Since my last post, things have continued along the same vein with Ian and myself heading out each weekend after the woodies, but struggling to get a 'big flight'.
We had some 'fun' in a snow storm shooting Dodds field opposite the 3 horse shoes, with a bag of around 40 birds in 3 hours, but the 35mph NE wind killed us off and we had to pack up before we froze to death. I swear i haven't been so cold since i was a nipper and Dad used to take us sea fishing. Following this we hit a 60 bird morning in one of Lenny's fields Yarmouth side of the McDonlads round about, before the flight line dried up.
Ian kept an eye on the field all week on his way to work, and the birds were still hitting it hard in the cold weather (its been around 3dgc for weeks now). and on the Friday he made a call that we would go back for another attempt on a different flight line.
Wendys car was in the Garage, so I couldn't get out until 8am - which knowing how they have been feeding shouldn't really have been a problem as they weren't coming out of the woods until mid morning. However on this particular day there was already approx 500 birds down on the ground before the frost had cleared.
We took our time and made a good hide at the bottom of an oak tree and then set out the coys.. The first birds were soon in -but keeping wide of our 'kill zone', but this didn't stop us, with both me and Ian being 'on fire' and hitting pretty much everything within 50yards.
As our pattern built up, so did the birds confidence and pigeons were now coming in nicely - allowing us to make the most of each group with pairs and triples hitting the deck regularly. On two occasions, the action was so intense we were shooting as fast as we could load and each time we walked out to collect the birds we picked up 22 ! that's 44 birds in about 10 minutes...
It was so manic, we were struggling to find time to eat or drink ! but the action slowed a little mid afternoon allowing us time to refresh ourselves and for me to take out an overhead magpie at about 70 yards (not easy through the branches of an oak tree)
Towards 4pm we were getting low on cartridges, so Ian went to 'pick up' in the near by woods leaving me alone in the hide. I wanted to make my last 11 shots count, and managed to take 10 woodies with them - nothing special I admit, but when you consider I wasn't holding back and took a triple, 3 doubles and an almost impossible high bird out of the 11 shots it puts a whole new perspective on things.
Poor old Derrick will be kept busy gutting that lot ;-)
