Corvid and pigeon control over winter wheat and field-testing new thermals

Geoff Garrod is called up by the farmer because pigeons and corvids are damaging emerging winter wheat. Geoff drops everything and goes out, not expecting a big bag, but to do some vital crop protection

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Probably the best shot in the world, George Digweed has won seven World FITASC Championships, nine World Sporting Championships, thirteen European Championships and fourteen World Cups. He runs pheasant shoots and you wouldn't want to be a pigeon in his home county of Kent at this time of year. Just as the pigeons are hammering the farmers' crops at this time of year, so is George out hitting the pigeons. A one-time British pigeon shooting recordholder (661 to his own gun in one day), we're out pigeon shooting with him next to beautiful Bodiam Castle. It is a not-to-be-missed story of one man and his gun. Learn George's tips on how to shoot high volumes of pigeons, hear about how shooting has dominated his life, and be amazed as he knocks down long-distance pigeons.

For More Bird Hunting Videos Please Visit BirdHunterTV.com

Andy Crow's Autumn Pigeon Shooting Tips Video

 

Andy Crow wants to protect his maize crop from pigeons - and he is also looking forward to a big day as he has seen birds settling on the fields in recent weeks. But suddenly they are more interested in beechmast. Here is how he copes. 

The Shooting Show - Pigeon shooting with Gerwyn Jones Video

Gerwyn Jones has been called to a spring-sown oilseed crop that has been suffering massive pigeon damage. Short on hiding placement options means shooting from the middle of the field and picking his shots is the order of the day.

A big bag of pigeons - The Shooting Show 100th show special - Pigeon Shooting Video

Pigeon Shooting starts at 13:51

Justin Garrod is left to take charge of the pigeon control solo - and all his abilities are called on when huge numbers of the grey menace descend on an oilseed crop field. There's a bumper bag to be had, and we're there to capture all the shooting on camera.

Chef Ramsay goes Pigeon shooting - Gordon Ramsay - Video

Season 4 of 6 of The F Word with Gordon Ramsay and celebrity cooking brigades.

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100 pigeons in a day - The Shooting Show - Video

On a pigeon-infested permission, Wes Stanton and Geoff Garrod have one mission: shoot 100 pigeons before the day is done.

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Pigeon Shooting: Hunting woodpigeons over decoys - Video

Realtree Global Hunting joins Team Wild's very own Steve "Wildy" Wild and Big Steve with SPD Pest Control to take care of some pesky wood pigeons in the countryside of Derbyshire. These fowl have a habit of destroying crops and costing farmers thousands of pounds in damages each year, but our boys are back and taking care of the problem one shot at a time. Tune in to see how many of the birds the pair can bag and what techniques they utilise to lure them in and take them down.

Woodpigeon roost shoots get underway as game season ends and guns take to the woods

By WMNPBowern 

Last weekend saw the end of the game shooting season. But don’t be surprised if today (Sat Feb 7) and in the weekends that follow, the woods across parts of the Westcountry are still echoing to a fusillade of gunshots.

If October 1 to February 1 marks the pheasant shooting season then the rest of February and into March is, by tradition, the month when teams of guns set out after a quarry that is, in the view of many, even more difficult to hit and, when plucked, butchered and cooked, even more delicious than the pheasant.

The woodpigeon, Columba palumbus is a beautiful, fast-flying and plentiful bird. It is also, with the rabbit, one of Britain’s most voracious agricultural pests that can be shot all year round, under the terms of Defra’s General Licence that allows for crop protection.

Yet today (Sat Feb 7)and on every subsequent Saturday through February and into March, it is the woods rather than the farmers’ fields where the pigeon will be targeted. From pigeon shooting clubs that shoot on every Saturday throughout the winter to less formal short-term arrangements between groups of game-shooters, the tactics are the same: spread the guns through the woods from early afternoon onwards and as the birds fly over, looking for a place to roost, take your chances to bag a woodie or two.

If this seems ‘cruel’ or unnecessary – and there will those who cannot approve of any sort of shooting involving live quarry – bear in mind that some estimates put the UK woodpigeon population at 15 million and that an adult bird can consume the equivalent of enough wheat every six days to make a loaf or bread or enough barley every day to make a pint of beer. They also do significant damage to fruit crops, brassicas, peas and that staple of modern day arable farming, oil seed rape. And they quickly learn to ignore the banging of gas guns or the scarecrows.

From the mid 1950s until 1965 the problem of woodpigeon damage was deemed serious enough to warrant the distribution by the Ministry of Agriculture of half-price shotgun cartridges to recognised pigeon shooting clubs. It was abandoned when the shooting – at taxpayers’ expensive – appeared to be making little difference to the pigeon population. In fact, later research claimed to show that roost shoots were the least effective way to control pigeons and that lone pigeon shooters, or guns working in pairs, decoying birds from a fixed hide over the crop that was being attacked, was far more effective. In such situations lone guns have killed pigeons by the hundred – and continue to do so to this day.

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