Pigeon Shooting
Take up the Challenge!
If you are a passionate shotgun enthusiast and looking for a hunting form which will give you the opportunity of taking dozens of challenging shots each time you go out, then it is impossible not to consider pigeon shooting. For a very reasonable amount of money, it is possible to visit districts in Scotland or England, where with a little luck - and a reasonable level of marksmanship - you can enjoy a so-called ”Red Letter Day,” which means a single hunter has bagged over 100 wood pigeons. While nordic wood pigeons have a special significance to most Danish hunters, the drastic shortening of the hunting season means you can no longer enjoy the late summer shoots as you could in the “good old days”, when huge numbers of pigeons would descent of the newly harvested fields, providing hunters with some wonderful shooting. One of the advantages of visiting England is that you can shoot wood pigeon all year long, and even though the largest concentrations of birds appear in the late summer, you can experience great shooting throughout the year. Many hunters choose to go shooting here in the months of spring, when the newly sown fields can be very productive, which goes to show that springtime is not only about hunting roebuck - For the passionate shotgun hunter it is well worth visiting here when winter starts to loosen its grip on the land!
Ducks, Geese, Pheasants and Other Small Game
If you choose to travel in the autumn, many possibilities for combining pigeon shooting with other forms of rough shooting begin to open up. Scotland is particular popular in this context, and here you can enjoy hunting not only pigeons but pheasant, partridge, hares, woodcock and rabbits. The hunting is classic ”Rough Shooting,” which is reminiscent of classic Danish shotgun hunting, but with dogs playing a greater role and more numerous and varied game species than we normally see here in Denmark. It is also possible to enjoy this form of hunting in western France, which in addition to great hunting offers good food, vintage wines and its own unique culture and hunting traditions.
”High-Volume” Pigeon Shoots
Even though, when it come to pigeon shooting, England and Scotland are absolutely classic destinations, attracting thousands of visiting wing-shooters every year, there are some wonderful alternatives. Hungary is perhaps rather an overlooked destination when it comes to wing-shooting, it offers shooting for pheasants, ducks and wood pigeons in very large numbers - perhaps even higher than those seen in the British Isles?
High-Volume pigeon shooting is an expression that will make most people think of Argentina, especially the Province of Cordoba where you can find incredibly large numbers of ”doves” flying over the fields of sunflowers. These ”doves” can best be described as a cross between a wood pigeon and a collard dove, it is in fact a separate, unrelated species known as the eared dove. They are regarded as a serious agricultural pest here, which will come as no surprise when you see just how many birds are found here. You can count on shooting between 1,000-1,500 doves per day. The world record was unsurprisingly set in Cordoba, when an American hunter shot 13,000 doves during a single day!
