Lurchers And Birds...

[Dan McDonough 560]

I want to trap some pigeons for working the dogs. It's perfectly legal to bat them over here as they are not protected. Any advice on the best attractant bait for pigeons? Keep in mind there are piles of corn and other things around every farm here and I'll need something that really draws them in.

[jok 3,322]

Dan. Can you explain exactly what you mean by pigeons to train dogs. I think I'm right in saying that over here we use dead pigeons on cold game tests and the like. These have been shot under normal circumstances is decoying, roosting etc. What does one do with live birds? Jok.

[Dan McDonough 560]

Fold them up in their wings and plant them in a bush. Bring the dog through and let them find it. Nudge the bird with your foot and it flies off. Shoot it and the dog retrieves.

 

I spent a few years training bird dogs. I spent 7 years living on a hunt club that sold around 30K pheasants, chucker's and quail each year. I've planted birds for 1000 bird hunts all the way down to 1 bird. I'm a pretty fair hand with folding up birds and know how to keep them. I know how to catch them a few at a time, like when birds escape from the pen or scratch birds come back to the pen but I'm no expert at going out and catching a lot of them from the wild.

 

I would like to know what pigeons go absolutely nuts for as far as food.

[gnipper 6,531]

Big cage trap and leave some females in there with plenty of white on as decoys.

[Dan McDonough 560]

Big cage trap and leave some females in there with plenty of white on as decoys.

I'll throw that in the plan, thanks.

[neil cooney 10,416]

A ladder trap will trap plenty of pigeons but you have to make the other food sources hard to get and put grain in the trap.

Folding a birds head under it's wing is done by some pointer men over this side of the world but the bird isn't shot.

It's not really a sporting thing to do IMO.

[Hands of Stone 154]

If by corn you mean wheat try maize. If you already mean maize then theres not much they prefer