Pigeon shooting in East Midlands

Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

We are an established shoot based in the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds and pride ourselves with rearing top quality game birds. Our rough shooting days are exciting and ideal for working your own dogs to enhance their hunting and retrieval confidence. Early in the season we will cover boundary terrain which includes woods, dykes, sugar beat and various other cover crops. From January, we open the full shoot which provides a fabulous opportunity to work your dogs and shoot within the main drives and acres of arable farmland. You will be accompanied throughout the day by a very experienced guide. Bag size up is up to 10 for a team of 2 and 30 for a team of 6 (this can be adjusted to your requirements). We have a dedicated shoot barn with welfare facilities, plenty of parking and the use of our Gun Bus. Please email for further information. A £50 deposit per gun is payable to secure dates. Ideal for Teams of 2 to 6 guns, however, if you want a bigger group please get in touch as we can cater for this. We can recommend local accommodation who will accept dogs. Feel free to book as an individual and we can group you with other guns.

Leicestershire, United Kingdom

The GWCT shoot at The Allerton Project is a small driven shoot guided by the principles of GWCT research over the past 100 years, offering fantastic shooting in rolling Leicestershire countryside. Management for shooting and farmland wildlife are intrinsically interlinked, and GWCT research demonstrates the direct positive impact on wildlife, gamebird health and the environmental benefits of a well run shoot. Following best practice guidelines and a core aim of sustainability, the shoot has evolved from a wild bird only shoot during the earlier years, through to the small released driven shoot we have today. We aim to shoot around 13 days, with the over-riding focus being on high quality birds, a warm and welcoming atmosphere, and an overall good day out ... with a bit of learning thrown in now and then!

Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

In line with current Government lockdown regulations, we are offering walk up days for individuals. You will be accompanied by the keeper for the day. These days are ideally suited for you to shoot and work your dog (s), however, the keeper has his own team of dogs who can work for you if preferred. The terrain can be demanding and physical with long walks across acres of beautiful countryside.

Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

Aswarby is situated in South Lincolnshire . It is owned by the Playne family and is 6000 acres of mainly flat land with some undulating slopes. There is 350 acres of managed woodland which has been simpathetically planted for shooting being well spaced and of differing ages. The farms are mainly arable with some grassland and are farmed both in hand and by tenants. The shoot comprises of mainly woodland which have been improved with game covers where necessary. Our main goal is to present birds of the best quality which are wilder and testing. We are mainly a pheasant shoot with a few partridges put down. Woodcock are prolific if they are in and we have been shooting record bags of late. There are several ponds on the Estate and we shoot wild duck and teal if numbers allow. Our keeper has been with us for over 40 years and he runs the beating line. George Playne will be hosting the day. On a typical day we would move off after coffee at about 9.15 am and do two drives followed by a drink at about 11.00 am and two more drives before lunch at about 1.00 pm. Lunch is usually a shepards pie and cheese. We serve wine and beer with lunch. In the afternoon we would do two drives before tea to end the day. We have two land rovers in which to transport guns around the shoot.

Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

Budby Shoot  The shoot is set in the heart of Sherwood Forest on part of a large private estate. The soil is a free draining sand land meaning that boots rarely get clogged and heavy with soil. The topography is of gently rolling hills covered with large amounts of woodland interspersed with arable fields. We shoot over an area of 3-4000 acres. We have the river Meden flowing through the middle of the shoot; along its path are several ponds, flooded areas and a 40 acre lake that attracts a lot of wild duck and geese, we also release a few duck onto the ponds. With the ponds being surrounded by woodland it allows us to have mixed duck and pheasant drives with the duck providing some good sport. There are approximately 30 different options for drives, mainly from woodland but also from game/cover crops, we also shoot over some of the arable crops such as sugar beet, usually this is early in the season whilst it remains un-harvested. For example from the sugar beet we would hope to shoot pheasants and French partridge driving them back to the woods. The normal order of the day is to meet at 8.45-9.00am so that guns have the opportunity to grab a coffee or tea. Pegs are drawn followed by a safety briefing prior to loading onto the gun bus with the aim of being on the pegs for the first drive at around 9.30am. Normally we would expect to shoot 2 drives then stop for a quick drink and some warm sausage rolls before proceeding to shoot a further 2 drives. Then it’s back for a two course home cooked lunch in either the new shoot room cooked for us by a chef from a local pub. The food is always excellent and plentiful! Once all are suitably weighed down with lunch and a few drinks we try our hardest to prise you from your chairs to the final drive of the day before we all retire back to the shoot room for a cup of tea and a slice of homemade cake. Shoot cards are filled in and the winner of the lunchtime sweepstake is announced to great fanfare prior to departure. The day is run by Andrew Naish who will greet guests on arrival and will be your host for the day. He normally drives the guns around in the shoot trailer and places them on their respective pegs, he can usually be found waving a flag but always in site of the action and always in constant radio contact with the keeper. It is our intention that everyone gets some shooting on every drive, we try to share the shooting out as much as possible by manipulating where and how we drive the birds, whilst we aren't always successful its not from want of trying. There would be no shooting at all without a very loyal and willing bunch of beaters that come and enjoy the day whatever the weather, working their dogs to provide the guns with as much sport as possible. We shoot 18 days (normally 9 guns) and our landlord has 2-3 days for his guests. There is a rough termed syndicate that takes about half of the days and the other half are let as days to full teams. There is no membership of the syndicate it is just a bunch of about 20 individuals that book days with us some have shot together for years and others come and go, we always welcome new faces. A full time game keeper is employed; he has been with the shoot from its outset, some 40 years ago. If guns wish to bring dogs then we welcome this but we do have a team of very respectful pickers up to stay behind and find the ones that we don’t always have time to look for. We aim for a mixed bag of duck, pheasant and partridge with the intention of getting between 200-250 per day from day 1 to day 18. Whilst we can’t offer the highest flying birds we can offer some very good sport, in a lovely location, with a great friendly atmosphere. We try hard to shoot as many on the last day of the season as the first in order that we all have good sport even for those that book days in January. As mentioned above we have several let days, either corporate customers or roving syndicates; these can be tailored to specific requirements but likely to be in the order of 200-250 bird days. We have the Thoresby Hall hotel about a mile away that can accommodate parties should they wish to stay locally. From London to Newark by train is only 1hr 20mins, we are a further 20 minutes in the car/taxi North of Newark. Being in the centre of the country we are blessed with an excellent road network being only 7 miles from the A1 and about 10 miles from the M1. I am afraid we can't offer for cancellation due to bad weather; guns are expected to take out insurance to cover this unlikely event, we have only cancelled one day in all the years of operating the shoot and that was due to 19" of snow, plus Covid ended our season early. Our policy would be to try and accommodate a cancelled day later in the season so that nobody loses out. It is our intention that everyone goes away having had a most enjoyable days sport in the fresh air of Sherwood Forest, wanting to return again next year! Some of the drives. Paintball game crop Guns are lined out in an L shape half way between Little Oaks wood (the pheasants home) and the Paintball game crop. Birds are driven from the game crop with the wind in their tails back towards home. Don't miss because evryone can see how each other is performing on this drive. Grove This drive is one of the oldest drives on the shoot and as the drive has been done so many times the beaters and keeper have gained a huge amount of experience on how and where they fly. The guns stand in a clearing between two woods and are in a small valley which means the birds are always that bit more challenging being that little bit higher. The wood itself which the guns face has Thoresby lake on one side which could always provide the odd duck or even some geese and arable fields on the other which means the birds are likely too fly straight over the guns to get to the next piece of cover. The guns on this drive line up to form an L shape with some guns with there backs to the lake, every gun is guaranteed some shooting on this drive! Top Carrs This drive is where most of the reared duck are released and whether it is done early in the morning or last thing at night this drive always produces some reared duck but also a few wild ones too, with the guns pretty much standing in a straight line with four guns on the flood plain down by the river where the duck tend to fly, three guns are then stood in the trees and these guns may not see as many duck but will get there fair share of shooting as pheasants are also plentiful. The last two guns then go and back gun (stand with the beaters) these guns are often bombarded with high amounts of duck flying back over them after hearing the forward gun line shooting. The 2 back guns are the ones that often get the majority of the shooting due to the duck knowing that is there best way out. Reservoir Game crop This drive can be one of the best on the shoot if the weather conditions are good, this drive would usually be done in the morning. Similar to "Grove" the guns stand in an "L" shaped line, half out in front of the game crop in the arable field and other half behind one of the farms reservoir banks. As the birds fly out of the game crop they tend to curl to follow the hedge line passing in front of the half of the guns standing in the arable field before passing over the guns behind the reservoir bank. This provides good high crossing birds for all of the guns in the field, the guns down behind the reservoir bank however get the most challenging birds as they whip across the reservoir giving you a split second to shoot before they disappear into the trees behind There is also the chance of duck catching the guns by surprise from behind as the river and ponds are only metres away.