Crow Busters Forum

I have no doubt many crows had deadly heart attacks when they saw you popping out of the blind; it's a great reputation to have to conserve ammo especially for the ones wearing bullet proof vests!

Hi MD,

In regard to numbers, my old friend Boyd Robeson told me 40 years ago that "the crow hunting will ruin you for anything else" and he was right, at least in my case.

Dick my partner wanted me to join him in Canada for two weeks hunting ducks & geese, I could stay free at his duck camp up there. Dick even said he had tons of ammo so I would have free ammo to shoot. I told Dick it's just not worth it for me to drive a thousand miles to shoot 32 ducks a day. The limit is 8 but we would go out 4 times a day. Dick even said he would clean all my birds (a most generous offer) if I joined him. My answer was still no, to me a bird is a bird so why shoot 32 a day when you can shoot sometimes hundreds in a day on crows? In Dick's case the crow hunting has not ruined him, he likes it all and so did I at one time. Boyd Robeson on the other hand was more like me, once he got a taste for the crow hunting he sold all his duck decoys and duck boat and just hunted crows from that point on.

Drew Moore was a real decent guy and he was fun to hunt with.

His problem was he had small children who needed money put away each year for there college educations. After several seasons of hunting all over with me his wife started bitching about all the time he spent with me during the hunting season, plus the cost. So Drew had to make a choice, either hunt crows or get a divorce from his wife and only see his kids every other weekend. So....... that was the end of Drew.

This is a pretty good example of where you are at in life in regard to your freedom! I was lucky, I always knew what I wanted and made the sacrifices in order to get what I wanted. I knew living on the east coast and staying there as a married man I would end up like Drew Moore sooner or later! So I made a choice, I told my bride to be that I was not going to stay in New York State I was moving to Kansas! She said fine, " I will follow you anywhere you want to go Bob" I said that was easy? She said it was an easy choice for her (her own words) because "she met my side of the family" and couldn't wait to put 1,500 miles between us! So I got lucky, I married the right kind of gal, however, if she put her foot down like Drew's wife I would have been headed to Kansas alone!

I got a job working night's from 4:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. in the morning. I could pick the days to hunt in the mornings up until noon time before I had to head home to lay down before work that night. For the first 16 years out here I had a roost of over one million crows 15 minutes from my house. Then the crows left because they developed the area and cut a lot of the trees down to make room for the new homes. This roost was a whole section of ground, that is one mile long by one mile wide! This was in 1990 when the crows pulled out.

I went into business for myself in 1991 with my wife & I. I had to be there up until Christmas, after that I was a free man and could travel to get to the crows.

If you divide 228,829 crows by 40 (for 40 years) that equals 5,720 crows per season average.

So if we go on 30 to 35 crow hunts per season that is an average of between 160 to 190 crows per hunt over a 40 year period. That is not a bad average over that amount of time.

Hi Mark,

A very rough estimate would be $ 2.00 a bird when you factor in gas, motels, food, out of state licenses, ammo, maintenance on the four wheel drive and insurance on the four wheel drive. This does not include buying a new 4x4 pickup when the old one needs to be traded in. Does not include buying new tires (ten ply) every 2 1/2 to 3 seasons. Does not include what I have to pay for a dog sitter for my two spoiled dogs every time I leave town on a crow safari.

Jerry Byroad who hunted with me for a month each season would spend close to $ 4,000. This was for air fare round trip, some of the expenses I have mentioned above. Jerry flew out here from Maryland. Because we were always hunting out of my truck he bought dinner for me every evening and we split the gas bill for the truck.

A friend of his said he was nuts spending that much on just crows; Jerry's reply to him was "it was worth every penny"

I don't want to go on to much longer here because I fear you might lapse into a coma!

The human spirit needs challenges it's just part of man's nature. When I first read Bert Popowski's book "Crow Shooting" (published before I was even born) I said to myself "I wish I could get just one 300 bird shoot in my life" it seems not so long ago.

When Popowski would write about his hunts and the numbers of birds brought to bag each day I would say to myself I will never see shooting like that because those were the good ole days! Little did I realize at the time that I would far surpass Bert Popowski's records, and this is my point, it helps to set goals for yourself.