rotory pigeon devices

[columbus]

Help wanted! Although i have shoot pigeons for about 20 years over decoys with various degrees of sucsess i cannot get to grips with these magnets, friends of mine have some and swear by them. I was using mine (home made but exactly the same as the bought one.)the other day obout 200m off a flight line .I had the usual patton out for a wind from behind me and the magnet up wind of my decoys . A few birds did come in at first but they soon stopped, after a hour i pulled the magnet in ,as soon as i did the birds came to the decoys straight away. As far as i can see either i am using it wrong or they are a complete waist of time. I hope it is the former rather than the latter. so can anyone give me some advice.

[sutty]

Hello columbus

I have found that some days magnets draw birds and other days they just jink away before getting into range.

I think experimentation is the key word here.

As you said in your post you took the magnet in and the birds decoyed again, that was a good move and at least you saw the problem and resolved it.

The good ol Woodie is a bit spoilt for choice at the moment and can afford to pick and choose were he feeds, if he sees the slightest thing that hes not happy with off he goes,

I have always been in the opinion(rightly or wrongly) that the whirly-gig comes into its own when food is scarce, at the back-end of the year and over winter,but having said that you could set it running in the same field today and have them trying to land around you.

My advice is stick with it and play around with the positioning

etc,I usualy stick mine out at about ten yards from the hide and to one side of the pattern,by the time they have got close enough to see its not for real there in range.

hope this helps

    regards sutty

[everygoodnamewastaken]

My dad and i used ours for thew first time over the weekend and it worked very very well   It was about 45 yards to the left of our usual pattern which was right under a flightline. The birds came in fine and flew out fine too lol

[Cranfield]

I would agree with sutty,

 

Vary the shape and number of decoys in your layout.

I will do this during a days shooting, if things go "quiet".

 

Also, position the rotary device to one side of your hide, so that the pigeons sight is not drawn to the hide, via the rotary device.

I think this is a common cause of pigeons appearing to shy away from the device.

[neil]

Roughly how long are the arms on these rotery devices i'm in the proces of making one at the moment the only problem is i've never actually seen a genuine one in the flesh so im going on pictures in sporting gun but its a bit of a job to get a scale of how big things are,the only other one i've seen was a real heath robinson piece of home made kit with a wingspan comparable to a sea king helecopter there was so much force needed to get the thing spinning that it kept tearing itself out of the ground and twisting itself into a mass of wire and steel,i couldent shoot straight for the rest of the day (just kept on thinking of that bit in apocalipse now where the helicopters ambush that camp whit clasical music playing at full volume).

[Cranfield]

I have two arms on my Pinewood version and they are 4ft long.

I am not sure a four arm machine works any better.

 

If you are starting from scratch, try to incorporate a speed adjuster.

A lot of manufacturers are selling these now as accessories.

[neil]

I'v got a 2 speed windscreen wiper motor and mine will have the option of 2or4 arms good point about the speed control do you find it handy?

[Cranfield]

neil, at the moment I don,t have one, but I can certainly see the advantages.

I assume that future new designs will incorporate them.

 

Don,t forget to make the height of the arms adjustable.

The Pinewood version does this by putting a bolt through the arm, about an inch back from where it joins the machine "body".

When you tighten the bolt down, the end protrudes through the arm onto the "body" and lifts the arm up.

 

Good luck, if the thing drills itself into the ground and you accidently discover oil, don,t forget who your friends are, Mate. :)

[columbus]

Mine has a 2 speed motor, but it wont work without a voltage reduction relay, The only way i could slow it down was to put a 12 volt car mobile phone charger in line, that slowed it down by changing the voltage from 12 to 7 volts. Asfar as it coming out of the ground carry a lump hammer to make sure it goes firmly into the ground.

[Cranfield]

For the amount of money I paid for my Pinewood, I ain,t hitting it with no lump hammer.

 

I always ensure that my rotary device is very carefully, almost lovingly, pushed into the ground.

Last Winter, I took a small flask of boiling water with me, to soften the ground.

Modesty forbids me mentioning other similar ways, to achieve the same objective.

[kevin15]

Two things that are worth a try if birds are shying away from your whirler (1) Have the dead birds tilted in at about a 45 degree angle. (2) Tilt the whole whirler to one side so the birds look like they are landing. If you tilt the whirler the birds will then swing close to the ground on one side and swing up high on the other ( make sure you tilt it so the birds face into the wind on the low side )

[neil]

I aint hitting mine with no hammer either it'll fall to bits,i've got some foot peg type things weilded to mine only time will tell when we get some cold weather(its fairly mild down here in the winter anyway) failing that cranfields picnic idea might have to be employed.