Live bird ring in Maryland?

Just curious, anybody ever shoot live birds at MD's eastern shore? Reason I asked is because 40 to 50 years ago, can't remember exactly. I was asked to build a certain amount of electric operated live pigeon traps including the control panel. Not going to mention his name other then his nick name ''Buddy''. He was a well known Maryland trapshooter and good shot.
He invited me to hunt Quail at his farm and was the fastest and best shot I'd ever seen on a covey rise.
Even though I was shooting live birds myself back then, I never shot the ring at his place.
Did he ever get that ring going? I'm sure it would have been only for a few of his friends by invite only.
If I ever can find the pic of the traps with control panel, I'll post it.

 

Yes I helped put in a ring for a Washington Lobbyists ( J. D. Williams ) from Texas on the Eastern Shore in Dorchester County in about 1990 or so. JD asked me to put on a pigeon shooting clinic for his friends. They were 5 Senators and Congressmen, and 3 cabinet members. No pressure. Anyone that has ever shot live birds knows the load-em call. I was sweating a bucket full but killed 5 for 5. Maybe some of the most pressured shooting I ever did. They wanted me to shoot the program but I said it wouldn't be fair. Truth be told I didn't see any up side to it.

As far as Buddy's ring I heard about it but it was before my time of living in Maryland.

 

Brad your a plethora of shooting knowledge. I really think you should write a book before all is lost. Your insight is something that most of us never understood and should be documented for future generations.

 

Rule #1 of live pigeon shooting.......don't talk about live pigeon shooting.

 

Rule # 2 only to another Pigeon shooter! Billy

 

I used to hear that on another site. Every time someone would bring up shooting pigeons, a perfectly legal endeavor, there would be 2 or 3 people that would say that. As if they themselves ever did it, LMAO

On this site? With this band of gamblers and old time money shooters? I don’t think so.

I think it’s great that we talk about a sport that got all the other “clay bird” sports started.

Bring me five!

 

A screen shot from Google Earth

I never made it to this place. They used to send me a program and the price for 30 birds, $10.00 each, and all the options on the Calcutta day was right around $1,500.00. (If you didn't have to bid on yourself and only had to pay the entry and opening bid)

They went to 30 to try and stop any ties for 25. More options and more money for the place on the added 5 birds.

Reminds me of the line from Field of Dreams

Is this heaven?

 

Car coil under the trap? Just to give them a little help getting up?

 

Malloys

 

No, he did not order those which I thought was strange. Just used a total of 4 heavy duty gate spring loaded gate closures. 2 per side. The material the birds were placed in was heavy cordora nylon. Used a solenoid found on washing machines to trigger the opening system.
Actually the first traps I used was made to help train my bird dogs to hold point.

 

It's in reference to a movie called "Fight Club" in which the premises is an underground fighting ring. The line is said countless times through the movie " rule #1 of fight club is you don't talk about fight club".

 

Not this picture

 

Yep, I know where that came from. That was because they didn't want people to know what went on. They had to hide it.

Like I said, I think it is a great subject to talk about.

 

In 1985 I was at Holford's bird shoot in September, I killed a 25 on Saturday by myself won and got about 25 or 30 grand, can't remember for sure but I do remember buying the winner of Sunday's calcutta with Larry Bumstead and Kim Hyman and getting another 5 grand for my share for that.

They were having a trap shoot and pigeon shoot at the same time in Reno the next week so Ann and I drove to St. Louis, got on a plane and flew to Reno. The trap shoot was at the old Harolds Club and the pigeon shoot was behind the Mustang Ranch Whore House. You see gambling and prostitution were legal in Reno but shooting rats with wings wasn't.

I didn't do anything spectacular at the Mustang (Bird Shoot) but I shot with Dan Orlich in a handicap at the Harolds Club, for the one and only time I ever did that. and I broke a 100 straight from 27 and won another 6 grand. Just shooting with Dan was enough for me that day and I had no idea how much money was up for the shoot, I was in a pigeon shooting frame of mind at that time. I think that shooting those birds for big money for 2 weeks in a row kept me from getting nervous about a 100 straight in caps.

When I tell people about that trip and having to drive through the Whore House parking lot everyday to get to the pigeon shoot it kind of makes them understand how we got to where we are as a country today. "Let's Go Brandon"

 

Made me just open up my schedule today. Maybe I'll introduce #2 son.

 

Ollie I don't think the Mustang Ranch is open anymore. The government (IRS) took it over a few years back and it went out of business.

 

Smart alek but I like how you think.

 

After the gov. took over the place went broke. Even subsidies couldn't save the place with the gov. in charge.

Dave Berlet

 

If only the gov. had asked Bill Clinton to run the joint.

 

rookieshooter a business should never have someone in charge that is a product sampler, a cook should keep his fingers out of the soup.

 

And the cigars in the humidor

 

Only the government could lose money selling booze and p_ssy.

 

Welcome Cooperdisciple, (Disciple of Jeff Cooper and the power of the .45 ACP?)

When I read your post my first thought was,

Yep, the guy is going to fit right in with this bunch

 

Probably too much insider trading.!!!

Dave Berlet

 

Malloy's

 

That’s it

 

Is their any live bird shooting in souhtern Michigan?

Dick

 

Must be alive and well --- New York Post article two days ago --" NYC pigeon pirates ruffling feathers by netting birds for sale to gun clubs" -- Tracking down vehicles -- proposing legislation $1000 fine and a year in jail --- But its ok to clean out a store shoplifting and do nothing-

 

Before all the mills shut down here in PGH and the Falcon nests were established on some of the buildings there were always hundreds of pigeons walking around Market Square. It is an area about one block square that had a lot of restaurants and little eateries situated on it. People would sit around on their lunch breaks and feed them.

I told two of my buddies that Don Bailey, now deceased, would pay them for the birds if they took them to one of the shoots out in Eastern PA. He was the guy that supplied most of the shoots out there. He pretty much ran Strausstown until they had a management change and stopped the shoots. It would pay for part of their entry fees. The birds cost $3.00-$4.00 dollars then and Baily would pay them around a buck a bird.

One late summer Sunday morning around 5:30 am they decided they would go down there with a large fish landing net, some chicken crates, and four bags of popcorn. Everything was going fine, they had almost one full crate, when the city cop showed up.

Hey, you two. WTF are you two idiots doing?

Ah, well officer, we are trying to help the city by taking these dirty pigeons to a more rural area to be released. That part wasn't really a lie.

Really, do you have a permit to do this?

Ah, permit? We didn't know you needed a permit.

Well you do. SO, unless you pack that s*^# up and get out of here right now I'm going to take you over to the precinct house and arrest you both.

Yes sir, we will definitely pack this s*^# up right now and be on our way. He didn't see the crate in the back of the enclosed bed of their truck.

And before you leave, clean up that popcorn you threw on the sidewalk. Lucky for them they had a small counter brush and a dustpan in the truck or they would have been picking it up piece by piece. The cop stayed and watched until they were finished.

I would have bought 2 tickets to see that.

I had a source for new White nylon bags that the bird boys used for the dead pigeons. They came 100 per big sack. They didn't cost me anything I would save up all the bags he gave me until I had 300-400 and Don paid me .50 each for them. For one Labor Day weekend shoot at Valleyview I hauled 800 out there. We shot there 2 days and then went to Hegins.

It was really nice to save $400.00 when the 25 bird race cost around $450.00 with the options.

And I didn't have to deal with a cop. Or clean up popcorn

Great days

 

Great story Flyer, here is one I can tell.

Like you back then I found pigeon shooting was expensive, addictive, and really really fun. So to offset the cost as we learned the game Leo and I got into the pigeon selling business about 1978, 1979 for one shooting season. All the details are a little fuzzy to me today, as are most of my get rich schemes from back in the day are. What I do remember is we were buying birds from Amish kids, hauling them to a club we had sold them to in a pick up and a boat pulled behind it.

I can't for the life of me remember who we sold them to but I think Holford's in Illinois, but I do remember we were shooting at Ed Ryan's in Kentucky and Leo missed half of his first 10 on Sunday so he asked Ed if he could just take the last 15 home alive in a box. Ed let him so we headed back home to my mom and dad's farm in Ohio with 15 live pigeons, in a box and added them to our stash.

Leo and me in those day's would split are winnings from a shoot with each other, we were partners for years, so I pointed out that he still had a chance to kill a 15 or 14 if hit that last option and that would be worth a lot more than 15 bucks. I can't remember the exact wording but it went something like "I thought the $15 dollars of a sure thing was a better bet"

I sure do miss talking to Leo.

 

I'm curious, has any of the better live bird shooters use an automatic gun?
I fully understand they can be problematic. My live bird gun was a Beretta o/u DBL release.
How about Leo or Brad?

 

In the beginning Leo an 1100 and me a super x-1. We both gravitated to O/U in the later years. 682 X's and then others.

 

I can't say I've seen a lot of them. There was a guy that shot a SX1. I got to know him a little and he said he collected them and had 13 at that time. His last name sounded like Weissmuller so they called him Tarzan. What else would you nickname him? I never saw him have any trouble with it.

The one I really remember was this guy at the PA State shoot. No full name but guys like the dawg that shot in PA will probably know or know of, Mike P.
He was one of the funniest people I ever had the pleasure of meeting. If you wanted to have a party, this guy was the one you invited first. Some say he was just plain nuts. He was old school pigeon shooting. Shoot anywhere, anytime, for as much as you wanted. This day, he outdid even himself

Pike Twp. Sportmans Association
PA State Championship held every February.
20 bird race, on 3 rings,
Shot 4-3-3 then turn the crank and 4-3-3

I had seen him shoot 4 or 5 O/U's over the years. Seemed like every time I saw him he was shooting something different. Well, on this day he decided to shoot one he said he just picked up somewhere. An F Grade 1100. Are you kidding me? An auto, a jamo-matic in the State Championship.

Nine of us went 10 straight then each of us missed one along the way in the second 10. Mine was number 19.( I was robbed)
As a matter of fact, one of those guys went on to win the PA title in 2004. He was a pal of mine from SWPA and when he won it was the first time in 44 years that the trophy went to someone on "our side of the mountain" as the boys out East liked to say.

Anyway, we were standing next to the road up from the bridge watching the last shooter, Mike P. who was also 10 straight, start his second 10.

He was just crushing them. I mean on some of them there were 2 puffs of feathers hanging over the trap. Just putting on a clinic. We all knew when he walked to the last ring he wasn't going to miss and we would be shooting for runner-up. As we expected he ragged all 3 birds for the 20 and the trophy.

You can imagine the cheering and back slapping and good-natured ribbing he was getting. All smiles and laughs until someone said,

Hey Mike, where's the bolt handle on that fancy 1100?

The thing had flown off on the last bird and he was so excited he didn't even notice. It took us about 20 minutes doing a halfazz grid search until it was found.

There were probably a few more but that's the only 2 semi's I can remember.

 

This is a screen shot of Pike Twp from the latest google earth. The #1 ring was to the left of that building. #2 was to the right and both faced that hillside. #3 was far right and canted to face those trees. There was a house down the road and every year a couple of local guys would set up a blind in their backyard and shoot the ones that were missed or wounded.

One year at lunch we were talking to a guy, we thought he was another shooter entered in the event,

How'd you do pal?
Not bad, I killed maybe 60
Huh? We only shoot 20
Oh, I'm not entered in the shoot, I was in that blind down the road.
My buddy is better than me, he probably got close to 100
We set up a table with donuts and coffee and just wait until one of you guys miss.

You gotta love it. They shot a lot of birds, and it didn't cost them $6.00 each. The plus for the club was they didn't have a lot of birds flying around and landing on people's roofs.

You had to walk cross this bridge on the other side of the road from the club house. You can google Pike Twp. Sportsmans and see their great looking two-story club house. Sadly, you can't see the outline of the rings anymore but on google earth you can see the 3 walkways for the yardage stakes.

 

I shot pike county once when I lived in Maryland. I can't remember what I killed but I loved the old club set up.

 

Thanks for sharing these stories guys.
It's been soooo long since I shot this game. I think I even joined Pike TWP! I've had so many operations with so much anesthesia it's lucky I can remember my name. I think it was very cheap to join. The management told me it was one of the largest gun clubs as far as members in the country.

The late Herb Gebler was the person who invited me to try this game. Now there is a one of a kind person if there ever was one. knew Herb before I ever shot trap or birds. He built some of the best racing headers in the world including people like Richard Petty. Including this much less known racer...me lol. His shop was about 14 mile from my shop.
On some occasions he would pick me up in his red Caddy with his beautiful girl friend, fill in the blank guys ------.
And tke me to various bird shots.

 

The protesters at Pike were second only to the ones at Hegins. It looked like a circus with all the nuts standing on the road with their signs. I swear to God one of them looked like a little White haired Grandmother wearing pajamas and a big coat. They would boo every time a pigeon was killed and cheer when one was missed. Until it flew over those guys in the blind down the road. Then, not so much.

The club used a little John Deere tractor and trailer to haul the pigeons from next to the club house across the bridge to the rings. One year a young guy with a bicycle cable lock climbed on the tractor when it was on the public road and attached himself to the steering wheel. The guy driving stopped and shut it off. I told him later that he should have left it in gear and jumped off. The thing would have gone down the embankment and into Oysterville creek

The PA state cops were always there and before they could arrest the dumbazz they had to figure a way to cut the cable off the steering wheel. A few guys offered to shoot it off but they didn't think that was a good idea. Go figure.

They ended up getting a right-angle grinder and extension cord from the club to cut him free. Since the cable was long enough they were able to have him sit on the road next to the tractor while they waited on the tool. He was sitting with his back against the tire and right next to a pretty good size puddle of dirty water from the melted snow. Bailey was standing next to him and when the cops weren't looking he would stamp his foot in the puddle and splash the kid with that Black water.
By the time the grinder showed up he looked like he had taken a bath in it. And this was February so that wasn't warm water.

Five of us were eating lunch upstairs when this all started and three of the guys ran down to see if they could "help" free the kid attached to the tractor. Fellow member RVH and I decided not to follow them. I asked him,

You want to go down there with them?

Nope, been arrested once, didn't like it. I'll just stay here and finish my lunch.

Yep, I agree, pass the mustard please.

After they got the kid free everything went back to normal and the shoot continued. The protesters booed, the shooters started to cheer when someone killed one, and those guys in the blind? They had a pretty good day too.

Great Days

 

Super-X shooters included Charly (maybe Weismiller) Sheckler (all 6'6" of him) and Johnny (Winchester) Muir. I see some of us remember Mike (P) Perugini (ice man) who no longer even owns a gun. Last time I saw Perugini was at Tom Hefele's funeral.

 

You're referring to Mike Perugini. I was at a funeral for Tom Hefele where we re-lived those old times. I believe Tom won the last PA championship held at Pikeville. Just think, Mike no longer even owns a gun.

 

Any shooter that shot a Super X knew that one problem they had was the allen screw that held the rib in place would break once in awhile. My Super X broke at a Holford's pigeon shoot the first time I attend his club in 1978. The rib would slide ahead a little bit after each shot so that after two shots of pigeon loads it would be sticking about 8 inches beyond the muzzle. My fix was a rubber mallet that I'd use to smack the rib back into place before in call pf pull. I've never been sure if it helped or not but I killed a 25 straight on Sunday and Ann had bought me in the calcutta for $200.

The biggest draw back I had to the super x was it shot too flat for Barnaby Boxes but I fixed that by bending the barrel up to shoot 100% high. I killed a lot of birds with that gun in the late 70's and early 80's.

 

I remember sending one back to Winchester for a free rib repair many years ago. I shot it real good but couldn't hit crap with it when I got it back. It seems they straightened the barrel and that thing shot dead flat after that. Long gone but I have five more SX-1's back in the safe.

 

Yep, I was but didn't want to post last names. Just in case he was still shooting somewhere.

 

Pikeville had some of the best food around Reading and served it at very reasonable prices. A good number of their members were members so that they could eat at the club on weekends.

The old lady who handled the sign-ups and cashiering was the most foul-mouthed woman I've ever heard. We used to drive down from Connecticut to compete and listen to her swear which was great entertainment. While on the road, we'd argue about who was gonna buy breakfast for the gang because it was so cheap.
For the first year or so that I shot birds there (1971 and 1972) we also shot ATA clays from the traps that were behind the rings.

The boxes in those days were opened by actual strings laying above ground and visible (no electronics). If the puller suspected that you were watching the string movement to "cheat up" on which box was opening, he would "tickle" the string for box one and release box 4 or 5. Took a real talent to do the "tickle" just enough without releasing that box.

Great place to shoot and a lot of great memories!!

Mike Mann

 

Never forget Jake!

 

"The boxes in those days were opened by actual strings laying above ground and visible (no electronics). If the puller suspected that you were watching the string movement to "cheat up" on which box was opening, he would "tickle" the string for box one and release box 4 or 5. Took a real talent to do the "tickle" just enough without releasing that box"

And that right there is why I said I was "robbed" at the State shoot when I was 18 straight. For anyone that never shot pigeons you had a scoring "ticket" with 20 boxes printed on it. 25 or 30 if the race was that many birds. Pike had 3 rings and even though I said it was 4-3-3 on the first 10 it might have been 5 and 5 so they could use one ring for practice during the first 10 then use all three rings for the second 10. It was a while ago and like a lot of things I can't be sure now. LOL

You carried your own ticket from ring to ring. If you killed the bird they marked it with an X or a slash. If you missed, they punched a hole in it corresponding to whatever bird it was. That way someone couldn't do anything "funny" to their ticket and turn a miss into a kill between rings.
After you shot the first 10 the ticket went to the scoring table and when you started your second 10 the tickets were all in order at the first ring ready for each shooter.

The puller had your ticket in his little shed and knew how you were doing. He could see a clean ticket with no punches. He also knew the guys that were from his "side of the mountain". Going into the last last ring and17 straight. The cord (a white clothesline) to box 1 had been shot and cut about 5 feet in front of the trap. They tied a big knot in it and left the tag ends frayed.

Now I knew to look over the ring and see what was where and if anything looked a little "wonky". I saw the knot but didn't think anything about it. I killed number 18 and wasn't even cheating in any particular direction as I called for the 19th bird.

Are you ready?
READY.......
BIRD

At that moment I would have bet a thousand dollars that the cord to box 1 was pulled. I made a lightning-fast hard left swing to catch the bird coming out and as I did so the far right box opened. WTF! It was like slow motion. Like they say happens when you are in an accident.

Panic mode. I got over there and nicked it on the first barrel, didn't even slow it down, and stoned it on the second. Federal P154 3-3/4, 1-1/4 lead.
Problem was, I wasn't fast enough, and the SOB died outside the ring.

OUT!

I was in shock. What happened? How in the world did I just do that? All these things went through my mind in seconds. I stood there for a minute to collect myself and called, shot, and killed the last bird. When I turned around Carl Specht from Valleyview was standing there shaking his head. We had become friends over the years, and he looked as dejected as I felt.
I had no clue what happened until he said.

He got ya pal. Sorry to say it but he you aren't one of the boys from out here and he screwed you.

What? How? What do you mean?

You see that big knot on the cord to one? When you called, he flicked it a little to get your attention and then yanked that far right end box.

And guys think pullers on clay targets can screw up a good score? I would have had half of Mike's winning score money if it wasn't for that piece of clothesline. And that piece of.....in the pullers shed.

A rookie mistake. Live and learn. Years later they went to the electric traps and the puller couldn't screw with you. Unless he decided that you really didn't deserve that bird in trap 5 that you were supposed to get and instead hit the button for #1 or #9.

My memory might be a little off when it comes to how many birds in each ring but I can tell you exactly where that 19th bird flew. I've shot that bird probably 500 times since then.

Great Days, and memories. Even the bad ones are good.

 

Pikeville still has good food.

 

Appears to be an active site. Sweet.

 

Some of you guys need to write books. Should be as much fun to read as 'Blowing Smoke'!

 

#2 son at the final Pikeville State Championship. That gun was a lot lighter than his current K-80.

 

Dawg, I fixed the picture and used the Full Size option.

The kid was too cute to be in a thumbnail.

Must take after his mother

And I've seen that same look on grown men that are pigeon shooters

 

I like this place a lot. Lately I've been shooting okay here.

I remember back in the day there was a shoot at Malloy's where I would shoot Brad's 682 barrels on my receiver. I liked his barrels better than my own. Remember that Brad?

Still find my way out to shoot them once in a while. Still.... My best is 24 x 25 & 29 x 30. Never got them all.

 

Great picture! -- I will have to take a picture of today's youth Shooters - Watching a high school practice, over half on deck shooters had their noses glues to a cell phone. how times have changed.