some of the Mediterranean islands have seen record numbers.

If the shooters can time it right they can have the best shooting of all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, JDog said:

Throughout Western France and Spain and Eastern Portugal hundreds of thousands of pigeons have passed through for two months. Some of the Mediterranean islands have seen record numbers.

If the shooters can time it right they can have the best shooting of all.

folk have been trying to suss out the life of a pigeon since shooting began....and no one has suceeded or predict what they do and what causes their behavoir...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is the only time I would be happy to see some migrants coming across the water from France. :)

Obviously it must be legal but how come with all these EU directives on wild birds the French can keep wild birds in captivity and use them as live decoys?

 

 

 

Edited by old'un
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Hello, i watched one of the other videos, there seem a lot of pigeon about where ever it was filmed in France, i wonder if they buy those cheap cartridges from Decathlon that we missed out on a few years back, Thanks for posting JD👍

1 minute ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, i watched one of the other videos, there seem a lot of pigeon about where ever it was filmed in France, i wonder if they buy those cheap cartridges from Decathlon that we missed out on a few years back, Thanks for posting JD👍

I do not like the idea of tying a live pigeon to a pole 🤔

Edited by oldypigeonpopper
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i read about this a few years ago its not something that can be done all over but in a few spots. if you think of the geography of Europe and how they have migratory pigeons everything in the north is trying to get to the med and it bottle necks at northern spain and italy. and then at these bottle necks they funnel again into the passes over the Alps and Pyrenees. so yeah specific spots at a specific time of year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...