Pigeon Capers

[CrappieJohn]

Back in the very early 1970'2 I had this thing for pigeon shooting during the winter months. I did a couple trap leagues at night, but liked to do the wing shooting as often as possible. It seemed, I had convinced myself, that one form of shooting was enhancing the performance of the other. And I was getting a nickle per bird from an elderly ethnic gentleman who took them to Chicago and sold them as squab.

Finding pigeons was not an issue. They were everywhere. Every bridge had ten, every barn had a couple hundred and tressel...well they fairly bustled with the stinky things.

Now back then, the truckers union had decided to do a nationwide strike. No trucks were on the roads except for the random few who braved the harassment from the union pickets at the truck stops. Things were tense and basically not good.

One Sunday morning we were headed out to an couple abandon barns for the morning when we noticed about fifty birds settle under a tressel that spanned interstate near Dexter. We pulled onto a field access and got back in there, loaded up and filled the pockets with some spares and set off. Our objective was to get on the tressel, stomp our feet and take the birds when they cleared the right-of way near the field where we parked. Everything went well until we shot. It was then that we realized that a truck was in the process of taking to the ditch at about 75 mph. Seems too that he was being escorted by a pair of troopers. I guess when we jumped up and started to act a bit deranged and then shouldered weapons that driver of the truck thought we might be less than socialites of the region and paniced a little, hence the ditch.

So...after about about four hours of being preached to by deputies from two counties, a whole squadron of troopers and an angry truck driver (mind you we were handcuffed together for this process)we were allowed to get on our way with just a wee bit of our self esteem. Had our guns yet....and shells....so we figured we maybe better just head for the home bounds.

Now on the way home we pass the Grand Castle of all barns and this sucker is littered with pigeons. Youcould not tell where pigeons ended and shingles started. Everything we could see about this barn was tight except for one window in a dormer on the back side. We turned into the drive and went right to the house...and caught the whole family just heading out to a churchfunction and yes, if you want to shoot those daNFDSKF pigeons, have at it. Stay out of the barn! And don't shoot at the barn! And pick all those kdjfmflfdlf things up when you go. Have fun. Ahhhhh, so simple.

Now we tossed a coin to see who got to sit under that dormer and I won. The shooting was better than any trap house Ihad ever encountered. For two hours it was mayhem . So mnow we are out of shells and bruised in the shoulders like never before. We case the guns and set about icking up the dead. The back of this barn had a huge concrete apron that I had been walking on to shoot and was where I picking up birds when I decide it was a good time to take a nose dive . Not on the cement apron, but into three feet of liquid manure right where the cement ended. What a s*****y mess.

Needless to say, this was not how I had anicipated our day of pigeon shooting was going to go. Sitting here this morning, looking out the window at the same kind of gloom that that day had and being almost out of hunting time the old memories started to pop up and this one just jumped out. Today it is tough to find a farmer who would welcome you into his yard with a gun and shooting near a bridge is almost a prison term in waiting. How times have changed....except for the humor in things like this.

[outdoor ran]

Tom, thanks for sharing the story with us, I enjoyed that one. Its nice to hear stories from you old guys . Making memories is what its all about. Your sure right about times a changing.

[CrappieJohn]

Love the duck in the avitar, Randy.

[FOOT]

Tom, I too use to hunt the willy Joanie, as in Pidjoanie. It was fun and thanks for bringing back a memory I hadn't thought about for awhile.

I haven't hunted them for over 15 years but it would be nice to go back and try it a couple more times.

[FOOT]

Just thought of another memory. Some people will get very upset with me but please remember I was 16 when we did this back in 1963. Things have changed since then and I would never do this again.

A bunch of us were sitting around one Saturday afternoon with nothing to do. We decided to load up all of our shotguns, .22's and pistols into my 1948 Chevy and head to a gravel pit to do some plinking.

Back then there use to be an old bridge that crossed the inlet to Lake Zumbro. The bridge was on a minimum maintenance road which is no longer useable.

We always liked to cross this bridge because it saved us a few minutes and gave us all a thrill, it was not in very good shape.

Well, this particular Saturday the water under the bridge was solid carp heading upstream to spawn. I mean the water was absolutely filled with carp in various sizes and shapes. We stopped and got out to view the carp when all at once we all turned to each other with the same idea. Out came the guns. After several mad minutes we were out of shells and the water was a deep crimson red. There were dead carp everywhere.

Of course being young and stupid and not caring we laughed and drove off congratualting each other on our fantastic shooting abilities.

It's a good thing there was no Sheriff or CO around, we'd probably still be in jail.

[The_Duckslayer]

Quote:

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Tom, thanks for sharing the story with us, I enjoyed that one. Its nice to hear stories from you old guys

. Making memories is what its all about. Your sure right about times a changing.

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Ahem... Randy, looking at the picture in Tom's avtar I would say that we are probably close in age. The term you used was "old guys"? I think not... as I enter into my fifth decade "old guys" is like 100 or so...

Just kidding...

Speaking of being young and dumb... my brother and his buddy came home with a trunk full of huge mallards one time. Seems they found a creek full of them. They would shoot some, the ducks would fly 50 yards down the creek and sit back down so they would go shoot some more. They did this for quite some time judging by the trunkfull that they brought home. Turned out they were all the tame ducks of the farmer that lived just down the road from my grandpa. We never did tell them about that one!

I think that all of us at one point in our lives have done something stupid... I once shot a chick-a-dee at about 10 yards with a 10GA shotgun just to see what happened. Long story short never saw that chick-a-dee again! Then there was the catching carp and the cherry bombs in their mouth as they swam off... aw never mind. Thanks for the stories guys! Take care and N Joy the Hunt././Jimbo

[FOOT]

Duckslayer, you comment about the tame ducks reminded me about the Father and his 2 teenage sons that came in the the launch area of West Newton one opening morning of duck hunting.

The DNR was there checking on type and number of ducks taken. The CO looks at the 5 ducks the hunter has and says to his partner "one mallard hen, one bluewing teal and three ivory billed canvasbacks". The hunter replies "Oh is that what they're called, they're all over out there but they are hard to bring down".

The ivory billed canvasbacks were coot.