A difficult afternoon

[anser2]

A difficult afternoon. After touring my shooting the only field holding a few pigeons was a recently drilled barley field , though there was a good flight line across the field. The field was bordered on 3 sides by busy roads and on the forth by a tall wood. The flight line birds were coming downwind high over the wood and were past the decoys and magnet before they noticed them. The odd one turned back , but most just kept going. To start with I set the decoys ( 30 decoys ) within 30 yards with the magnet 20 yards out on the field. But the set-up was not working.

 

Noticing that pigeons on a drill are often widely spaced I opened the pattern out and extended it 45 yards out into the field. I also moved the magnet to the outside edge of the decoy pattern. Now many of the birds were seeing the decoys as they passed over the wood and a number turned into them. The majority offered longish shots as the decoys were so far out but at least I was getting some shooting. Two hours later I packed up with 18 birds picked and a couple lost close to the road where it was too dangerous to work the dogs. Not a big bag but satisfying to get a few birds when the prospects looked very poor.

[George1990]

18 aint a bad bag to me

All the more rewarding when you have to think a bit too

[MerseaDavid]

18 is a good bag mate

[pigeon controller]

Nice descriptive report with plenty of detail. 18 good shots is worth 50 decoy shots. I often get asked by farmers if I get bored of shooting? my reply is no, each shot is different and presents is own challenges. I can still remember days and shots from twenty years ago.

 

Good Shooting

 

Pigeon Controller

[Whitebridges]

Nice few birds anser. Good move tweaking the pattern until you can get them to decoy properly.