A golden lesson in pigeon shooting
Olympic gold medallist Richard Faulds is a fiend at Double Trap – but how would he fare when facing pigeon over stubbles…
Will Garfit spends a day on the stubbles with Olympic gold medallist Richard Faulds
Soon after he won the gold medal in Australia in 2000 I had the pleasure of meeting British Olympic hero Richard Faulds. Not only is he an exceptional shot but also a great ambassador for the sport of shooting, both competition and game. A quiet and modest man, his responsible attitude to shooting – and the politics that surround it – is an example to shooters and non-shooters alike.
A year after he triumphed at the Olympics I found myself honoured to stand beside the great man at the awards ceremony of the European Side-by-side Championships, he having won the hammerless class and me the hammergun class with Grandfather’s 1877 gun. The fact that he had a score of 92 against many competitors and I had 77 against few puts the event in perspective. For me, it was a one-off lifetime story; for Faulds yet another championship title.
I spoke to Faulds afterwards and conversation turned to pigeon shooting, as it does. I asked if he would be amused to come and have a day with me if I could find something of interest. For the Mr Cool, who contained nerves and emotions until the last pair of the Olympic shoot-off, to be so enthusiastic with open-eyed excitement at the prospect of a pigeon-shooting trip took me by surprise. Yes, he loved pigeon shooting and would be there.
It so happened that the following week a large rape field had been harvested and a flightline had developed between it and the cement works’ quarry a mile to the east. This is an attraction for pigeon but as to why I am still unsure. It may be water but more likely calcium, as the pigeon can regularly be seen sitting on the chalk spoil heaps.
Along with the birds, which respond to decoys on the surrounding cultivated ground, an extra sporting element can be provided by a prevailing westerly. In these conditions pigeon make both upwind and downwind flightline shooting. That was
Plan A. Plan B would be to shoot the large rape stubble itself, which would produce a larger bag but in normal conditions not such interesting shooting – and for the Olympic champion I wanted to offer something challenging.
The day dawned, a bright and breezy forecast, but would the wind back towards the south? I drove round on a final reconnaissance early that morning. Even then the birds were moving and the wind was right. After a quick coffee at home, off we went to the venue only a couple of miles away. Being in good time, we made a detour and stopped at the top of a hill. After a short walk, Faulds was amazed by the sight of the cement quarry ranging across some hundred acres and more than a 100ft deep. Through binoculars we could see a few early birds sitting about and others coming and going. We then went to watch the flightline to the rape stubble. The good news was that there were quite a good number of pigeon moving but the bad news was that, as I feared, the wind was backing to the south. This, in effect, was then blowing across the flightline with the result that the pigeon were dispersed over a front of 400yd to 500yd. To set up and shoot this would not work as we would not cover enough of the fragmented pigeon traffic.
So Plan B came into play. This meant constructing a large double hide in what I had observed to be the key position in the middle of the 105-acre field. This was achieved with poles, nets and a background of elder branches cut and towed into place from the nearby woodland edge. I set up the decoys, in this case also using a pigeon magnet, to draw birds to the area and hopefully give them confidence to approach the new feature in the landscape, our hide. I then left Faulds to shoot while I watched from a distance to see how the pigeon reacted. If they headed for another rape stubble over the hill, then Plan C was for me to go and shoot there to keep them off.
In the event, things went well and Faulds was soon in action with his Beretta auto
and Lyalvale Express Supreme 28g No 7.5 cartridges. This small shot may win him championships but would it be too frail to kill woodpigeon, I wondered? With his accuracy and the Beretta’s full choke, the puff of feathers I saw drift away on the wind as another pigeon fell dead, sometimes 50yd or 60yd out from the hide, demonstrated that my fears were unfounded.
DOUBLE HIDE
Having assessed that the situation was working well, the hide was in the right place and only a few birds were interested in the other field, I joined Faulds. When sharing a hide, I like to build it as two hides so that there is a net between us and each has a clear and safe separate arc of fire. Safety is always paramount in such situations. I had set the hide crosswind so the birds would mainly come into Faulds as they approached upwind from his side. However, the wind became stronger and pigeon came flaring on past us, not decoying but producing even more interesting and testing shots.
We soon settled to a rhythm as it became clear for whom the next shot was possible. He had pigeon passing wide out to his left and was killing some great challenging birds. From my angle on his right I could see over his shoulder as the shot went true from muzzle to target, up to 60yd out. I had some
fast downwind ‘grouse shots’ as pigeon came round the shoulder of the hill and then saw the decoys. It was a joy sharing; our teamwork was working well and pigeon were dropping dead out of the sky at all angles.
Faulds said he thought our shooting must look a pretty picture from the road. The quality of the shooting in the wind egged us on to take birds at all challenging angles, speeds and ranges. The three-shot auto was at times used fully to account for one jinking downwind bird. Some birds came high, responded to the decoys but were spooky about our hide and turned away still high, to drop back on the wind. I assessed each but felt none was on for a shot. However, Faulds decided otherwise and took the last bird, killing it cleanly half as far out again as I would have thought shootable.
I asked him what training, practice or mental preparation he needed to produce consistent top-class competition performances. Game shots can miss a bird and just swear at the gun, cartridge or dog and expect another chance in a minute. For world-class clay shots, it is more like a Test batsman at cricket – if you miss, you may well be out.
Focus and concentration are areas in which Faulds found great help from a sports psychologist. The method suggested is of
“He killed the last bird cleanly half as far out again as I would have thought shootable”
help to us all and yet fundamentally simple. Think, worry, dream of whatever between shots but have a physical moment – which for Faulds is the click of the gun closing prior to his next shot – and from that moment focus on the target. This minimises wasting energy unconsciously when waiting between shots but tunes all senses to a peak for the short period it needs to climax. For game shots, I suggest this could be the moment of pushing off the safety catch or the time you mentally say, ‘Yes’ to the bird being yours to shoot.
I gave his advice a lot of thought and used it successfully a month later in a foolish bet I had accepted after a few drams late at night. My Anglo-american shooting friend, Barry, loves a bet and has a mind for nocturnal mental arithmetic exercises – one of the reasons he is so successful in his international engineering company. His £100 bet was that he’d shoot more pigeon than me next day, irrespective of bag, based on him having 1.7 shots for every one of mine.
He is a good average 50% man and it was not until next morning when I awoke that the implication dawned. If he fired, say, 170 shots and picked 85 pigeon, I had to do better than 85 with my 100 shots. All morning he chuckled and jumped up and down with the joyful anticipation of taking £100 off old Will. We drew for hides from the two positions and the pressure was on but he did not know about Faulds’ advice and I applied the counselling.
Pigeon decoyed well and I was delighted to get the first 10 with 10 shots, 20 with 20, 30 with 30. This was too good but each bird that came died. Whether high crows or jinking second birds of a right-and-left, none could escape the line of concentration or shot. I hoped Andy Hill, with whom we were shooting, would come to pack us up but no, 5pm was the allocated time – 40, 47, 48, 49, until finally I finished with 50 straight on the dot of 5pm. Never before and, I suspect, never again, will I do it but what a lesson in concentration.
Was it the thought of losing £100 or Faulds’ advice? Whatever, it certainly worked on the right day. I lost three of the seven outlying birds that tottered back to the wood but picked 47. Barry had got what he thought he needed – 15 birds picked from his 30 shots – but with dismay reluctantly pulled five £20 notes from his back pocket. I cannot think of anything worthy enough on which to spend my prize, though a drink of thanks for Faulds will be high on the list.
After the exciting day sharing a hide with Faulds we did not have a cartridge-to-kill percentage to write about, but the 216 birds we picked were all from the greatest quality of sport. Maybe the moral of my story with Richard Faulds is that a young dog can teach an old dog new tricks.
This is an edited extract from Will’s Pigeon Shooting: secrets of consistent success by Will Garfit, published by Quiller (quillerpublishing.com), RRP £19.95. You can view Will Garfit’s pigeon-shooting prints at: williamgarfit.co.uk
“Maybe a young dog can teach an old dog new tricks”