0shares A lot is different since Archie Coats' heyday, but one thing remains constant - the threat to crops posed by pigeons, says Tom Payne Pigeon shooting legend Archie Coats, with George Ross Starr Jr and Peter Whitaker (Petrel), their dogs and the day's bag As I turned the pages of Pigeon Shooting by Archie Coats, I came across the phrase ‘rabbit clearance society pigeon poking programme’ — quite a mouthful and certainly something you wouldn’t hear in the 21st century. However, it got me thinking about how things have changed for the modern Gun. Archie’s book is regarded by many as the pigeon-shooting bible. The tactics Archie Coats used have become the basic skills for all pigeon shooting and the phrases he coined are still used as part of the pigeon shooter’s idiolect.