Saving spring drillings from pigeons
Perseverance pays for Geoff Garrod over a field of spring drillings
The number of pigeons in my area were on the rise at last. I had been keeping an eye on a newly drilled field of wheat that the flock had found, and it couldn’t have looked any more promising as a perfect decoying situation. It was also a good chance to keep the farmer happy.
I’d planned to cover the large field with one of my local friends, so that we could have a hide on each side of the field. This way we could cover off the two flightlines that were arriving from a nearby wood. As is the case with most spring drilling, the birds often cover large areas of a field, and don’t pack up closely when feeding. Food is everywhere and spread fairly evenly on drilled fields, so the flock tends to be spread out in search of the thinly scattered food. We both chose the spot where we wanted to set up a hide, and we watched from a concrete pad at the top of the field as the birds piled in. We’re both experienced pigeon shooters and we were relishing a great day’s sport.
Wishful thinking
It was a beautiful spring day and there was a light breeze as I set my hide up and put decoys out. The first two groups of 10 or so birds arrived and made straight for the pattern in front of me. Fantastic! Three birds down in the first few minutes and they decoyed perfectly. Here we go, I thought. A case of wishful thinking because after that I sat and watched the flock leaving the wood in a seemingly endless flightline – just not in my direction. They were clearly still in ‘rape mode’ as I call it. This is when they all seem to work together and follow the same line and travel in large groups to where they’re feeding. I watched them all fly off over a distant hill and didn’t see many of them again all day. We ended up with 23 birds for the day, which was very disappointing. We had broken the initial flightline but that was that.
Over the next few days I kept popping back to the field and saw that the pigeons
were still feeding there in very large numbers. My friend and I decided that it must be worth another go and waited for the weather to change in our favour. We supposed the noise of our shots changed the flightline on our previous visit, as is often the case with rape-feeding pigeons. So, the following Saturday, with a 50mph westerly wind, we returned to the field for round two. Well, I returned, while my friend set up on some more drilling that was two miles away. Now that’s what I call social distancing.
Again, when I arrived things looked very promising. There were hundreds of pigeons already feeding at 9.30am and there was constant traffic from the wood. I chose to set up where the field narrowed between two fields of rape. It seemed to be attracting the birds because there was a little shelter from the wind on a hillside. Hide placement was dictated mainly by the wind speed. There was no point trying to put a hide out in the wind by the hedgerow, it just wouldn’t have stayed up. I chose a spot up a little bank behind some fallen ivy branches in the hedgerow, which gave me a window to shoot from. A bit of pruning was needed, but it did keep me from the worst of the wind. Setting the camo netting up was a struggle, however, as on the windward side it blew onto the ivy and stayed there all day. The rest of the hide was held together by Nick Tait ’s Sniper hide poles that I’m testing and they did a great job. Sometimes you just have to improvise and do what you can.
Result
The question now was: were the pigeons going to ‘play ball’ and had they started to slip into their spring drilling feeding
“Pigeon changing direction in the wind is one of the hardest shots in the book” JUNE 2021
pattern rather than ‘rape mode’? I didn’t have to wait long for the answer: the first few birds appeared on my right, straight into the wind on the flightline we’d been watching. They showed no hesitation and decoyed perfectly. One fell to my gun. It was obvious that ‘rights and lefts’ were going to be few and far between. The birds coming into the wind were almost stationary in the sky and it was easy to just point the gun straight at them to hit the target. The second shots were considerably harder, however.
One flick of their wings and they were gone with astonishing speed. Tough sport, but a fantastic sight. Anybody who’s done a bit of pigeon shooting will know that a pigeon changing direction like this in the wind is one of the hardest shots in the book. There is no way of predicting whether they’ll go up, down, left or right; you just have to rely on instinct and hope to make contact. I don’t think there is a finer, more agile sporting bird in the world as a wood pigeon in a strong wind. It was clear that the report of the gun wasn’t being heard by the main flock thus sending them off in another direction. The flightline continued all day, as well as another starting from my left. These birds were arriving with the wind behind them and they were challenging. I hit one bird that passed in front of the hide at around 15 yards up and I killed it cleanly but it didn’t hit the ground until it was 60 yards up the hill.
In all, I managed to pick 53 birds and my friend 82. Our bird-to-shot ratios weren’t as good as normal, but what a day. The birds haven’t yet completely changed from their winter ‘rape mode’ but there are promising signs of the flocks splitting up and the decoying will become all the better for that. I’m still hopeful of another day or two on the drilling and there is loads of drilling to come on the farm. Fingers crossed for some more crop-protection sport.