Crow Busters Forum

That is amazing, Bob. I could only dream of days like that.

Have you ever figured out how much you spend on shells a year or in your career?  I bet it's a a good chunk of change! 



-- Edited by LeviSS on Sunday 8th of August 2010 08:47:30 PM

Bob wrote:

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On average it's between $ 1,300 to $ 1,500 for ammo each season.

Out of state licences is another $ 600.00 plus.

Last season I spent a little over $ 1,000.00 just on food out of state.

For gas, motels, licences and ammo it was $ 9,600.00 last crow season. Thats just my share!

Bob A.

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Money spent on outdoor pusuits is money well spent IMO. Or you could just stay home, save your cash...and have nothing to talk about when you get old

Ted

 

Hi Target,

I'm impressed, you did the math, 200 in one hour and 12 minutes is smokin along, pretty much load and shoot and hope you can keep up with them.

Inorder to accomplish that number of birds in that short of a time you need to be in the right spot. By that I mean you need to be in a good flyway where the crows are strung out and not coming in hundreds at a time. You just want it steady, well that day it was a lot more than just steady! To be honest I really don't like it so fast and furious because you are literally in a killing frenzy! Many times during that shoot I prayed for a little let up but there was none to be had, so I kept on shootin! The only reason I know it was one hour and 12 minutes is because thats when things began to settle down and I looked at my watch to check the time. The next 6 hours was slow by comparrison but more to my liking. Once in a while (a great while) those crows get there comeupance for some of the beatings I take during the season!

If the crows are strung out and you are well hidden the crows down range still come in to see what is going on. I might add that these birds had no clue what gun fire was because I never shot them in the roost. You just wise to many up that way and then you make it harder on yourself if you plan to hunt them for the whole season.

A lot of fellas are under the impression that the crows just come in (the same ones) and commit mass suicide like a bunch of lemmings jumping off a cliff. You get shoots like that because you have new birds coming through you with no let up.

I remember that day because I only needed two more crows for 500 and things were pretty much over with. Then here comes two late ones, boy oh boy did I ever bear down on those two because there was a good chance that was the only one I was going to get. I would have died on the spot if I blew it and ended up with 498 for the day!

I was in a good feeding area that day and had shooting all day long, some slow, some the way I like it and some fast & furious .

Bob A.

JD,

Trust me, there are some shoots where I'd be happy with 10 an hour as well. "I don't get em all the time!"

Bob A.

Here is a good one from January 24 th 1983 in Sedgwick county Kansas.

Boyd Robeson & I shot 611 crows from 7:40 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. 30 degrees out, wind - NE 5 to 15 mph.

I shot my 27,000 th crow on that shoot back in 1983.

Bob A.

Bob
If you ever make another dvd,I would like to see you spend more time on different set ups,with the wind and other variables,deke and blind placement in relation to wind.Dont get me wrong I dont mind watching you shoot crows,but I would rather watch me shoot crows.

Hello Justin,

The books I have (paperback & hard cover) are as follows:

1. Crow Shooting By Bert Popowski

2. Crow Shooting Secrets By Dick Mermon (hard cover)

3. Crow Shooting Secrets Two By Dick Mermon (soft cover)

4. Hunting Crows Year Round By Charles Adams (hard cover)

5. Olt's Hunting Handbook By Bert Popowski (hard cover)

6. Crow Calling By Bert Popowski (soft cover)

7. Calling All Varmints By Bert Popowski (hard cover)

8. Crow Hunters Bible By Bert Popowski (soft cover)


Bob A.

Awesome post Bob! I could only dream of getting that many in one day! If you're ever in need of a hunting partner, I'm usually available, LOL!

Ha and any one who knows I crow hunt or has hunted with me laugh when I take 100 extra rounds in the truck and prolly 75 in my hip bag. Never had to use it all but I am never gonna have a story where I run out of shells that's for sure.

Hello Jared,

I don't get them all the time, sometimes they get me when I use bad judgement that day. Sometimes you can have an extreeme wind shift which will kill crow hunting operations for the spot your in.

Hey, here is a hot one for you, sometime back in the 1990's (I'd have to get my journals out for the exact date) I had just gotten permission to hunt this ranchers ground and shot 526 crows using both a 12 and 20 gauge that day. I shot from around 8:00 a.m. to around 1:45 p.m. that day. The rancher came by as I was picking up and he asked me how many I shot, I said over 500, he said go get your gear out of the motel. He insisted that I stay at his home free of charge! I was friends with him for many years after that and spent several New Years Eve parties at there home. I got to meet several other ranchers as well, "I was in" as they say.

Here is the funny part, I wanted to get a good photo of this magnificent slaughter but didn't have a camera with me. He goes back to the house and brings his wife out there with a 35mm camera. Only problem was that when she got the film developed after our photo session she found out that "she put the damn film in backwards into the camera" all those fine photos were lost! So, there is a lesson to be learned here, either bring you're own camera or never let a woman do things for you!

Bob A.

It is amazing to shoot more than 500 crows in a day!!!

Here, in Quebec , Canada, I'm more than happy when I find a field with more than 500 crows feeding in.

I can't imagine kill 500 crows........my goal is to reach the 100 kills in one day....

Good job Bob!

And, post as much pictures as possible, it is alway fun to see amazings hunts!!!

John,

In the Crow Hunters Bible there is a photo that Bert Popowski took of one of his friends with 124 crows laid out. I used to dream of the day I would get a shoot like that, and now many years later a shoot like that is quite common.

I invited Bert Popowski on a crow hunt back in the early 1970's to do a hunt here in Reno County and Stafford County. I live in Reno County and Stafford County is 40 miles west of Hutchinson. In those days there were two very big roosts of one million plus crows at each one. Bert said he hunted in Reno County back in the late 1950's and said the roost at Medora was twice as large when he hunted down here. I get the same story from the locals, when I first started hunting in Reno County in 1968 there were more birds than when I moved here 6 years later in 1974. The first 50,000 crows I shot were mainly in Reno and Stafford Counties from 1974 to 1990.

But getting back to Bert Popowski, his health was failing by the early 1970's and was just not up to it. I spoke with Bert many times over the phone and he said he wished I would have called him even a year sooner and things would have been differen't. Bert passed away in 1978 if my memory serves me right. Bert was a very decent kind of a guy. I used to love just listning to his stories of shoots in Superior Nebraska back in the 1940's before I was even born! This is one of the reasons I am starting to write a few articles about crow hunting , because it's my way of honoring Berts memory.

Bob A.

Hello John,

All the above.

I had two 500 + shoots with Drew Moore

I had some 500 and 600 bird shoots with Boyd Robeson & Jim Lundquist over the years. Even had one over 800 with Boyd Robeson back in 1982.

Had two 500 + bird shoots with Dick Kilbane over the last 7 seasons. 558 and 543

Bob A.

Hello Levi,

Years back all I shot was full choke in 12 & 20 gauge. The times I would shoot a more open choke such as modified or improved cylender was when the crows were either very erratic on a very windy day or when they were coming in more than three at a time. The reason is quite simple, you have more room for slop when you have to hurry. I favor improved cylender when the shooting is fast & furious.

The two Beretta Urikas that I have been using for five years both pattern pretty much the same with a modified choke in both guns. But they don't pattern like a modified in either gun, they shoot more like a full choke. Most of the time the crows come in just one or two at a time and that is ideal shooting where you can have a high percentage. In that type of shooting you can just about shoot any choke you like. I just happen to like smoking them in mid air and that is why I use the tighter chokes.

Bob A.

Bob wrote:

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John,

375 crows in a day or a half a day was a good shoot even 35 years ago!

What were you're 3 best shoots last season?

Bob A.

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Bob hope I did not mislead you I never have had a shoot over 100 by myself all my shoots are with other guys so they are 2 man shoots and here they are.

375
287
223

I want in the 500 club soooooooo bad but not as bad as  a brown crow or a banded crow :)

Thanks

John

 

John,

375 crows is still a hell of a shoot even with two shooters.

Before I forget, last season Dick & I ran into two guys in Ohio who had a hell of a shoot the morning Dick & I were scouting. We didn't want to bother them so we came back a few hours later as they were picking up. They killed 513 crows in one spot! When I got close all I heard was "hey, are you Bob Aronsohn" we have you're crow hunting dvd's. Anyway they were young guys, one was 40 and the other was 26 years old. They did the best I ever saw with just an owl decoy and a Buster flapping away by the owls tallons. They had him up high in the timber on a pole. We all went out to dinner that nite, swell fellas, they said they have been hunting crows seriously for 10 years. This was there biggist shoot they ever had. It must have been fate for Dick & I to show up on such a momentous occassion.

Bob A.

Bob, your record keeping and knowledge of crow hunting history is awesome man, one of
the reasons I enjoy this site!

Shoots to dream of.....
Heck, right now if I had a shoot that put 50 on the ground, it would be an awesome day.

Hello Ben, (crokil)

PA still has lots of crows. They had a roost close to Gettysburg, PA up until the late 1980's that had estimates of close to two million crows! That was as big as the one at Medora, Kansas in it's hay day back in the 40's & 50's.

Ft. Cobb, Oklahoma had the largest roost in North America and the population would vary from year to year, but they had estimates of anywhere from 11 million on up to 15 million crows at one roost.

Boyd Robeson and I hunted the Ft. Cobb area back in the 1970's together. I even hunted it back in the late 1960's before Boyd and I started hunting together. There were also lots of crow hunters that hunted them as well back in those days. At "Bob's Crow Roost Motel" they had a book that you signed and you put down the state you were from. In 1970 they had guys there from 26 differen't states that season! Don't let anybody tell you differen't, they also had a lot of spooky crows there as well from all the pressure.

On average I got much better crow hunting in Kansas with a fraction of the birds to work with because they were not pressured like the ones at Ft. Cobb. If you hit it right at the beginning of the season down there you could do quite well. Dick Kilbane had the best week of his life at Ft. Cobb years ago, he shot just over 3,000 crows in 6 days of shooting by himself! That means he averaged 500 crows a day. Dick said not all those shoots were from one location, some he setup twice in one day. But that is the best he ever did in all the years of hunting them.

Bob A.

Hey Bob,
Have you thought about writing a book? I bet it would be good. I'm about 2/3's through Crow Shooting by Bert Popowski. I'm looking for some of the other books you suggested, too.

Hey, here is a funny story for you guys. I was at a hog roast last nite and was talking about old times in Reno county where I live. The daughter of one of the farmers was sitting at the same table I was and she said "Bob do you remember years ago when you came out to the farm and forgot you're guns" I said I sure do! What happened that fatefull day was I was in a hurry and left both my shotguns leaning against the outside wall of the garage when I took off for the afternoon.

When I drove into the pasture of this farmers ground I had to go through a gate right by the house. When I was driving to my spot it looked like the ground was moving there were so many crows on the move! I'm all excited because I know I'm going to get a good shoot. I get all my ammo out for the blind (500 rounds) and go to grab my guns and to my horror, they were not there! I knew I was to far from home to go get them and be able to make it back in time, so all I was concerned about was getting back before some yahoo stole them! As I was headed for the gate Angie saw me coming and had it open by the time I got there, she said "why are you leaving so soon" I said " I forgot my damn guns" she has never let me forget it and that was over 30 years ago!

As I was driving home I was a total mad man, I was so damn mad at myself I was hitting the steering wheel of the pickup as I was driving down the black top. At the stop light I was yelling at myself out loud saying "you stupid SOB" I was just nuts for a while there!

The reason I think this is so funny now is because we have all been there over something in our lives!

Bob A.

Hi Levi,

Yea, they cooked up a 230 pound hog, I'm still full from last nite. Then we had a huge bon fire which lasted into the nite. There were people there that I've known for almost 40 years.

That gal Angie, her parents were sick and could not make it to the hog roast. I asked Amanda one of there other three daughters if she could make up a couple of plates of food and I would run it by the farm on the way home.

In this part of the world nobody locks there door. I knocked at the door, no answer, so I walked into the dark house and said in a very loud voice (because I didn't want to get shot) hey John & Nancy it's Bob, still no answer, so I opened up the frig and put the food in and left.

Bob A.

most important part, i always forget my liscense. i had already lost it this year and had to get a replacement. i get so mad at myself.

Hizz,

Did you shoot that many pigeons by yourself or with another shooter? Also, was it in the USA or outside the USA? Either way that is an outstanding shoot no matter where in the world it took place! Bravo, that is a lot of pigeons!

Yup, I have the same Varmint Hunters Bible and bought it in Great Neck, New York in 1963 for $ 1.95 as well. I made .80 cents an hour in those days working a summer job!

Bob A.