Dirty Pigeon Shooters

Dirty Pigeon Shooters
​By The Ole Hedge Creeper

Now being somewhat of an old boy now days in the world of Country Sports, I suppose I call myself a Countryman of The Ole School now, as it seems I have earned that coveted tile, I was once a young Countryman eager to know everything about all Country Sports, or indeed thought I knew it all, ahhhhh that old saying, with age comes experience, or Youth is wasted on the young, I remember getting advice from the old masters about all sorts of things, from traditional Ferreting to Fishing or Stalking to Pigeon Shooting and more, yes I am guilty of thinking I knew best and learned many a lesson the hard way.​

But one thing I would or could not ever be accused of is not respecting my quarry or indeed mother nature and all who live under her veil, all wildlife, plant, fauna, trees it matters not you treat it with respect, this was drummed into me from that very first day I stepped out in the hunting field, conservation is at the core of all we do, I was taught the Country Code and to leave nothing behind but foot prints, I was also taught to put more back in than I take, thus my passion for conservation started early.

Now being somewhat of an old boy now days in the world of Country Sports, I suppose I call myself a Countryman of The Ole School now, as it seems I have earned that coveted tile, I was once a young Countryman eager to know everything about all Country Sports, or indeed thought I knew it all, ahhhhh that old saying, with age comes experience, or Youth is wasted on the young, I remember getting advice from the old masters about all sorts of things, from traditional Ferreting to Fishing or Stalking to Pigeon Shooting and more, yes I am guilty of thinking I knew best and learned many a lesson the hard way.​

But one thing I would or could not ever be accused of is not respecting my quarry or indeed mother nature and all who live under her veil, all wildlife, plant, fauna, trees it matters not you treat it with respect, this was drummed into me from that very first day I stepped out in the hunting field, conservation is at the core of all we do, I was taught the Country Code and to leave nothing behind but foot prints, I was also taught to put more back in than I take, thus my passion for conservation started early.

Dirty Pigeon Shooters is one thing that really boils my blood amongst other things that disrespect nature etc, by this I mean those of you I will call shooters not Countrymen, Shooters are the ones who have no passion they just want to kill things, boast the biggest bag, take the gold medal head, rape the river of the trout or salmon in discriminant people who rape and pillage my beloved mother nature, we have them in all our Country Sports disciplines, people with too much money are usually to blame or the scally wag from the housing estates or travelling community etc, where as a Countryman puts more back than he takes out, when a job needs to be done he does it conservatively, a Countryman works long and hard to make mother nature better than he found it, I could write a book about this, you know I think I might and entitle it The Countryman v The Shooter, but for now I will deal with these Dirty Pigeon Shooters.

​Now there are a long list to why I call them this, I have just recently been dealing with some agricultural contracts, whilst working with the combines over the almost 30.000 acres I have professionally on the books, I was forever dealing with dead birds in the crops, cartridges left all over the place as well as other rubbish, now also having quite a mixed collection of New decoys including a full floater set up, I have repatriated these to my ever needing Young Sports, they have quite a collection now, all left behind by these Dirty Pigeon Shooters, now you wont see anyone I coach doing as such, especially my Young Sports for they are being taught correctly to respect the land and the quarry, I mean how can you lose decoys? You count twenty out, you count twenty back in, this could not be any simpler a process, as to leave a full on floater behind dancing in the wing you just have to be blind or have more money than sense, we lost 4 hours work one day as a decoy went up inside the combine making a hell of a racket where it got stuck, the farmer had no I idea what went wrong so we had to strip the combine out until we found it, then it took over an hour to get it out too, so that farmer was not happy and neither was I, this particular farmer was renting the land for growing his crops, the land owner was letting out the shooting to many, I have come across this attitude before I am paying for it so I can do what I like, well no you bloody cant, firstly leaving your rubbish everywhere is dangerous to the wildlife, the eco system and live stock and more, secondly this was my other gripe just shooting the pigeons and leaving them where they fall or dumping them under the hedge is disgraceful, if you don't have a home for them, don't shoot them, I had a novice once do this after the telling off I gave him he wont do that again, or indeed the ones I have had to clear up behind both spent cartridge cases and shot birds, totally unethical and brings every other person involved in Country Sports into a bad light, also the fact that leaving the birds in standing crop is a disease hazard, a potential fire risk, and quite simply just not cricket at all with no respect for your shot quarry, I know of a farmers barn that has just gone up in smoke because the bales caught fire, I am told on good authority it was because dead birds were found in them, I have heard all the excuses, on big bag days you cant retrieve them all, no maybe not but there's ways to reduce that, for one have a competent dog for retrieving shot birds out of the crop and two limit yourself to no further than 30m, mark every bird down and get it immediately, yes you will still lose the odd one that cant be helped, I picked up 60 shot pigeon with my old dog behind some Dirty Pigeon Shooters not so long ago, another small wheat field is stinking with dead pigeons in the crop, totally disgraceful, I say this to YOU, if you just want to shoot things go clay pigeon shooting or target shooting, stop flashing your cash and disrespecting mother nature and us real Countrymen who are trying to do things correctly, or learn to be a Countryman for which the rewards are vast.

Many decoys found, cartridges all over the place, dead birds thrown in the hedge and over 100 dead pigeons left in the crop of a small 5 acre field of wheat we harvested.

Blimey that was a rant and I cut it short too, I recently had a pair of Novices out on some fresh cut wheat stubble, their shot count was quite big and their bag was very modest, but they did keep the pigeons off the standing barley behind them, they cleared up and left at tea time, I popped back to make sure all was tidy, apart from a few pigeon feathers and some trampled weeds by the hedge you would not know they had been there and they retrieved every bird that was down, I shot for a couple of hours with my ole trusty 22 rimmy with Eley subsonic ammunition, I will say I quite enjoyed that for a bit, 12 shots for 10 pigeon and what I call a red letter day all off my own steam, no decoys nothing, any of you say oh that's easy, go and try it, I do that consistently and stop when I have enough especially after the pigeons have been kept off the crop all day, there comes a time to let them feed too, I was kept lovely and cool by the new Jack Pyke Digi Cammo gear, worth every penny I telle muckers.

A few days later I had one of the Old Pigeon Shooting Masters of my Youth (My Ole Dad) out on a standing wheat and Barley crop, the pigeons were hitting in quite hard, the farmer called to ask can I go move them off for him, alas I could not as I had one of my Young Sports Ambassadors Harry on work experience with me and we were booked right out on rat control contracts for the day, Farmer and my Ole Dad are very old friends so I sent Dad down in my stead, The farmer was at his whits end, he had tried everything to keep them off the crop, from bangers,gas guns scare crows, running around shouting at them waving his arms the lot, so we had no choice but to shoot them, by the time Harry and I had finished my professional pest control rounds Dad had already been there a few hours, I sat in with Dad for half an hour for a chat, it was like being a kid again as I watched the old master shoot, just like watching a well oiled machine in action, he limited his shots to 30m and Tess the springer spaniel retrieved every single one in fine style, he must have had almost 80 pigeons by the time I took harry to the other end of the field and set up and coached the lad, Harry is becoming a great caller and the pigeon call he has mastered very well, I sat there as he took each bird in turn right over the decoys and marked each bird down, he also did not lose a single bird, if we could not find it we sent for Tess and she found it, after 2 hours it was time to go and Young Sports ambassador Harry had a nice little bag of fresh woody’s to take home with him, I don't know what Harry’s mum is doing in the picture but oooh arrrr vicar, sorry Em I could not resist, Dad finished with 105 birds on the clicker and a 105 birds retrieved, I telle that ole Pigeon Shooting Master enjoyed that day I telle as he had a smile as wide as a Cheshire cat, every bird also had a home to go to as well, just how he taught me as a boy, oh and I found some enforcer decoys and spent cartridges from other shooters in that crop too, but that's enough of that or I will go on one again, but one good thing Harry now has some nice new decoys for his decoy sack.

The shotgun was unloaded and propped up so Dad could have his cup of tea out of his flask.

Oh if you get The September Issue of Sporting Gun Magazine, there is a full article on me in there, come and know me better man oh and woman too.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this as mush as I have enjoyed writing it, I feel much better getting this rant off my chest, but if this offends you then you are part of the problem and I advise you to change YOUR DIRTY PIGEON SHOOTING WAYS.​

Dirty Pigeon Shooters
By The Ole Hegde Creeper
www.theolehedgecreeper.co.uk