When things start to pick-up
When do you retrieve your dead pigeons? Do you do it when there is a break in the action, or do you wait until the end of the day?
when they are really keen. However, there are occasions when the pattern has to be kept tidy and dead birds either removed or set up as decoys. Leaving the hide unnecessarily will disrupt the flightline more than you imagine. The more common problem with leaving shot birds is that the pattern gets too congested and fresh arrivals decoy at longer and longer ranges. If this happens, we rush out and pick all the birds on the outer edges of the layout, bringing them back to the hide.
Peter says: How often we pick-up dead birds depends entirely on the circumstances on any given day. If pigeons continue to decoy confidently despite birds lying upside down in the pattern, then we leave them where they lie. It is amazing how they will ignore the carnage