GTA
All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General => Hunting Gate => Topic started by: Furseeker on September 11, 2010, 12:37:30 AM
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Today my wife was gracious enough to give me a kitchen pass for a few hours so I hustled home from work changed my clothes and grabbed a few guns and headed for the dairy. My son has been giving me dove reports as he drives past in various pieces of farm equipment, so I had good information that the birds have been present in fairly good numbers.
Upon my arrival I saw several of them hanging around the corn pile and even flushed a few when as I parked the car. Within a matter a few minutes I had my decoys set out and placed my lawn chair so the car was between me and the fence the birds have a tendency to land on before the feel safe enough to hit the corn pile. It took less then 10 minutes before they started to filter back in. I had loaded both guns, the B28 and the 350 Pro Compact and had them ready for the first arrivals. True to form the first couple of hits resulted in fly off, so I started concentrating on putting the shots high on the body and started to anchor a few. After about 45 minutes of shooting the birds were slow to come in and started landing in some trees across the street. So I thought if the birds won’t come to me I’d go to them. I gathered my decoys and picked up the few birds I harvested by using the car as a blind and drove a few hundred yards down the road.
I set up in my usual location using a manger as my chosen snipers nest. Just as before I had my decoys in the dead tree in no time and readied both the guns for action. It didn’t take long before the birds started coming. The majority of the shots were short 20 yarders, with a few as far as 50 and the long shot of the night was ranger finder confirmed out to 66 yards. I have a rock solid rest by using the steel bar that goes across the top of the manger and I’m getting pretty decent and guessing how much wind drift to give on the longer shots. Again I’m not sure which gun scored the most hits tonight be they both preformed well for me. I even managed to take a big male starling with the 350 from about 45 yards. I ended the evening with 9 or 10 confirmed and recovered kills with probably 5 fly offs so all in all it was a great evening. I was also lucky enough to share this hunt with my son, although he still prefers the scatter gun, but tonight the old man shot more.
I’ve got all the birds cleaned and seasoned sitting in the fridge, I’ll flour them up and cook them for dinner tomorrow night. Sorry for the long rambling post but it sure is easy to get carried away on the keyboard after a good hunt.
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Loved that last shot of the doves on a string.
Reminds me of the old black and white photos from Field & Stream.
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What a great hunt! BTW, I LOVE THE RIFLES!
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Very nice grouping there!
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That farm owner has a jewel in your service nice pic's
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Thanks guys, I feel very fortunate to have such a great place to hunt so close to home. I offer my help to the owner and the operator and sometimes they take me up on it. That way I feel like I’m earning my keep down there. The both say they like the fact that I’m down there as much as I am just to keep an eye on the place. And the farm workers are very forthcoming with information as to what animals have been seen where. I often share my harvest with the workers to keep the information coming. RWS shooter, I love those two guns also, I need to rotate a few more into action, but it seems like these 2 are the go to guns.
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What an outstanding hunt :) Pics are super as well. I always look forward to your hunts and pics. I must admit that I am truly jealous of your dove hunting opportunities, I sure wish we had those birds here in NY, besides the fun of hunting them the meals they provide are delicious. Great post buddy, keep em coming :)
Jeff
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That is a bounty of feather there for sure, great shooting and pic's. Ed
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What a great day you had again on the farm! Excellent shooting and awesome pics Dave! Now you just have to start video taping some of the kills for us :)