A BIRD IN THE RIGHT PLACE BEATS A DOZEN IN THE WRONG ONE 
I remember being taught a valuable lesson when I was 16. A friend and I had been decoying on a farm for a year or so and had always been the 4^th or 5^th to shoot any promising field. Determined to be ahead of the game the next time we got to a field of freshly drilled barley earlier than the boys on the farm this included an old roguer called Wally. Wally had been shooting this particular farm for 40 years (legally and otherwise) and he was none too pleased to see us on the field before him. Despite this he did something he had never done before and offered us some useful advice. As he never gave anything away for free and it puzzled me at the time. We moved our hide as he suggested and Walter retired to the other side of the field. He had no kit with him other than his trade-mark roll up glued to his bottom lip, his old side by side, two belts of cartridges and a game bag with some extra cartridges in it. He shot one pigeon as it got out of the oak tree on his way to the other side of the field – this was his only decoy. He set it out the other side of the field and shot 84 pigeons that afternoon gradually building his pattern as he went. We shot 14.

Wally knew his subject and he had learnt it from a lifetime of observation. Looking back now I believe the reason he offered his advice was because he knew we were in the wrong part of that field and that he was about to teach us a lesson. It was the only time I ever saw him smile.