When pigeon shooting, how often do you leave the hide to pick up?

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How often do you leave the hide to pick up shot pigeon?

Constantly dashing from the hide to despatch a pigeon will spook incoming birds.

By Peter Theobald

Friday, 31 October 2008

I’ve got a feeling I ruined my chances of a really good day last Saturday by popping out to pick pricked birds too often.

It was noticeable that ‘traffic’ dried up for 10 minutes or so each time I left the hide. I don’t like to see wounded birds - what advice can you give?

Pigeons
PETER THEOBALD says:
Unless I need shot birds to improve my pattern, or birds are lying on their backs and clearly spooking incomers, I do not leave the hide at all.

Any obvious ‘walkers’ are dealt with by shooting them again before they get out of range.

The extra bang might disrupt the flightline but much less so than constantly dashing from the hide to despatch a pigeon.

Just think, if you leave the hide a dozen times in the day and the flightline is disrupted for 10 minutes a time then you have lost 120 minutes (two hours) of possible shooting time.

And that could represent a lot of pigeons lost to the bag!