It pays to ask

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Buckeye

Buckeye

Member
Sep 5, 2017
352
11
Ohio, United States
Well, yesterday i was driving South of my house, and came across a dairy farm. I saw all of these pigeons and starlings all over the roof, and I thought what the hell. So i went in to chat with the boss. 

I said to him it looks like you have a few birds hanging around, would you care if i got rid of some of them with my air rifle. He said that would be great as long as you don't scare the cows. I said my gun is very quiet (Gauntlet) and shouldn't even make the cows flinch. I then showed him my gun and demonstrated how quiet it is. He was really happy with how little of noise it made. 

I told him I would hang around the outsides of the barns and just shoot the ones on the peak of the roofs, so i wouldn't chance putting any holes in his roof. He said that i could shoot the pigeons inside if I wanted. I told him I wasn't comfortable with inside shooting. He then showed me inside, and said if they are sitting on the steel I-beams to not worry because my pellet would not effect those.

So for the next 1.5 hrs. i didn't have to sit outside in 26 deg wind and chased pigeons. What a hoot that was.

In the pic there is 15 that I retrieved, There were another 15 that fell on the open doors, or fell in with the cows. I am heading back today to clean up the ones I couldn't get until doors went down.

I now have an all winter shooting gallery with live targets, I am pumped.

Thanks
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"Imold"As they say...Ask and Thou Shall Recive...Nice Job and now after he has seen what you can do with the airgun you need to ask him if he knows any other dairy or cattle farmers that might need some birds taken care of. You have a good reference now...
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Nice looking Ranger Cahill. Not only your hunting has got harder your fishing does ever winter. We will have to say if we are not fishing for bass we are hunting something but most of time we are fishing. In the next few weeks we need to put 2 deer in the freezer, should be able to that in a couple of days. I just also need to test a few reloads for accuracy and pressure. Then back to our house on the Tombigbee and get the bass boat out of the garage maybe we will have time for some squirrel hunting on Corp land. Only thing I don't like about Corp land you can not hunt squirrel with nothing larger than a .22 cal rifle. That is rim fire or air, no .22 cal mag and in Alabama deer can be hunted with a .30 cal air rifle.This has happen in the last year or so. That leaves out my .25 cal Wild Cat and Crown all together.
 
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"Smaug"Great story. I wish I lived in a more rural area.
By the way, THOSE pigeons are good to eat. You know what they've been eating. They'll be almost as good as dove, and with more meat. They're easy to debreast, too.
Don't let them go to waste!
Wouldn't it be cool if you cleaned a few and gave them to the farmer with a good recipe?
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Smaug,
I am planning on eating some of these. I have had them before and they are just a big dove. I just have to pick the ones that don't fall into the pee and poo bogs around the cows, it's kinda gross. 
That is a great idea for the recipe, maybe pigeon chili.

Thanks
Buckeye
 
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Excellent!!!

I have one dairy farm with permission to go to anytime and as often as I want to. I cleared over 70 pigeons from there (all the resident ones) and now I just shoot pigeons that show up and try to move in.

Another nice thing about the dairy I go to is I also crow hunt. There is a square mile of property, huge corn fields, etc.....a crow hunters dream, and now a dream for a new airgunner like myself. :)
 
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It payoff again X2!

I went to watch my oldest play volleyball the other night and ran into her girlfriend that i haven't seen since they were in HS. Well her family has one of the biggest farms in the county, so i figured what the hell, I'll ask. She said her uncle has a chuck problem in his 4 barns and she said she would text him and get me in with him. Then she said i could hunt their bean fields anytime i wanted.

The second place i asked came on the recommendation from the boos at the other dairy farm. Iasked him if he knew any other dairy farms that might need my specialized kind of service. He told me the owners name and off I went, it was only 5 miles from where i was. Talk about convenient.

So i met the owner, showed him my AG, and he was impressed with how quiet it was. Got the go ahead from him and drove around to get the layout of the farm and see where the birds were congragating. 

I finally stopped by the big feed mounds where some Starlings were sitting, so I stopped there at about 30 yds and started piling up the birds. I'm glad i topped off the Gauntlet yesterday before giving my tank to Zonk to fill, because I ran it down to 1000 from 3000. I ended with at least 60 birds in 90 minutes for my first time at the new farm. This farm is huge with a very target rich environment.

Sorry for the long post, but had to share. 

Gotta go, my trigger finger has a blister, and its hard to type.?

Thanks all.

Scott
 
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That is awesome Buckeye! 60 in 90 is huge!! :)

On that note, I'm going to load up my gear and head to the local farm that has another large farm across the highway and down about 1/10 mile. HUGE amount of Starlings there......I drove through there yesterday evening and no one was around but if I go through there in the next hour someone should be there. Plan to use the Streamline 22 on mid power based upon what I saw yesterday. Flocks of Starlings so big that when they would circle around in formation you could hear the wind created by their wings.

Great job!! :)
 
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BobO, it was pretty busy. I finally got my first double. The way they were coming in was crazy. I think after there were bodies laying around they thought there was a feeding frenzy happening. I couldn't work the bolt fast enough.

Thanks Jim, it was a hoot to get into them like I did. It has been kinda slow lately since the wheat fields are being harvested, the birds have better food options.

Thanks guys keep you posted. 
 
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Bob-O,

You're getting a good rep around your area. These farms love what we do, and appreciate how responsible we are with their property

I wish I could video these shoots like you do, and share the fun. The one farm I just got permission for doesn't want me to take pics or video when I'm there. The dairy farms get hassled by private citizens thinking they are the EPA. 

Good luck and keep the videos coming.

Scott
 
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Yes, the farmers love it for sure. The dairy farm where I started last fall is free of pigeons, save for the occasional visitors. The farmer is extremely appreciative and now I get to hunt his property whenever I want.

And the local farmer is extremely impressed that most of the pigeons are gone. When I pulled up yesterday I saw three pigeons on the barn roof edge looking down at a calf pen. So I got the Streamline ready when I noticed the farmer walking toward my car from the house. I figured for the sure the pigeons would fly away.

He got all the way to my car so I rolled down my passenger window and he walked up and asked if I could get those, and I told him I would get one for sure. Looking through the scope I could see that two of them were out of the nest maybe a couple of weeks and the other bird was a small adult female.....probably the mother.

So I shot the mother and she got pinned, and the two young ones just stayed there. The SL22 with Sumo on Mid power is silent. So I dropped the other two right there....all three in about 20 seconds. The farmer laughed and said "Nice, keep shootin' 'em."

Message from the other farmer this morning: ."You can start any time." 

So I just got off work and I'll be heading down there soon! :)
 
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