After a late breakfast I had nothing to do so I decided to take a ride to the duck farm and get in a bird hunt. Went to the gun safe and after a couple of minutes of pulling different rifles out I finally decided the .177 Goldfinger was going hunting :)
Got to the duck farm and the huge flocks of birds that were there the other day were buzzing the farm. So far so good. Loaded the Goldfinger and headed off to find a good sniping location.
The first location I set up in was my favorite starling sniping location on the farm. I went inside one of the barns, set up my camo netting across an open window and waited. An old telephone pole with wires still attached was only 20 yards away and usually draws in a steady stream of birds which love to sit on the wires and survey the farm. Well,,, I sat there for almost 45 minutes and never had a bird even come near the pole. I exited the barn and immediately saw what the problem was,,, there were a couple of farm workers at the other end of the barn doing some work. So much for that spot :(
I stowed the camo netting back in my truck and decided to just roam the farm and look for targets of opportunity.
At the far end of the farm I found a good spot to pick off sparrows from a cluster of huge maple trees near a drainage pond. There were 4 large grain feeders just 10 yards from the cluster of trees and the sparrows were hitting these feeders pretty hard. As I approached the feeders all the sparrows retreated to the branches of the maple trees believing they were safe in the tangle of branches. WRONG !! :)
It was tough shooting due to all the branches but I stayed there for about 45 minutes and picked off sparrow after sparrow. The goldfinger shoots the CPL's so accurately that all I needed was a tiny opening in order to snuff a bird. Only bad thing was that once a sparrow was hit it would fall straight down and plop into the smelly drainage pond, so retrieving the birds for pics was simply not an option. All in all I nailed a dozen or so birds before getting bored with them and moving on to find some larger targets.
As I walked past a barn I noticed a lone pigeon standing up on top of the roof and apparently the bird hadn't noticed me approach. Distance was 35 yards. Put the scope on target, pulled the trigger and heard the "POP" as the CPL slammed into the birds chest. The pigeon fell over, rolled down the roof and plopped onto the ground. Well, at least I had something to bring home for a future lunch. I roamed the farm for another hour and nailed 2 starlings, one of em a 40 yard shot that I was very proud of due to the stiff wind that was blowing.
There were plenty of birds all over the farm but the problem was there were farm workers out doing chores all over the farm so the birds were just to spooky to get close enough to for consistent shooting. I had gotten some good exercise, had some good shooting and had a very enjoyable hunt so I decided to just call it a day and returned home to take some pics for my GTA buddies and to clean my catch....
Hope ya like the pics.......
Jeff
