Thrush hunting and fieldfare hunting, what it is? First a small migratory bird, the thrush has many variants, such as the song thrush, the redwing thrush and the fieldfare.
Every winter our resident blackbirds, song thrushes and mistle thrushes are joined by an influx of visiting northern European thrushes: fieldfare and redwing.
The birds usually start to arrive from mid October / early November, and stay until early March… with some lingering a little later.
In Romania 90% of the hunted thrushes are fieldfare or also known as winter thrush. In November, in areas like Ploiesti or Buzau where the habitat is perfect for them: they sleep in the forests of the mountains and come and eat in the vineyard at the bottom of the mountains, the birds number is incredible, millions of birds are feeding in the vineyards.
Unfortunately, a high number of birds attract a high number of hunters. Due the hunting pressure, sometimes, over the night birds decide to change the area. Fortunately for us, Ploiesti and Buzau are relatively close areas and we can move the hunters in areas with more birds immediately.
How to do thrush hunting
The most common thrush hunting or fieldfare hunting is shooting from the blinds in the morning when the birds are coming for feeding.
The outfitter will set up a landing branch in front of the blind, with some decoys on it and an electronic caller at the bottom. The higher is the branch with decoys, better it is. You have to make sure their are not higher trees in the proximity, otherwise the thrushes will land there.
Best gun for this type of hunt is semiautomatic gun. The 12 gauge is certainly a very versatile choice, because it can be modulated according to the choke and adapted to both long-range shots (35-40m) and shorter shots (15-20m). On the other hand, the use of the 20 gauge, with medium weight cartridges, may be more suitable for medium distances.
In order to obtain big number of hunted birds is better to wait and make first shot while the fieldfares are on the branch and the next two shot after the birds leave.
The second way to do this hunt is the so-called “scaccio” where, instead of lying in wait, you proceed with a slow approach to encircle the feeding points and beaters make the thrushes fly towards the posts.
In this case, the aimed shots and sudden shots are the same as one another – and one element to consider when choosing the ideal shotgun is lightness, because there is a long way to go in the “scaccio“!
Another area where you can hunt fieldfare is orchard areas. Especially in January, I do not why to be honest, but orchid areas are better in January. On this video you can see the number of the fieldfare in the orchard:
Last but not least, highly coveted game, both because of the difficulty in hunting it – making fascinating for this very reason – and because its delicious meat lends itself to be the star ingredient of numerous game recipes.
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