doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com psuedo "pigeon" opinions

There's a guy that runs a released bird hunt preserve in CA that is tossing around the idea of a ring style shoot much like pigeon types, but using his game birds. He's looking for more methods of drawing customers.

I read the CA Attorney General's opinion on regular ring shoots and the opinion concluded they fall into the "cruelty to animal" catagory of the state law. There were a number of reasons given, but seemed to hinge on transporting birds in a manner that didn't provide food/water, etc. The full opinion can be read here http://ag.ca.gov/opinions/pdfs/99-1107.pdf

I'm looking for opinions on using game birds that would be otherwise legally released for shooting on the property designated for shooting game birds.

Thanks
Chuck

For awhile here in central N.C. there was a guy trying to get a pigeon shoot estasblished. He had a hard time procuring pigeons so he tried chukas. They seemed to fly just as good and plus they were good to eat.

Part of the CA AG opinion was based on the fact that the birds were not shot to be eaten as well. So, it seems to me that most of the basis for the opinion of the CA AG have been addressed by using game birds on a preserve. The last item would be to have dogs retreive the birds after each shot, to eliminate the prolonged "sufferring" cited in the opinion, of the birds that weren't killed quickly.

The owner has quail, chukar, and pheasant. It would seem that these would each present different levels of challenge without changing the ring dimensions. The guy is struggling to make ends meet in this economy and now, warm weather has hit his area, limiting traditional preserve hunt time for both hunters and dogs. This would be an activity to help him sell off his relatively large remaining stock.

Pigeons hard to procure?! The guy must not have been looking very hard!

I can understand the need to sell off remaining stocks of birds by shooting them. Somehow this seems to be a better alternative than simply wringing their necks.

"Game birds" are good to eat but, then, so are pigeons. My mother used to make a "killer" pigeon pot pie, for example.

Since pigeon shoots have been opined as illegal by the AG in CA, it's not in the cards unless someone wants to go underground to do it here. The owner was just looking for ways to sell off his stock in the warm weather at the tail end of his season.

Yeah, I'd agree that chukars would probably be the best option. The one thing is making sure the traps are big enough for them.

I used to go to some pigeon shoots over in Indiana and the guy would occasionally use starlings when he could catch enough. He'd get them on the railroad yards where he caught pigeons if the weather was rough enough to concentrate them.

Destry

Pen raised quail have been used here occasionally, when the end of the preserve season makes them expendible and cheap. The one time I have seen them used, they were very strong mature birds and flew out of the Barnabys like bullets. As well as they flew, one of our members killed everything that was thrown and won the HOA purse outright. I don't know if I liked the concept or not. Flyers are a more legitimate target for competition, in my opinion.

Two nearby Missouri clubs hold "Continental Shoots" using hand thrown pheasants from a box in the center of a ring of shooters, each 100 yards away. I think there are about 25 shooting posts around the circle. Shooters rotate after 4 birds (as the birds usually fly down wind. Dogs are used to retrieve, and all birds are divided evenly among the shooters at the conclusion. Usually they throw 100 pheasants. For safety reasons no "low shots" are allowed.

I've observed, but never participated. It didn't hold much interest for me.

If one didn't know better, one could read the AG's report as satire.

The worry over catching and transporting pigeons under unsanitary conditions is too much. Has the AG never seen a roost? I thought the unsanitary conditions created by pigeons was the justification for trapping and killing them in the first place? Feeding something you are very shorty planning to kill seems odd in an concept too.

It seems the same reasoning used to deem pigeon shoots cruel could be extended to deem most fishing cruel.

I don't feed live bait during transport. Annoyingly my bait often prematurely dies, so with certainty my transport methods are lacking.

The whole process is most definately disorientating for the bait and catch (especially the cast and trolling aspects). I provide no assistance to the wounded fish, especially when they escape before I can dispatch them by various means.

All of this is done only for sport and amusement. I only occasionally eat a small portion of my catch and never the poor bait. The whole activity is unnecessary.

The AG should send some folks down to Marina Del Rey to enforce justice.

Maybe your guy could sell his birds at the farmers market. SoCal sophisticates really seem to enjoy farmers markets.

Bill,
I'd agree, pigeons are the standard for competition. This activity would simply be a emulation of the real deal for participants of vastly varying skill.

Ryan,
This outfit isn't in Socal. But you're right.