Boglin Marsh
The Boomerang System of Pigeon Racing
www.boglinmarsh.com
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As related to me by Capt. W. (Bill) Mather.
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I am not easily put off once I start anything and on the Sunday afternoon after the final inland race from Weymouth, I basketed all of my birds and called round at my friends house. Greatly amused and throwing a fit of hysterics, he agreed to come with me and see the fun. The first job was to find a site and we finally found a suitable spot on some waste ground which was nicely open offering the security of access or flight that the birds required. The place was quiet apart from a few people who exercised their dogs and occasionally a few children played there, but I was absolutely sure that this would not deter the pigeons and my thoughts proved to be correct, with good result!
I placed the basket in open space and scattered some beans around it; as was to be expected the birds all cleared off home when liberated. This process was repeated on the Monday evening with the same result but by Tuesday evening they were beginning to lose a little of their fatness and were much keener to get some food, the whole batch flew round the site and some attempted to land. On Wednesday I dropped the whole lot with ease and they flew up and landed several times having a good feed before returning home. On Thursday I kept them inside the loft until 1-00 p.m. and then liberated en-masse, the whole lot cleared off immediately and were back in half an hour, looking very pleased with themselves, each with a full crop of food. From then on I gave them open hole and they never looked back nor made any mistakes whatsoever.
The cocks would be off at daybreak and the hens in the afternoon, when they changed over again at night the cocks would be off again in ones or two's. Within three days all of the pigeons were looking wonderfully well and handled like living whipcord. After a week in the system, I sent a pair of yearlings to Dol. 366 miles, taking 1st club, 5th Fed. velocity 1027 ypm. with the hen and 5th club vel.1007 ypm. with the cock in what turned out to be a very hard race. This was a very good start for the Boomerang System, but there were far better things to come.
The following week I sent four yearlings to Rennes 400 miles, and it was an easy race. I came home from work at 1-35 p.m. and my wife told me that one of the Boomerangs had returned from the feeding site at 1-15 p.m. and was sitting on the loft front! She was not aware that I had fastened all the birds up for race day and that the bird in question was in fact a Rennes entry. After a bit of quick work at getting the clock etc. I eventually timed in at 1-37 p.m. to be 2nd club and 7th. Fed. As time wore on it became painfully obvious that I had let the coveted honour of 1st North West Combine slip right through my fingers. So the Boomerangs were really on the job and kept up the good work week after week, including 2nd and 3rd Nantes 460 miles and 2nd club 5th Fed. from Fontenay 515 miles with another yearling. These results were obtained with only eight pairs of birds; above half of which were yearlings and at the end of the old bird season, my losses had been absolutely NIL!
During these Channel races I had been able to rear seven youngsters, which under normal circumstances would have been classed as late-breds and would surely have been lost had one attempted to train them for the coming young bird races. My earlier youngsters were in a loft on their own and were not on the Boomerang System, they were fed and trained in the normal manner. The seven late-breds were left with their parents who fed them until they could fly, when they just followed the old ones to the feeding site and were never any more trouble at all. The youngest that I have known them to make the return trip is thirty four days old, but by forty days they all make the return trip without loss.
About three days before the first Y.B. race the seven late- bred Boomerang youngsters were sent on a twenty five mile toss along with my other twenty which had been trained several times previously. This was the first time in the basket for the young Boomerangs and was the only training toss that they ever received and yet they beat the other twenty in five races out of seven, winning several prizes and pools. In the final West Coast Federation race from Weymouth 220 miles with a young Boomerang cock that had only been in the basket on five occasions and was receiving a 100 mile jump, he scored 3rd in the prestigious 2 bird event and took the bulk of the pools.
And so the Boomerang System of racing pigeons was born and what a brilliant success it turned out to be at all distances, fast, slow or moderate speeds, old bird and young bird with a mere handful of birds. Naturally I could hardly wait for 1954 so that I could have a bigger and better try!
