Hunting season: All year
Pigeon shooting in Scotland normally takes place on farmland. Scottish farmers grow many crops that pigeons love to eat, including barley, peas and oilseed rape. This means that pigeons can be found on different crops at different times of year. Spring pigeon shooting is over spring sowing of barley and oilseed rape, summer pigeon shooting is over barley and oil seed rape stubbles.
Pigeons are usually hunted in one of two ways:
- Using decoys around crops: Your guide will have investigated where the pigeons are feeding before you arrive, and he will then build a hide for you. This could be using branches and vegetation from the area, or by using a camouflage net. Once you are in your hide, your guide will lay pigeon decoys out in the field. His experience will decide on the exact hide position and determine how the decoy layout should look. The secret is to let the pigeons come in close to the decoys before getting up to take the shot. Shoot too soon and you will keep the pigeons out of range. Your equipment is of top quality and will include items such as rotary magnets, flappers and floaters along with modern decoys, cradles and dead birds.
- Roost shooting: The other way to take part in pigeon shooting in Scotland is called roost shooting. This involves your guide investigating where pigeons are going to roost at night. There may well be a line of bushes along the edge of a field that run towards the wood. Pigeons like to follow these lines into a wood, and your guide could station you there, or in an open area of the wood where the pigeons drop into the trees.
Pigeon shooting in Scotland is therefore very good for helping a hunter become a better shot and, as our pigeons are truly wild birds, you will have to use all your hunters’ skills to be able to shoot them. We keep a close relationship with all our farmers to get up to the minute information on pigeon movements, drillings and harvesting. This combined with constant reconnaissance provides you with the best fields to shoot at any given time.