Parkerised wood pigeons

[MarketHunter]

I'd love to get back over there someday and do a few days on the pigeons, we only had a morning of it and I was hooked. Did a bit in Northern Ireland once but the birds were scarce so we only had a few.

Destry

[david ross]

Yes Bill they are very tasty i suppose they taste like doves?
Thanks Dave.

[david ross]

Destry
If you do get over the pond look me up i'le try to get you a few pigeons.
All the best Dave.

[Old and Reliable]

What are the two blue ribbons tied to the mesh blind for. Do you eat those suckers, or do you do what I do with the dead and dying barn pigeons- use them for training my Lab Khartoum to retrieve with a soft mouth? Then they get dumped in the farmer's manure spreader- sort of a 'recycling move' one might say. I have had barn pigeons come into my plastic crow decoys at times, and along with the mourning (and afternoon and even evening) doves, there is no more challenging airborne feathered target than the pigeon with a good stiff breeze a blowin'. How do your Brit buddies feel about you using a plebian old Parker, a shotgun your Sir Hugh Bertie Campbell once referred to as a "crudely made weapon suitable only for farmers and ploughmen"?? Not a Boss or a Purdey, ey wot?? But dead birds in the bag are how the score should be kept, and it is the man behind the shotgun that counts. The best barn pigeon shooter I have ever known used a beat-up Ithaca LeFever Nitro Special, I have shot with him many times and it wasn't unusual for him to kill 45 birds from 2 boxes of shells (50 over here in The Colonies). I'd love to try flighting wood pigeons from a blind over decoys, I am sure you get a great variety of shots in a day's outing-- Cheerio!!

[MarketHunter]

Dave,

I appreciate the invite, you never know but I might actually take you up on it. My good friend I always shot with in the UK has slowed down a lot in the past few years so we've not made a trip in a long time.


Destry

[Steve Hastie]

Bill wood Pigeons are very good to eat there some good recipes for them in most game cookery books. one of my favorites is Pigeon Pate yum yum.

Steve

[Old and Reliable]

[quote=Stephen Hastie;38827]Bill wood Pigeons are very good to eat there some good recipes for them in most game cookery books. one of my favorites is Pigeon Pate yum yum.

Steve[-- My now late pigeon shootin' pal with the well-worn LeFever Nitro Special grew up in the "Dust Bowl Dirty Thirties" near Terre Haute IN- on a large farm, loaded with "airborne poopsters". His Mother would cook the tender ones she called "squabs" and her test was to straddle the back of the deceased poopster with her hand and squeeze the rib cage, if they sprung back, it was a young and possibly tender birdie- if not, it was an old-timer and was dumped down the old "two-holer" and later dusted with unslaked lime-or fed to the barn cats. With a 12 foot capacity chest freezer in the cellar full of pheasant, ducks, Canadas and venison- eating the pigeons that fall to my 12 bores, not a really pressing issue, for the nonce anyway..

[david ross]

Hi Francis.
The two blue ribbons you see are in fact paint roller poles i use these to hold up the nets and as pigeons see only shades of grey thay don't see thay are blue if it works use it. I do eat them and cooked right thay are very nice and
yes you are right thay do make a very challenging shot. As for Sir Hugh Campbell he can stick his head up his arse if he thinks a PARKER is a
crudely made gun me and my buddies are all working class guys so we don't
all have Purdeys or Boss guns i wish we did ? We buy the best we can afford
and enjoy them.They all like my vhe Parker and all think it's a very well made
gun Russ my main shooting buddie has asked me to leave it to him in my will
HA HA HA . When we shoot pigeons i think two cartridges per bird is good
average or less if you can sometimes three or four on a bad day. Over here
pigeon shooting used to be a poor mans sport not so now money is takeing
over.But it is still the best and most testing shooting going in my book. The
best bag i ever had was 364 picked up plus few lost with a buddie over rape
stubble in 1996 that was red letter day to remember the good old days
If you ever get the chance at the old wood pigeons go for it.

All the Best Dave.

[Old and Reliable]

A man after me own black Mick heart-- I like what our late writer and alpha male Ernest Hemingway did what that phrase- when he was a correspondent in the Spanish Civil War 1936-1940 (aka- a dress rehearsal for Goering's Luftwaffe and the dreaded Stukas) he wired home for more funds, and when the terse reply came back- asking him, the great "Don Ernesto" Hemingway for a detailed accounting- he then replied back "Upstick-Asswise" as apparently his spare with words writing style and the price of a Western Union reply dictated brevity--

I shoot pretty much well-worn lower grade 12 bores, all with double triggers, most have ejectors- ejectors are nice for rapid reloading on a driven bird shoot, but if you reload, and want the empties, then you need to remember to catch them in your hand as you unbreech your gun. My working Parker is a 12 GHE with 28" barrels choked Imp. Cyl. right hand tube and a tight Mod. left hand tube- perhaps your 1/4 and 3/4 chokes, and it is my "go to" pheasant gun--it patterns evenly with any 2 & 3/4" or RST 2 & 1/2" length shell, any shot size- WK stamp on the barrels, No 2 frame size. I also shoot 12 LC Smiths.

I have the new book about Hemingway's guns, he was an avid shotgunner, great live bird (box birds and columbaire) competitor- but very practical and even a bit frugal in his purchase- he almost always bought used guns from A&F or friends in Europe, won a Browning O/U, believe the only two guns he bought new were the same two I would choose if I could only have one Center Fire rifle and one shotgun to cover everything I wanted to kill- his 1903 Springfield G&H custom 30-06 and a 12 gauge Winchester M12 pump 30" full he bought new in 1928 after the success of his WW1 novel "A Farewell To Arms"-- He often said- "A gun is to shoot" and he most certainly proved that in his days afield, here and in Africa and elsewhere.

Your Gough Thomas, a man with I believe an engineering background, once described the American shotgun invention - the pump action repeater-- and being suited to the natural motions of a shooter from recoil and recovery. I have always wanted to shoot one of my 7 Winchester M12's against a Brit with his matched pair of ejector double guns- he can have his four shells and the flunky to reload the emptied gun, I'll take the 3 shot plug out of my "pet" 12 and load it with 4 rounds, one in the chamber and three "in the pipe" and we'll see what's afoot.

2 shells per bird- incoming, flaring, wind factors, is Damn fine shooting. Our late shotgunning Force majeur- T. Nash Bucking ham once wrote, in his great article "The Dove"--quote: "Any day you can cleanly kill a limit of 15 mourning doves in flight with a carton of hulls (read 25 shells), Mister, you have done yourself proud, and you can walk out of the dove field with your head held high"-- He also wrote in that same great article, quote: "When you've blotted out a high incomer and watch him crumple from the shot, hard hit and well centered, you've had about all of the thrills shotgunning can offer a man"--

[C grade]

I have shot wood pigeon down in Argentina and a lot more fun that doves. In a good spot on a creek by a roost you can shoot the Wood Pigeon leaving the roost and the ducks coming into the creek. Makes for a right sporting morning.
Follow that with an afternoon shooting Perdiz over dogs and that is as good s it gets for me.
David