Finally A Bit Of Decoying

[chrismdd 787]

Mate came up today for a bit of pigeon decoying. Unfortunately a lot of the wheat fields have not been cut due to the wet weather and the crop is starting to look a bit dark with a touch of mildrew, so not a good time for the farmers round here.

 

Unperturbed we set off to the fields that had been good last year and found an area where the rabbits had eaten back the crop and so set up hoping we could entice some pigeons in to land. We gave it a couple of hours but apart from a couple of fly-bys by pigeons and one crow that landed (and I missed) nothing much else was around so we decided to up sticks and head closer to home.

 

Near the house there are a couple of uncut fields where some pigeons were landing in a small flattened patch out in the middle. We couldn't decoy this without damaging more of the crop so we set up on a neighbouring field that had been cut several weeks ago. No pigeons were feeding on this anymore but we hoped that we could bring some in with a few decoys.

 

Set up the fishing brolley hide with a cross beam to support the rifles:

 

 

Covered with nets:

 

 

Set up the decoy pattern:

 

 

Then sat back with my S410 whilst my mate had his HW100:

 

 

Soon had pigeons coming over but they were initially reluctant to land. A slight drizzle turned into a heavier downpour and our optimisim sank.

 

Then around 2pm the rain cleared and pigeons starting moving and also now came in confidently to land.

 

My mate was on top form and getting a good number of clean kills. I was missing so I set up a target board and realised my zero was off by two inches to the right. I belieive that the gun had been knocked on the journey so a quick re-zero and I was back into shooting.

 

We ended with fifteen nice woodies and should of have had at least another half a dozen had we been more attentive at times.

 

Not a bad day considering there are not a lot of birds around here at the moment and we were drawing them in to a field that didn't contain much food for them:

 

[random 659]

That's a good result I'd say,like the set up you use looks good,foer a day with poor weather and in an area they aren't really feeding in you did well,nice one...

[ArchieHood 3,692]

That's a good number of birds Chris, especially with the weather.

[villaman 9,982]

Nice mate , but farmers dont like pigeon shooting this time of the year ,the prefer the pigeons to eat the spilled grain

[The one 8,600]

Nice going mate

[stealthy1 3,964]

Proves your method works, good shooting.

[ArchieHood 3,692]

Nice mate , but farmers dont like pigeon shooting this time of the year ,the prefer the pigeons to eat the spilled grain

 

PMSL......

[secretagentmole 1,701]

Went decoying once, got 1, will have to wait for the ditches to dry out and give the plastic pigeons another day out!

[villaman 9,982]

 

Nice mate , but farmers dont like pigeon shooting this time of the year ,the prefer the pigeons to eat the spilled grain

PMSL......

 

Why ? that's what 2 of the biggest farms told me of 3000 acres and I can see there point, the grain will start to germinate

Edited August 31, 2015 by villaman

[ArchieHood 3,692]

Must be a Dorset thing, I have yet to meet a arable farmer who encourages pigeons on to his land.I mooch over 2500 acres of land and what doesn't get picked up is soon ploughed back into the ground.

[villaman 9,982]

Must be a Dorset thing, I have yet to meet a arable farmer who encourages pigeons on to his land.I mooch over 2500 acres of land and what doesn't get picked up is soon ploughed back into the ground.

And thats the problem ,Farmers dont mind pigeons being shot when it growing

[j j m 6,630]

good shooting mate