Pigeon Help

[RemyBolt 420]

Just a quick call out for info on taking pigeons with an air rifle.

 

What's worked for you?

 

Tips, tricks, helpful hints....you name it, I want to know it.

[WhiteRabbit 112]

I know people use decoys and other means of imitating pigeons gathering in the field,

 

Personally, I tend to hunt in wooded areas and the occasional field edge where they'll be sitting in the sun or picking at the farmers crop.... Pick them off as of when I can or simply if they're in my sights.

My permissions includes a few types of quarry, so it's not always just pigeons.

 

Quite a few YouTube videos out there demonstrating how to hunt them or even how to use the apparatus to attract them.

 

White

[silentshot1 206]

I love decoying with an airgun! Decoys work well in the right place. Must be easily visible, near a flight line, food, water or a sitty tree and look natural. In my opinion, dead pigeons are the best decoys, followed by full bodied or half shells, or a mix.

 

Yesterday I had four full bodied decoys arranged haphazardly on the on the yard outside a Rape seed storage barn, which had had the netting at the front removed to allow access. I placed another decoy on the top of a gate opposite, then hid behind machinery in an adjacent barn, facing toward the gate.

 

In the two hours I was there I had 10 woodies and 4 ferals land on the yard, gate and bushes/ trees overlooking. I shot all three that landed on the gate, but was spotted bringing the gun up by most of the others, or the shots on the gate frightened them off. Judging by the noise a few were dropping on to the barn roof as well.

 

Point being, yesterday decoying worked, although on other days it really hasn't!

 

You can also try putting four or five full bodied decoys on garden canes, clearly visible above standing crops in front of or by a sitty tree. I have found they will come in to that as well, with reasonable success.

 

Obviously after harvest, decoying over stubble works exactly like with a shotgun but with the added difficulty of getting them on the ground.

 

Good luck with it!

[RemyBolt 420]

That would be awesome Tim! I'm not very good at being subtle though, so if you're able to find a day where you're okay for a lumbering me to come along, I'd love to do so!

[roosika 110]

Mix it about depending

On what you can be arsed todo , most of

The time I walk about and stalk and take a shot in camo and rarely use a hide or decoy