I recently had a pretty successful hunt and thought I would share some pics as I always enjoy looking at the photos of others. I ended the hunt with 22 bandits down which is a pretty decent shoot for these parts. Frankly, my pics are fairly boring because I cut out the horizon to prevent internet lurkers from ID'ing my locations.
Anywho, the hunt was in chopped corn and I had done some scouting and observed the birds using and trafficing over this field. There is a lengthy washout in the field and the farmer could not chop too close to the washout. Cant say I'd want to drop a tire in this one either. So, there was about 5 rows of corn still standing along the duration of the washout. Perfect blind.
I only used 11 decoys. I put 5 on one side of the corn strip and 6 on the other side. I sat on the downwind edge of my decoy spread. Nice wind today, maybe 10 MPH. Perfect really, enough to direct the birds into the spread but not to much to overpower my FX3. I was shooting my trusty Remington 870 SuperMag with Remington games loads (black hulls) in 1 oz of 7 1/2s.
The birds worked as well as I had hoped. I shot pretty decent too. 22 crows in 33 shots. Closest shot of the day was about 8 paces. The last 100 yards he came in about 4 ft off the ground, he never saw it coming.
Pic of my hide in the standing corn, cannot really see it but I guess that is the point.
Pic of the North side of the corn row. My trusty flocked Flambeaus hard at work.
South side of the standing corn:
I tried to help the farmer by filling in some of his washout
And finally, my trusty FX3 with my motorcycle battery powersource:
Again, sorry these pics are a little boring. I was hunting by myself and chose to cut out the horizons to protect this location from lurkers.
Nice hunt guy. Like your pics too. I understand your position about the pics. Buddy of mine took some pics of a duck hunt one time, complete with our two-man limit of both ducks and geese...... Next week we went to hunt and had to contend with three other groups of hunters....we surmised that they recognized the spot from the pics (we might be wrong) but up until then that was our sweet spot.
may the wind be to your back and the sun in their faces.......
So you don't sound like a city slicker, it's "picked corn" not chopped corn! You strip cotton and thrash peanuts. My intention is to help you out, so please don't take it the wrong way.
Bob A.
__________________
To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
Well up here if the whole corn plant is chopped for silage its called chopped,as in corn chopper. If the stalks are left in the field we call it picked,with a corn picker. So up here Honk would be correct.
__________________
WELCOME TO THE MACHINE
Four in Bengazi died, Obama and Hillary lied,We must never forget!!!!!!!!!!
Out here in the central part of the plains states I've never heard the term chopped corn. Now they do have plenty of silage for the feed lots and a few (very few) dairy farms. It just goes to show you that I need to get around the country more if it's a regional thing.
Geeze, I didn't mean to insult you in any way BH. I sure hope I didn't!
Bob A.
__________________
To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
Around here the combine cuts the stalk about 12" off the ground, but only the corn itself is harvested. The stalk and cob are blown out the back on the ground.
Shayne
__________________
And on the 8th day John Browning created the "sweet sixteen".
To stick my 2 cents in that corn looks to dry to chop for silige. It needs to have a sertian amount of moisture to it I do believe. When the one local farm chops there corn like they are right now you will not find much left in the field they leave little behind. And they don't leave a field un done running 3 semi trucks with swamp tires and a choper that can chop I think 30+ mph not joking. And when they get farther from the farm and can't keep up with the semi's they bring out the dump trucks. When these boys wanna put up some corn look out cause they get it done while they can running from dawn to dusk or after. Then there is hay, oats and soy beans. These guys do a good job feeding the wild life and permission is easy they come to me:)
__________________
If you are gonna be dumb you gotta be tough
You can't fix stupid!
O yeah I kant spel eether
Big Honkers, thanks for the story and pics. The big battery you have for your caller is the only way to go, but we use the 12 v sealed batteries that are like the deer feeder batteries but are double in size, but smaller than a motorcycle battery. That way you don't worry about the acid and can take them inside to charge. We have them on 2 callers and 1 decoy and can run for 2 or 3 days without charging. They are 8 amp hour batteries. Doc
BH and everyone else, on your set, if you don't mind me asking. What was your calling sequence ? Did you start out with hand calls ? Did you jump straight into a fight call ?
The reason that I ask is that I think I have figured where I am screwing up. I think I need to stay on the hand calls a little bit longer before I transition into the fighting call on the Foxpro.
No insults taken...you gotta straighten out those city slickers when you have the chance, lol! Who knows, you might get a call from a Michigan city slicker one of these days...haha.
JD,
You are right, the standing corn is past the point of silage, but they "chopped" it a couple weeks ago before it got too dry.
PP,
The first couple birds of the day I did not even have to say anything. They were coming there to feed and made a straight line to the decoys with no efforts from myself. As the day wore on and the breeze picked up I used the e-caller. No hand calls. I only used 3 sounds all day. I used the JS crow come here and JS crow/owl fight (edited to take out all the owl noises) when the crows were on the approach. After shots fired I sometimes used the Foxpro dying crow to try to get another shot at 'em. I let the call roar all the way to the point that they were dead. If I were R&G hunting like you do I think I'd just let the fighting call rip right from the get-go and let 'er play until the shooting was over. Well, that is what this redneck does when I go on a rare R&G outing. I generally find field set-ups to be more fun and productive.
That field will be a hummdinger when they pick that dry corn as long as they don't use equipment that is in such good working order that they don't leave as much as a kernel be hind.
__________________
If you are gonna be dumb you gotta be tough
You can't fix stupid!
O yeah I kant spel eether
Funny you say that. My uncle lives a block to the north of this place. He said that this winter a group of guys with a few dogs pushed his block and a neighboring block for yotes. They shot 2 out of his block and 11 out of the neighboring block. I bet there are a few left over by this field...
Great photo's and story... I grew up in the corn belt (in Indiana) myself. Really liked your creative use for those crow carasses - "wash out patching". Well played, my amigo.
The hardest part is going to be finding a cord with the correct insert that fits into the FX3. Believe it or not, the cord I use is from a Swiffer Sweeper! lol. Anyway, if you cannot find a cord with the right size end on it I would assume that a place like Radio Shack would have what you need.
The cord plugs into the charger port on your FX3. Once you have the insert end figured out just attach a pair of battery clips to the other end. I purchased some medium sized clips from a local hardware store.
Now you are in business! I'll never go back to using regular batteries or rechargeables....especially in cold weather.
Oh, and here is another important detail: NEVER RUN THE CALLER OFF OF AN EXTERNAL BATTERY WITH REGULAR AA'S STILL INSTALLED! Always take the batteries out of the caller before running it as I described. If you do not remove the batteries in the caller and you attach an external battery - the caller will route some juice to the AA's and potentially make the batteries hot, cause leaks, or other electrical problems. I did this on accident one time for about 20 min and there was no damage but I would not recommend it for an extended period of time.
You may want to read the FX3 manual but if I remember correctly the caller can take external batteries up to 15volts.
Good luck and post some pics of what you come up with.
With short battery life being a big drawback to the Foxpro callers I would think those guys would get on their game and sell a cord, battery and instructions to run on an external battery. As many of you know the old JS cassetter callers would run for a whole weekend of crow shooting on a single charge. A leap forward in technology should not be lacking in any respect from what it replaces.
Way to go BH, your tip of the cord from a Swiffer is excellent and I think a how to should be a "sticky" on here.
-- Edited by nhcrowshooter on Sunday 19th of September 2010 10:56:25 PM
Well I usually run n gun for short periods at every stand so I have never actually had my batteries die...BUT...it has dawned on me that the folks using decoys and setling in one spot for a spell seem to be dropping alot of birds !....Im getting interested in trying some field set ups with decoys...I must adapt!
Well that was easy!...just to follow up on the great external battery info from BH..I went to radio shack today..picked up a small light 12 volt 7ah enercell sealed lead acid battery...2 alligator clips, and a length of power cord with the socket ends and the I had brought my FX3 wall charger in and the guy got me a tip that popped right in to the cable...same size as the jack on my wall charger...I went home..the battery was already charged..I did a little wire cutting n taping...I got the alligator clips that crimp so I didnt even have to solder...plugged it all together and worked perfect !!...cost me a little under $40.00...for those who dont want to bother they do have the whole set up on the foxpro web site...Thanks BH!
Just to follow up...the FX3 manual says to be careful using external power as more power might possibly damage the built in speakers and suggests using one of their bigger external speakers which can handle the power and are actually more efficient...I just happened to have a 50 watt radio shack power horn laying around from one of my home brew callers...I plugged it into the FX3 and it worked perfect...I couldnt bring on the loud in the house haha but tomorrow I am gunna try the set up and see how it works and if it is much louder...I have seen quite a few times when I wished I had a louder caller for big fields and windy days..I used to use a home brew caller with a 12 volt car battery and 2 power horns and JS crow tapes and it was LOUD and hauled in birds from everywhere...my buddy in VT borrowed it 4 years ago and is still dropping bandits with it !
Let me know how that external speaker works with the FX3. Ive often wondered if the FX3 has enough muscle to push quality sound out of an external speaker.
Howdy BH...I actually took your advice and read the fx3 manual again and it says that more external power and high volume might hurt the built in speakers and they suggest using an external speaker which they say is more efficient power wise and should be louder..I am guessing with more power then the bigger speaker has to be louder, or they wouldnt have an external speaker jack and sell speakers...Ill let you know how it goes !
Well I put er to the test today...werent alot of crows around but I batted perfect with 2 shots 2 kills using the JS Crow/Hawk fight sound...the external speaker was loud...has a deeper tone then the FX3 one...I played the caller full volume for quite awhile and the battery never budged, I am going to run it right down and see how long I get out of it...thats the shotgun wad sitting on one bird:
I have never ran an external speaker. Is the caller programed to allow both the caller & external speakers to run at the same time?...or can only one be on at a time?
Well I can answer that one for you as when I hooked up the external speaker I forgot to shut the internal speaker off and when I fired it up both the external speaker and the FX3 internal speaker were working...I shut the FX3 speaker off and just used the external speaker...I blasted the caller around an hour today and still no sign of weakness in the external battery...I unhooked my internal batteries but left them in the caller for when I want to do short predator set ups...but for crow calling external batteries definitely seems the way to go.
I had an old 25 watt speaker laying around that Ive been wanting to hook up to my FX3 for some added volume. I went to RadioShack and picked up a cord insert that will fit the external speaker fitting on the FX3 then went home and cut/taped the the insert onto the speaker wire. When I gave it a test run the speaker worked but with little to no volume...I could talk over the speaker with my normal talking voice.
I know little about this kind of stuff. Any ideas about the problem? Wrong cord attachment?
