Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Should fun or the farmer come first?
Whatever the reason you’re heading out to bag some woodies, choose the best method to make the most of your chances, says Tom Payne
Over the Christmas period I had lunch with a team of Guns, all of whom were keen pigeon shooters. There were the usual comments, such as “there aren’t the numbers there used to be” and “I have one shot and they are all gone”. But there was one question, posed by an Essex builder who can shoot as well as anybody, that gave me pause for thought: “What is the best method for winter shooting?”
It is such an interesting question because it is the only time of the year when you can employ almost every trick in the book to build a bag of crop-raiding pigeons, which are shot under the general licence. But over the years, I have come to believe that such an approach seldom works.
Pigeon populations on many estates and farms will not cope with all forms and there are a couple of other issues to look at. Your responsibility to the farmer and his crops is a crucial one. We need to ask ourselves whether the best form of pigeon shooting is the one that gives the most enjoyment or the one that gets the biggest bag. The latter clearly has the greatest impact in terms of decreasing the number of birds damaging the farmer’s crops.
I would argue that what constitutes the best method is that which combines enjoyment with numbers in the bag.
“Is the best form of pigeon shooting the one that gives the most enjoyment or the one that gets the biggest bag?”
Option 1: roost shooting
Hardwoods with fir trees in the middle are generally favourites to any pigeon population. I have spent hours at home roost shooting; I still do. There are not many of us who would not have grown up roost shooting with their fathers and I have many fond memories of those cold wintery evenings. It is where many passionate shooting people have cut their teeth.
Option 2: decoying
Shooting pigeons over their food source using decoys is, in many ways, the most effective form of pigeon control through any month of the year. Decoying through the winter is not easy but I still believe it to be the best way to manage numbers.
Option 3: flighting
Flighting is superb sport if you get it right. The aim of the game is either to shoot birds travelling to feed, or shoot them coming back from feeding.
The aim is to place yourself under the flightline between their home and the place where they feed and shoot them as they pass between the two.
Option 4: pigeon tower
This is a rare form of pigeon shooting. The best way to describe it is as half roosting and half flighting — but from the treetops. To me, it is winter pigeon shooting at its best. Being in the treetops with birds coming at you on a good wind — like grouse cutting over heather — is just amazing.
That’s the full house with regards to pigeon shooting through the winter. But how do we make our decisions on which to use to best control numbers and protect winter crops?