Get a guide or go it alone? Which is best for pigeon shooting?

Richard Lovell is a pigeon guide based in Wiltshire who only takes out a few word-of-mouth clients when the conditions are right

I’VE BEEN A PIGEON guide for 27 years. I went into farming after I left school but growing up on a Wiltshire farm, I’ve been pigeon shooting since boyhood. The guiding started when a friend asked me to take him out with me and it grew from there. I no longer farm; all my work is shooting-related — I organise pheasant shooting as well as pigeon shooting and I run a simulated game shoot.

A good pigeon guide isn’t just there to scare the birds — we’re there to kill them and keep the numbers down for the farmers. Some pigeon guides will shoot at the birds too much, which makes them harder for everyone else to shoot, but a good guide will only shoot the birds when they are ready.

Being with a guide is no guarantee that you are going to shoot lots of birds. There are so many factors to consider, especially the weather and you can’t know in advance what that is going to do, so that is why I never book days in. I take my clients out when it is right to do so, not because we have pre-booked it. So, when

I see the birds I will ring round and get people together and we will shoot a lot of pigeons. We probably average just over 100 birds a day, per Gun.

Granted there are some pigeon guides today who are highly commercial and only doing it to make money, but my approach has always been that I am there to do a job first but I want my Guns to have a good time. I never advertise; everything I do is through word of mouth and I don’t take a lot of new people out. I have a syndicate and they are all good shots.

Some commercial pigeon guides might take out 10 or 15 people at £200 a day, but I like to provide a personal service. I just don’t throw anybody out there and a lot of my Guns will use my equipment. I’ll usually take out between one and five people, though usually just one or two at a time.

Spring and the end of winter are the only times I will take out larger groups. Very rarely do I take out a lot of people — as any good guide knows, if you know your land well you don’t need a lot of people to get the birds.

One of the main benefits of going out with a pigeon guide is access to land for good shooting. Most of my clients are keen pigeon shooters in their own time, but they will come out with me because they get to go to different places and experience new situations. They also benefit from my contacts and relationships with keepers and farmers. When they turn up to shoot with me, they know there won’t be problems, such as a sprayer turning up on a field, because I will have talked to the farmer in advance and everyone will know what is happening. Communication is key.

As for the argument that you can’t learn reconnaissance and fieldcraft skills with a guide, I disagree.

A good guide will help you to learn and you will benefit from their years of experience. I used to spend a long time studying the birds and working out what was happening, so now it only takes me a few minutes to see what I need to see and my clients will learn from me. Once the day is under way we all keep in contact, and if there is a problem I’ll return to help them out or suggest a new tactic.

For someone relatively new to pigeon shooting looking for a pigeon guide, I would suggest speaking to another Gun who has used a guide and finding out from them if they are good. Word of mouth is best.

“One of the benefits of going out with a pigeon guide is access to land for good shooting”