Bean and gone

Andy Crow and cousin Gary are out shooting over stubbles – standard for this time of year! It’s a slow start, but some lumpy ground and a bean bonanza leads to a fantastic result

- Andy Crow

Andy Crow loves shooting over beans. “I’ve had my biggest ever bag of pigeons on bean stubbles and lots of very memorable ones over the years. This is a food source that is energy-dense and very high in protein, not to mention easy to find and fill a crop with. No wonder pigeons are really ‘on them’ at times.”

Andy is at a farm in Kent where the beans were sown during the terribly wet period last autumn. “It was so difficult to get on the ground. They ended up ploughing the beans in and then aiming to go over it with a press, but they never got the chance. The result is basically a ploughed field with beans growing in it!”

Fast forward to this summer and the conditions have evolved from flood to near drought. As a result of the dry growing season, the stunted bean plants are between 12 and 24 in height with the majority of the pods very low to the ground.

Modern harvest machinery is pretty sophisticated, but these factors, combined with rough, rock hard and uneven ground make combining them efficiently a near impossibility. To the farmer’s chagrin, the majority of the beans ended up on the dirt rather than in the harvester’s tank. Mind you, the local pigeon population was certainly not complaining, with the grey hordes pouring in from the surrounding area to feast on the beany bounty.

Andy is shooting on the stubbles next to a large block of unharvested beans and the pigeons are cycling between the two areas. Shooting on the stubbles makes retrieving shot birds easier as well as protecting the remaining crops. The ideal spot looked like it was going to be along a hedge line right in the middle of the field, but it’s set to be a scorcher of a day so plan B is called for.