SECOND CHANCE

You’ll often have a chance at a rightand-left with pigeons and the second bird of the pair is always the hardest. Choosing sensibly which bird to take first will increase your chances of success. The key here is to not go for the closest and ‘easiest’ bird.

Pick a bird that is further from you but in range, and allow the nearest and most tempting pigeon to commit itself to landing. The closer and slower this bird is going when you get to take your shot, the better your chances. The first shot will be slightly harder and the second will be slightly easier, but there is no bird harder to hit than a spooked pigeon in the wind that is flying away from you.

Pigeons are incredibly agile and can change direction in a split second. So as the second bird is reacting to the shot you’ve just taken at the bird behind it, it will do all it can to turn, pick up speed and get the hell out of there. This is a tricky shot and can be hard to read. Most times the bird will be climbing and again it makes it an easy target to miss underneath.

In the split second you have to get a bead on it, you need to get the line right and decide if the bird is going left to right or right to left and how fast it is climbing. On a right-to-left climbing bird you’ll need to shoot at 10 or 11 o’clock.