Pigeons

[Big Friend Ten]

Today in close to 90 degree heat thee gallant souls gathered to ambush a flock of unwanted pigeons. Our intrepid wing shots had waited months for an opportunity such as this. The chicken coops were empty for a change of fowl and the owner said, “Come on over and kill those darn pigeons!”

The rule for hunting fowl is to set up where they want to be. That wasn’t possible today for the pigeons wanted to land in a freshly planted cornfield. So the three shooters which included me set up their lifelike decoys and a flying contraption behind the empty coops and waited. Hiding behind small spruce trees and camo nets a half dozen birds buzzed the decoys. Bam, bam, bam but nothing fell. How could a Fox XE upgrade named “Blondie”, a Parker C Grade, and a Lefever 10 gauge not down birds? The fault lay on the shooters and not their guns!

The day proved productive but only marginally so. Total birds was 4. Total shots fired was more than 4!!!

Mark with the AH Fox Blondie and a pair of pigeons and Kurt and his C Grade 12 gauge and a pair.


Joe and his Lefever D Grade 10 gauge.


My faithful Chesador named Radar.


The field of decoys.

[Silvers]

Mark thanks for sharing your pigeon adentures with us. Nice pics as usual. Radar is having fun too. What a nice selection of classic guns including your Blondi Fox. Frank

[jolly bill]

Ah, pigeon hunting. I've spent a lot of hours hunting pigeons with a very good friend who passed away a couple years ago.

He had a federal and NY state permit to trap and band hawks and had possession permits for hawks and falcons that he kept. He wanted the meat to feed his hawks. He was also a curator of a museum and a very accomplished artist.

He made decoys by shaping cardboard into cone shaped figures and painting them. You could stack the decoys inside one another so no problem with 20 or so decoys. He liked using larger size shot, 5's or 6's, whatever he could get on sale. He liked the bigger shot cause easier to find in the meat and many times the shot went right thru the pigeon.

Shot mostly city pigeons (Rochester, NY). We had several good spots with land owners permission. Pigeons flew out from the city to feed on planted fields or spread manure. Mostly pretty easy shooting decoying them into our setup. Some pass shooting. We did our pigeon shooting year 'round. He also raised mice to add to the pigeon diet and I rarely passed up a road killed rabbit or squirrel for his birds.

He estimated he shot more than 10,000 pigeons over the many years he owned hawks. His gun was an Ithaca model 37 16 gauge pump gun with a Poly Choke. He was an excellent shot and chose his shots and rarely missed. I usually used my early A grade 12 gauge choked IC and Full. I occasionally switched to a 12 gauge PH grade Parker for variety.

We also did our share of duck hunting but phased out of that as steel shot was required for all gauges. I shot the early A grade 12 gauge but switched to a 16 gauge Sterlingworth when steel was required for the 12.

Many great memories of the man and the time we spent in fields and swamps.

Picture below of a water color painting of 3 chickadees he did for me. Have several other water colors he did also.

I didn't want to steal your thread but, hey, nothing wrong persuing those pesky pigeons.

Jolly

[Big Friend Ten]

Jolly,

What a wonderful addition to my post.

Do you have any photos of the pigeon decoys that your friend made?

Pigeon hunting to me seems like a great summer pastime. Access to good hunting is of course the only problem!

Respectfully,
Mark

[jolly bill]

Hi Mark,

I don't have any photo's of the pigeon decoys my friend Jerry Czech made. He used card stock, I think 8.5 x 11 inches, and kinda rolled it so the opposite corners met, but tapered so they would stack inside each other, and stapled them in a couple spots. Painted them mostly grey with dark stripes to sort of resemble the standard barn yard and city pigeons. Had a couple lighter colored ones too for contrast on bare or plowed ground in the summer. They were fairly rugged with an occasional staple repair. They seemed to work OK.

Of course we used ones we had already shot and put them in the spread. We used to also lure them in by throwing a dead one or two out where the decoys were. I think that helped. Nothing too scientific or elaborate.

We can't hunt doves here in NY and no season at all on wild pigeons so they were reasonably good substitutes. I'm sure not as tasty as doves tho.

Have fun Mark.

Jolly

[200052]

As Jolly Bill said "ah pigeon hunting"; this really brings back old ,old memories. In the "50s, thats 60 years ago, I was in high school and college; and lived about 50 miles west of Washigton,D.C. in dairy cow country. (Thats 4-5 miles from Va Turkey now , but he has almost no farms today.) Three or four of us who knew every farmer in a 40 mile radius, would
kill a dull day with nothing else to do picking on pigeons. Dairy barns frequently had hay lofts full of pigeons and we would alternate who would be the pigeon rouster. The others would shoot from the doors as the birds cleared the barn. You could do this even in a heavy rain. In those days I had my first double; a 12 ga GH Parker, beautiful gun with twist barrels. I probably shot 10 cases of smokeless shells through it before I graduated to my first Fox, a !6 ga Sterlingworth. As a crowning finale, my zany mother, a very dignified Army Nurse Corps officer, would grab up a pile of these birds, pull the breasts, and stew them in mushroom soup.

Could not resist this old mans tale, but If you never hunted any thing except game birds, your life experience is sorely lacking without pigeons !

Ed Farrand