Will decoys work with the wind blowing into the hide?

Question: I’ve just taken on some shooting but the fields are flanked on one side by houses – and the prevailing wind comes from that direction.  It’s just asking for trouble if I set up at the bottom of someone’s garden with the wind at my back.

Have you any tips you can give? The hedgeline I would have to use is made up of hawthorn bushes about 12ft high.

Answer: Decoying with the wind in your face is the shortest route to the sanitorium that I know of! And you can ignore the people who say all you have to do is put your pattern a little further out, to get pigeons to tuck in between you and the decoys.In reality, pigeons will invariably overshoot the setup to try and land out of range.

Sometimes, if you have that rarity – a downwind flightline – you might just get a shot at birds that are banking round into the wind. However, in all probability they will be approaching from behind the hedge in which you are sitting, meaning you will not see them until they top the hedge.

In this situation my money would be on pigeons reacting long before you could get a shot off. If the field is big enough I would always set up in the middle with my back to the houses and shoot in the normal way. Bear in mind that you need to be at least 300 yards from the houses if you shoot in their direction.

Personally, I would discipline myself to not shoot towards them at all.