Pigeons
 

Today in close to 90 degree heat thee gallant souls gathered to ambush a flock of unwanted pigeons. Our intrepid wing shots had waited months for an opportunity such as this. The chicken coops were empty for a change of fowl and the owner said, “Come on over and kill those darn pigeons!”

The rule for hunting fowl is to set up where they want to be. That wasn’t possible today for the pigeons wanted to land in a freshly planted cornfield. So the three shooters which included me set up their lifelike decoys and a flying contraption behind the empty coops and waited. Hiding behind small spruce trees and camo nets a half dozen birds buzzed the decoys. Bam, bam, bam but nothing fell. How could a Fox XE upgrade named “Blondie”, a Parker C Grade, and a Lefever 10 gauge not down birds? The fault lay on the shooters and not their guns!

The day proved productive but only marginally so. Total birds was 4. Total shots fired was more than 4!!!

Mark with the AH Fox Blondie and a pair of pigeons and Kurt and his C Grade 12 gauge and a pair.
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...20MAY12_11.jpg

Joe and his Lefever D Grade 10 gauge.
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...20MAY12_01.jpg

My faithful Chesador named Radar.
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...20MAY12_02.jpg

The field of decoys.
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...20MAY12_05.jpg

love shooting pigeons!, what a nice set up. a few years ago Bob F, and i shot pigeons in jan, 15deg. out with 35 to 40 mph winds. :shock:boy did we have :) fun scott

Mark, That looks great. I'm in. Cabella's probably has one of those contraptions.

Now I have something to do while waiting for dove season. You guys must've had a good time shooting; I really hate to ask this....do you eat them? Brian

Brian,

Forget Cabelas, this is serious specialized equipment!

http://www.soarnomore.com

http://www.sillosocks.com

Mark

90 degrees in Michigan, and it's only May!?

I want to hear more about that decoy rig. I've been looking for something like that.

Ed,

Please see the links listed above. The decoys were from Soar No More and the rotary machine and flying decoys were from Sillosocks decoys.

Note, Soar No More recommends a spinning teal decoy for motion.

Respectfully,
Mark

I've shot pigeons over a spinner in England, they do come into them but you never seen to get the feet down shots you do when you just use decoys. They always seem to just swoops them and that makes the shooting a lot tougher. Sounds like you boys had fun anyway.


Destry

I use the same set-up for doves. Homemade silhouette pigeon decoys and Robo-dove spinners. They are deadly. Most of the farms I hunt have an abundance of pigeons and the doves are drawn to the set-up as well. Hitting a crossing dove is challenging on its own but when they come cork-screwing into the dekes it is a whole new ballgame.

Your post reminds me of when my cousin and I used to thin out the pigeons from my uncles hog barn. We would go in at night with pellet guns and flashlights. It didnt take long for the hogs to figure out that this was a good thing, When we finished there wasnt a pigeon or even a feather to be found. It was a great sport until the Vet told my uncle that injesting all the feathers was keeping weight off his hogs.

Pigeon article in Outdoor Life
 

There was a good article about shooting barn pigeons, out in Idaho- about 4 months ago I recall. These fellows were set up on diary farms, they used decoys- but I think they were off-season goose hunters using pigeons for practice. They were shown using Binelli semi-autoloaders, I am guessing with the 3-shot magazine plugs removed.