Cold weather can make life uncomfortable at times, but there is still some great shooting to be had through the winter months. As far as I’m concerned, there are few things more satisfying than wrapping up against the elements and heading out with my airgun on a chilly winter afternoon – and if I can get a few shots whilst I’m out there, then all the better. 

My absolute favourite thing about the colder months is that they bring with them the peak season for shooting pigeons at the roost. It is far from the easiest form of airgun shooting, but I certainly think it is the most rewarding. 

Another reason for my fondness for cold weather is probably that we don’t see too much of it where I live in the West Country. A hard frost is something of a novelty in my neck of the woods, and I don’t doubt that I would probably see things very differently if we experienced sub-zero conditions for months on end, but even our generally mild part of the country has received a couple of cold blasts so far this winter. It may not have been anything like the conditions experienced in more northerly areas, but there have been times when temperatures have dropped below -5ºC at night and refused to creep much above zero by day. Add strong winds to the mix and it felt extremely cold – by our standards, anyway. 

Mat Extra Hunt
Stacked logs provide useful gun support as Mat makes the most of a surprisingly simple first shot.

COLD WEATHER PREP 

Whilst my friends and neighbours were going out of their way to dodge the unusually chilly weather, I was doing my best to cram the odd brief shooting trip into my hectic working week. Memorable sessions included a great afternoon shooting pigeons that were decimating a field of rape, and an evening targeting them at the roost in the adjacent woods. 

Although I thoroughly enjoy being out and about in the cold, I do have to be a bit careful because I have Raynaud’s syndrome. In most instances, this circulatory condition doesn’t do much more than turn my fingers and toes white when they get cold, although occasionally they turn red and sting like hell. Most irritatingly, it tends to make my trigger finger completely numb. 

Preparing for that roost shoot, I was all too aware that the cold might cause me some discomfort, so I swapped my usual thin gloves for a pair of extremely chunky mittens. These gloves are fantastic because the thick woolly mitten section can be rolled back to expose my trigger finger when I need to take a shot, and because they do such a great job of keeping the cold at bay, I am still able to feel exactly what is happening as I take up the first stage and then push on through the second. They don’t come out very often and although it only sounds like a small thing, the benefit they bring makes a huge difference to my shooting in terms of both comfort and performance. 

My trusty welly boots, from which I am usually inseparable, had also been replaced with a pair of sturdy leather lace-ups, which I hoped would buy me more time before my toes became numb. Apart from being better insulated, they also have far better traction than my more agricultural footwear, and that soon proved to be handy because the ground was icy, with a thin dusting of snow still remaining. 

Mat Extra Hunt 3
Mat pulls on his head-net to keep him concealed from the next wave of incoming woodies.

CLEAR SHOT 

Things got off to an interesting start when my first sighting of pigeons came sooner than expected, long before I reached the area of the woods where I was planning to target them. A group of five or six birds came curving in over the treetops and pitched straight into a stand of trees not far from where I was standing. Somewhat taken aback by what appeared to be a ridiculously easy opening opportunity, I shuffled a few cautious steps to get myself next to a wood stack and settled down for a kneeling shot. 

I peered through the scope and it was apparent that the nearest bird was obscured by a haze of fine twigs, but I soon found another which offered a clear shot at about 30 metres. I framed it in the crosshairs and touched off the trigger with an unusually toasty finger. The pellet hit home with a wallop and the pigeon dropped like a stone whilst its mates panicked through the branches and clattered away over the woods. No sooner than I had slipped the bird into my gamebag than another squadron of woodies was circling overhead, but they spotted me and promptly changed course. 

Mat Extra Hunt 2
The first pigeon of the evening goes into the bag as more birds circle overhead. 

STAY PUT! 

It soon began to dawn on me why the birds were heading to this area rather than their usual favourite roosting ground. The spot where I tend to target them is sheltered and cosy, as long as the wind is a south-westerly, which it generally is. However, this evening’s bitterly cold wind was blasting in from the north-east and no doubt making their usual roost a rather uncomfortable place to be. The stand of oaks and ashes where the first arrivals had swooped in is flanked by a dense block of firs, and my guess was that the birds were flighting to the more open trees in readiness to flutter into the snug shelter of the evergreens. On top of that, this area was right next to the rape crop the birds were dining on. 

It didn’t take much to persuade me to stay where I was. I quickly pulled on my camouflage head-net for added concealment and tucked myself against a thick tree trunk, which apart from helping to keep me out of sight, also served as a very welcome windbreak. 
 

Mat Extra Hunt 4
A sturdy tree trunk creates a backdrop for Mat’s camo clothing to work against, and a shelter from the freezing wind.
Mat lines up for another shot as rape-gorging pigeons continue to flight to the sheltered area of woodland.
A quick retrieve reduces the risk of losing birds in the undergrowth when the light fades.
The pigeons keep coming and Mat gets ready to add another to the bag as dusk approaches.

INSTANT RETRIEVAL 

Action wasn’t quite as fast and furious as those opening moments, but I had another pigeon on the deck about 20 minutes later. With a lot of sedge-like cover on the ground, I was worried about losing shot pigeons, so rather than marking the bird ready to pick it at the end of the session, I made an immediate retrieve. 

Shortly after I’d settled back into my spot, I glimpsed a grey squirrel threading its way along interlocking branches as it scrabbled from tree to tree. Although initially within range, the fidgety little rodent refused to pause to offer me a shot despite a lot of squeaking on my part in a vain effort to make it freeze. It may have been that the squirrel knew it was too dangerous to linger, but I have a sneaky feeling that it just didn’t want to hang around in the biting cold wind. 

Two more pigeons fell to my air rifle before the light really dropped and the birds stopped flighting. My total bag was meagre compared with my previous results using a shotgun and decoys over the neighbouring rape field, but I still felt very happy as I plodded back along the snow-dusted ride with four plump pigeons in my bag. I’d made a nice haul of meat for the pot, and there would be fewer birds gorging on the farmer’s crop. 

MAT’S KIT 

GUN: Daystate Red Wolf - daystate.com 
SCOPE: MTC Mamba Lite - mtcoptics.com 
AMMO: Rangemaster Sovereign - daystate.com 
JACKET: Ridgeline Grizzly III - ridgelineclothing.co.uk