Beans 2

[martinj]

We have a few fields of field beans on our shoot, the shooting is reserved for us beaters so I was lucky enough to have a go, the trouble is it's a free for all among us beaters and I know a couple of small bags had been shot.

Interestingly (or not) our beans get used by Oxfam to feed starving people in Africa, the beans are milled and processed into tubes for the needy people to munch on.

Anyway, I did a morning's work on Saturday, feeding the birds on our shoot and couldn't get into place until nearly 1pm, I could see a lot of high birds around so was quite hopeful. I put out a whirly to the left (on the windward side) plus a mix of plastic body and shell deeks. In the hide I could watch the birds approaching over the trees an the other side of the field about 200 metres away. As they approached a lot of them veered right and left, so the best I could do was take a lot of long-ish shots with fewer than 10% decoying properly. I can only put the birds behaviour down to people on local farms educating them as I know a lot of shooting goes on nearby and they have a better selection of suitable crops to boot.

There was an unusual number of ferals in flocks of around 20 or so and Stock doves so I had to take care with my identification and there were no slip-ups.

Although the pigeons weren't totally committed to my decoys there were so many around that I couldn't fail to have a good afternoon, picking up 66 for about 3 1/2 hours of shooting and that is the best I have done by far on this bit of ground.

I dropped the birds round to a mate who has a cold room and does regular runs to the game dealer and (another interesting fact) he told me that the pigeons are reluctant to eat the brown beans that we see laying on the ground in their thousands and sprouting, but go out of their way to find whiter (fresher?) beans, even going to the trouble of opening pods. He demonstrated by opening the crop of one of my birds and "behold" the beans were pale beigy brown - make of that what you will 🙂

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Well done.   

[mossy835]

very nice

[marsh man]

Very nice afternoons shooting and a interesting fact about the condition of the loose Beans . Well done and THANKS for posting .    MM

[oowee]

Very nice indeed. 

[martinj]

I followed up the following week, things were quite similar except my wife with her cocker and a friend of hers with a young "trainee" springer came along for a bit of retrieving experience. I set them up in a hide nearby to be away from the worst of the noise from the gun

I shot a few feral pigeons as these are good for young dogs, the feathers are not nearly as loose as those on woodies so they don't get a mouthful which can be an issue with young dogs, I let them do their thing in their own time retrieving my birds, (Ferals and woodies) the Springer did a good job for a young one, (They have both been training for tests but no pigeon shooting) our cocker is used for beating and is used to retrieving dead birds that I bring home but we couldn't get her to retrieve live pigeons because she has been taught to flush and not chase, not sure what the answer to that one is. 

Anyway they left after about an hour, not wanting to overdo it on the first time out so it was back to the woodies for the rest of the afternoon and picking up my own birds! despite the distraction I ended up with 60 plus so another great afternoon on the bean stubble

[TIGHTCHOKE]

A good use of your time and a good few shot. Well done.