Difficult to decoy

[marsh man]

I was always told that no gas gun would ever kill a Pigeon , scare them yes but never reduce the numbers , on the other hand a Pigeon shooter can never kill the same Pigeon twice , I have been given the Pigeon shooting over a large area as I know the area very well , spend a lot of time walking around the various fields and we have haven't got a single gas gun going off anywhere , I cannot be expected to keep every Pigeon off all the various crop fields, I cut the fields down to whatever time of the year it is , we do not shoot any Pigeons during the game shooting season which is a good thing as I have no need to look around , I take part in the shoots myself and if the Pigeons were doing any harm then as long as they were away from the game covers then I could go if I wanted to but in the Winter months the interest in Pigeon shooting is taking over with wildfowling , come February we shoot four Saturday afternoons roost shooting and if any of the guns want to decoy the fields that border there woods then they can if they wish as we know everyone who take a Pigeon permit out , then in March I start to keep an eye on the o s r fields , we get some damage but not that much , in April you start looking at any Spring drilling and seek out where the Peas are going in , in May it is fairly quite and you get a few small bags off the bare patches of o s r and some off the growing Peas , in June you see the first signs of knocked about Barley fields and I have had a few lately off the small plants in the cover crops , next month our harvest will start between the second and third week of July and then it is the start of the stubble shooting which will take you through the rest of the Summer and before you know it the first Partridges will be hanging up in the game larder and this will be the time to store the Pigeon gear away for another year .   MM 

[kitchrat]

2 hours ago, Wilts#Dave said:

Ahh pity that. Without sounding rude doing so, maybe worth mentioning to the farmer when he says about the pigeons next time why it’s so difficult?! Do these old boys not shoot them, as you’d think they’d realise their tactics aren’t conducive to reducing the numbers! 

I know, they just get used to flying off for 20 minutes then trickling back for an hour or two. Over the day, they can still feed for several hours , which is more than enough time to fill up. Hence they are not hungry and can just play the game of fly off- fly back and fill up, and repeat. Those in my freezer will eat no more peas!

[martinj]

OK, I did get out this afternoon after feeding and watering pheasant poults all morning.

A mate and I sat and observed in a high spot where we could see for miles and lo! there were pigeons in the air and we saw that it was good. It was not exactly a flight line, more like the western front with birds crossing sporadically over a half mile stretch. We only had a couple of hours so we chose ambush spots in a high hedge on a ridge that the pigeons had to cross. I shot 6, my mate shot 3 and we both missed a few. It was all over by about 3:30 but was a bit of fun while it lasted. 

Now it has started we know that the pigeons will be around for a couple of months and we might be able to do something with them from time to time.