Churchill method and pigeon hides

[PeterHenry]

Does anyone have any tips / experience / advice for using the Churchil method from a pigeon hide?

In his book, Churchill states that when using a shooting stick, he sat with the end of the stock on his knee, and the muzzles pointing straight up - which then allowed him to get into the starting possition with relative ease.

I've not tried it in a hide yet, but it would seem to me that this, combined with the positive start of pushing the gun out from between your arm / body, would (a) be fantastic for getting the gun caught up in cammo netting, and (b) denting barells on hide posts.

In my head, instead of one smooth movement of standing up, mounting the gun and shooting, it would be standing up and getting in the starting possition, then separatetly start possition and shoot?

Edited May 27 by PeterHenry

[Ultrastu]

I dont stand up when shooting from a hide .I stay sat down and just lift the gun from where ever it is and shoot  .it's usually to my right leaning against the hedge  .

 

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, Ultrastu said:

I dont stand up when shooting from a hide .I stay sat down and just lift the gun from where ever it is and shoot  .it's usually to my right leaning against the hedge  .

 

I very rarely , if ever stand up when I am in a hide , if the decoys are out dead in front then I turn my seat slightly to the right as I have move movement on my left hand side , and then if the wind is on my back then I put the magnet and decoys on my left hand side , more so if I am under or near a tree where I expect Pigeons to come in to , I prefer shots going from right to left than the other way round , some of it is down to getting past the sell by date 

[stockybasher]

I am another "sit to shoot" from a hide, when conditions allow.  Wind / sunlight may require you to stand, be flexible !!

[enfieldspares]

When in the 1990s we used to put on a charity shoot we had one stand where, yes, you shot sat down on a round drum as if you were shooting from a hide on incoming dropping birds. We even garnished it with four or five plastic pigeon decoys set out roughly where the clays would drop but set the front bar of the cage at the same height as a low fronted hide so you had to take the birds just before the drop became a "landing".

[Wilts#Dave]

4 hours ago, Ultrastu said:

I dont stand up when shooting from a hide .I stay sat down and just lift the gun from where ever it is and shoot  .it's usually to my right leaning against the hedge  .

 

Just shows how we all differ, I’ve never got on shooting from a sitting position as I don’t feel it offers me a good arc of fire at flaring birds / locking on quickly to second barrels or those snap shots coming overhead etc.

Can see the advantages doing so though. 

[marsh man]

I am not sure that in Archie Coates early years he stood up to take his shots over his decoys , this was way before the rotary was invented , as the years rolled by he would have had a job standing to take each shot due to mobility problems , you imagine how many times he would had jumped up when he got his then record bag of around 550 in a day.

In my younger days my body was flexible enough to take most shots sitting down and for most of my wildfowling I was either sitting in a gun punt , knelling on a marsh or down the side of a dyke so sitting on a comfortable chair with a backrest whilst in a hide was luxury compared with fowling , now I am getting towards the end of my decoying days if I can't take some of the shots that I once could then so be it , and now in my later years I find comfort is very high on list of a good day out .     MM

[martinj]

I will take a shot from the sitting position if I get taken by surprise and don't have time to stand up but I prefer to stand and get my feet right, I get better results that way.

I do find that my arthritic knees protest at sitting and standing frequently during a busy session so I raised the height of my seat by about five inches and that made a huge difference as standing is much less of a strain.

[PeterHenry]

Thank you for all the responses - I hadn't realised how many pepole shot from sitting. I think I can count on one hand the amount of shots I've fired sitting down?

I'm sure a opportunity will present itself soon enough where I can put theory into practice, and either come away smiling or with dented barrels. 

[JDog]

I have a drummer's seat. When I see an incoming pigeon through the netting I can rotate so that my feet are in the right place to take the shot. Then I stand up and shoot.

I cannot imagine how those who do not use a seat can ever keep their faces below the level of the net.

[marsh man]

2 hours ago, PeterHenry said:

Thank you for all the responses - I hadn't realised how many pepole shot from sitting. I think I can count on one hand the amount of shots I've fired sitting down?

I'm sure a opportunity will present itself soon enough where I can put theory into practice, and either come away smiling or with dented barrels. 

Same with a lot of things in life it do take a bit of time to get used to it , last Summer I went down to our local clay shoot just to watch as I have got very little interest in the round targets , the talk got around to shooting sitting down and a few tried it while sitting on a bale of straw , what a performance , they more or less all said the same thing , how on earth can anyone shoot while sitting down ? , maybe the bale of straw was to low for the taller blokes as there knees were going upwards instead of going down , mind you some of the clay shooters moan if the ground isn't level while they are standing up , so sitting down for most of them were a no no .

22 minutes ago, JDog said:

I have a drummer's seat. When I see an incoming pigeon through the netting I can rotate so that my feet are in the right place to take the shot. Then I stand up and shoot.

I cannot imagine how those who do not use a seat can ever keep their faces below the level of the net.

I had one of those fold up seats with a revolving round seat on top , these were alright but very heavy for me to cart about and after sitting down for more than a couple of hours it started to play your backside up so I had to put a cushion on top of that if I was staying longer , that didn't last long and it ended up in the sporting auction , my next one was a office revolving chair , this was ideal as you could adjust the height and you freely moved round when you were following a Pigeon , this may I add was left in the hide for the duration of the Peas and the seat was just covered up with a fertilizer bag , once lifted I could then drive across the field to cart all the gear off , not really the thing to add it to all your gear every time you go ,   MM

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, not that i have been out on the pigeons or blackies much these last 2 years but i use a Gamebird Tripod seat, and always stand up to shoot but now i need something with a back rest, i was thinking of a Fishing Trolley and Box seat so i can fill box with decoys etc, i found the Oxbridge Folding Fishing Trolley for £40 , with a Box it should make a good seat with back rest ??

[martinj]

deleted

Edited May 29 by martinj

[martinj]

This is what I did to my seat, I left out the detail involving some screws and lashings of Gorilla glue.

It works well and has been going for about 4 years with no problems. The foam is mostly air and doesn't weigh much

[Old Boggy]

2 minutes ago, martinj said:

This is what I did to my seat, I left out the detail involving some screws and lashings of Gorilla glue.

It works well and has been going for about 4 years with no problems. The foam is mostly air and doesn't weigh much

Is the padded bit fixed to the swivel top or does it just rest on it?
 

[martinj]

pat app for 😝 🙂

11 minutes ago, Old Boggy said:

Is the padded bit fixed to the swivel top or does it just rest on it?
 

 

It is fixed, I don't remember all of the details but I used some long screws to fix into the foam, Probably dipped in gorilla glue because the foam has little strength, same for the sides of the fabric where I also used cup washers, I just over engineered it. 

By the way the swivel part doesn't rotate, it stopped working before I did the work on it

Edited May 29 by martinj

[Old Boggy]

1 hour ago, martinj said:

pat app for 😝 🙂

 

It is fixed, I don't remember all of the details but I used some long screws to fix into the foam, Probably dipped in gorilla glue because the foam has little strength, same for the sides of the fabric where I also used cup washers, I just over engineered it. 

By the way the swivel part doesn't rotate, it stopped working before I did the work on it

Thanks for clarifing that.

Those swivel seats often do stop rotating after much use.

OB

[martinj]

59 minutes ago, Old Boggy said:

Thanks for clarifing that.

Those swivel seats often do stop rotating after much use.

OB

👍 

BTW the foam was the rigid stuff that comes in slabs - used for building insulation

[Old Boggy]

1 hour ago, martinj said:

👍

BTW the foam was the rigid stuff that comes in slabs - used for building insulation

👍

[marsh man]

Afternoon Chris .... My wife had a revolving thin seat that she used to put in my Honda to get in and out of the car , this is very thin and could easily go on top of a stool or whatever these chaps sit on , not very heavy and the only drawback it is a bright White but it wouldn't be that colour very long and I doubt a Pigeon would get near enough to see what I am sitting on    MM

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Stop overthinking everything.

Either shoot from the sitting position or stand and mount the gun in one smooth movement.

If sitting and you keep the muzzles high it they will NOT snag the net.

[PeterHenry]

12 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Stop overthinking everything.

Either shoot from the sitting position or stand and mount the gun in one smooth movement.

If sitting and you keep the muzzles high it they will NOT snag the net.

👍

[PeterHenry]

I went out today - not the most successful of days - but it allowed me to put theory into practice. 

If anyones intrested, the trick is to build a bigger hide and make sure the front is extra low - which then necessitates more crouching that usual.

[Minky]

On 27/05/2024 at 17:29, Ultrastu said:

I dont stand up when shooting from a hide .I stay sat down and just lift the gun from where ever it is and shoot  .it's usually to my right leaning against the hedge  .

 

 

On 27/05/2024 at 19:26, marsh man said:

I very rarely , if ever stand up when I am in a hide , if the decoys are out dead in front then I turn my seat slightly to the right as I have move movement on my left hand side , and then if the wind is on my back then I put the magnet and decoys on my left hand side , more so if I am under or near a tree where I expect Pigeons to come in to , I prefer shots going from right to left than the other way round , some of it is down to getting past the sell by date 

How are you going to get dented barrels.?  I  sit on a drum with 3 Hazel sticks supporting two smallish nets about 6ft square  these are formed into a V out front. I try to find if possible a bit of a dip into a hedge so that I don't stand out. Two of the sticks on the hedge line and the third out front. The nets are set low in front and if you were to stand out in the decoys you would be able to see me from the shoulders upwards. The hide is relatively small and inconspicuous. The siting of the decoy patern needs to be where the pigeons want to land and feed. If it is the pigeons don't flair away and  you shoot 5hebirds as they are about to land. You don't have to stand up waving the gun about.  If  the birds don't come into the pattern let them go.  They'll probably come back round. Think of it in a different way.   If you weren't out there shooting the pigeons would find a feeding spot and land in that spot to feed either until they were full or something disturbed them.  In the Archie Coates video with Jack Charlton, Archie said that he took the front bales down and just shot completely uncovered.  I  have  shot pigeons coming Into a pattern just standing against a gate post.  You just got to keep still and wait for the bird to commit to landing.  Bonk. No need to take wild swings around the sky. It's a lot more cartridge efficient.  I  generally manage from about 1.8 to 2 :1

Edited June 6 by Minky

[Cranfield]

When in a hide, I shoot standing, or sitting, depending on the bird presentation.
However, I always hold my gun pointing upward the whole time (even when its slow).
If I have to leave the hide, I unload it and lay it on the ground outside the hide (whenever practical).