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Post Info TOPIC: Pecans: The Pied Piper of Crows
Skip


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Pecans: The Pied Piper of Crows
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North Carolina does not have pecan orchards like some of our southern states do, so when I got the call from my friend Mark to help with some "crop damage" problems in "pecanville" the only thing my wife could see the next morning were the tail lights on my truck. I consider pecans and peanuts crow opium. They LOVE those nuts and if you are lucky, the birds will pour into an orchard or peanut field most of the day... 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's at a time barely giving you time to reload. We were lucky Saturday. Check out our blind below

019.jpgWe cut branches the evening before, left them in the orchard wherer we intended to put the blind, returned at 0630 the next morning and finished off our "pillbox"repleat with ammo, drinks, and Oreos to sustain us during the upcoming task at hand. Hidden behind our foliage/blind, the birds never saw us and decoyed in will full confidence to 6 decoys 20 yards out front that eventually turned into 132 dead crow decoys by 3 pm.

024.jpg

Both Mark and I used Browning Maxus, no plugs, either Nitro 8's or 7 1/2's, and few birds that ventured into the killing zone escaped. I would have to call many of the shots "floaters" or easy kills ( I am not complaining ) mixed with a variety of tougher shots that crows tend to offer. We used mouth calls only: Gibson's and a Faulk and what a fine shooting day it was.  The orchard owner was quite pleased. We picked them all up including branches and hulls and properly disposed of all. There was no evidence at the crime scene that we were ever there making a possible return a clear possibility.

Mark and I had killed 38 birds using the run & gun method the evening before pushing our TBC for the 1 1/3 days to 170. It was Mark's first exposure to the run & gun approach. Bottom line: No CrowZac needed by either of us for this week!!



-- Edited by Skip on Thursday 21st of October 2010 09:38:29 PM

-- Edited by Skip on Thursday 21st of October 2010 09:49:59 PM

-- Edited by Skip on Thursday 21st of October 2010 09:53:46 PM

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jd1983


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Dam need some nuts up here!!!!!!!!! All we got in pa is Amish !

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M12Shooter


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Bravo! Good job Skip. 132 crow kills from a single location is fantastic. Sadly no more "crowzac" for me now as most have departed. Likely up here we will get some snow in the next week or so. Thats five long crowless months...God help me!

Ted

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SHANEDOG


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Skip
Great job on those bandits!! I love the blind!!biggrin



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Minnesota John


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Very very nice.

Are you the Skip Darrel hunts with sometimes?  He mentioned a hunt last week he went on.

Thanks

john

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Wow! What a day shooting. It looks like you both had a great time. I love the pillbox.

Eric

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TexasMatt


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Very impressive Skip, thanks for sharing. I'm always amazed at what you're able to achieve using only a mouth call.

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Lone Star Phil


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Skip:

Good to see you availing yourself of the target concentration that pecan orchards offer and there's nothing quite like setting up a blind in the produce section of the crow supermarket!

I too am amazed you use only mouth calls.  On TCP sorties we rely on Gadget Bob's fine audio technology with occasional and supplemental mouth calling.  How do you keep from blowing chunks of pecan in your reeds?! wink

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Skip


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Yep, mouth calls only were used and between Mark and I and Mark did most of the calling with his Gibson and Faulk calls. I fully enjoyed just sitting in the blind, finger on the safety, eyes on the horizon while Mark "phoned" the crows.

As for the "pillbox"( and it certainly was in the true sense of the word ) you cannot see the actual two-man blind Mark provided behind all the branches, but it is there providing a framework for the foliage. Wish I had taken a picture of it without the cover. It was excellent. We sat about 3 feet apart and did shot a few, but very few, crows together. But seeing the same bird do the "funky chicken" twice on the way down, was eye candy.

As anyone knows who has hunted pecan orchards, the ground was littered with punctured pecans all ruined for harvest by brer crow. I have heard crows take as much as 30% of the annual crop. While I admit to cracking and eating several pecans.. quite fresh to be sure..none got caught in the mouth pieces. An Oreo did, but no pecans!

As for mouth calls vs. electronic I would wager that both used properly together are better than either used alone. This is certainly true in Run & Gun.  And Lone Star, you got it right buddy, there is nothing quite like blindsiding crows in the produce section of the crow supermarket. Couple that with a equally eager crow shooting accomplice and good shot that Mark was, and you have a memory for the scrapbook.



-- Edited by Skip on Friday 22nd of October 2010 01:27:46 PM

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Bob


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Hi Skip,

Looks like you had a good time with you're friend Mark. Since you've been at it for most of you're life you know what can be done with a hand call. Most young guys think you have to be blowing a hand call all the time in a feeding area and thats why most of them use e-callers. While almost anything will work (call wise) early in the season, the hand held call is nowhere near as bulky as most e-callers when you have to hoof it in some place off the road.

Here is a shoot very similar to yours from November 24th 1990 in Sedgwick County, Kansas. I had to hoof it in because the fields were to wet to drive in. I just had one 20 gauge, two hand calls and ten boxes of ammo. I used 212 20 gauge hulls ( # 9 shot) for 175 crows from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. that day. They came in (the bulk of them) one at a time. Wind SW 5 to 10 mph 68 degrees out. Under the right conditions (where you don't have to fight the wind) a hand call can be advantageous because it's very easy to carry and takes up no room.

I have not yet drawn a bead on a crow this season.

Bob A.

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Puppypopper


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Glad to see that you have started your season. Great post and thanks for doing that . After trying the hand calls this season and truly learning it is an art all by itself, Dang is all I can say.

I did get in touch with the NC Pecan Growers Association, they have yet to get back to me on the issue of crows.


If you ever want to come up , let me know. The bird numbers up here have tripled.

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Splash One


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Great post! I love using a hand call, I forgot mine on a recent hunt and I felt naked... Ecallers are great, but there is just something about a hand call that makes the hunt better for me.



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I agree we even use hand calls while the e-caller is running and use comeback call once the shooting starts. I am getting better with a hand call and it definitely helpsbiggrin

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Mark


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Skip,
Hey crow partner ! jExcellent write up!!I ust joined up and this is my first post..Trying to figure this thing out..I am posting a picture too..

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jonthepain


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Welcome to the site, Mark! Great to have you.

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Island Shooter


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Awesome job and great shooting, Skip!

Pecan orchards are definetly the way to go! I think if you had had a third gun, you would have broken the 200 mark...

Give me a call next time if you need the third gun biggrin !!!!

I.S.

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shaddart


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Wish I had some of those nut trees in upstate NY, they come in well to the apple orchards but it's tough to get permission to hunt them.

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Skip


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IS:  IF we had a 3rd gun, at least two of us would have shot the same crow about a zillion timesbiggrin. In a two man blind, two gunners are the right amount!! With 3 shooters, there is often some subtle competition that invades the blind... shooting at birds at longer ranges when they are still coming directly in. Three might be fun, but my experience says... less productive TBC wise.

skip

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jonthepain


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Skip wrote:
With 3 shooters, there is often some subtle competition that invades the blind... shooting at birds at longer ranges when they are still coming directly in.

rofl true that!

 



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With three in the blind, I put two up front and set my seat to the rear.  Knowing those guys will take the obvious left/right birds, I will typically take the ones to the rear or far away thereby trying to get more doubles/triples/quads.  With my active sporting clays addiction, I can usually put the pattern where it's needed.

Another reason for the third man is to further spread the good word on crow hunting!

I.S.



-- Edited by Island Shooter on Wednesday 15th of December 2010 09:32:25 PM

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Skip


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IS: Well, blind placement in an orchard typically has the rear of the blind near one of the tree lines which means the rear gunner hardly gets a shot. Those birds that do come from the rear generally fly over the blind..and the two intrepid shooters there can zap the bird. No tail gunner needed!!
But as for the 3rd shooter in your group, be my guest.. the more the merrier!!

I would not want to take a 3rd... to educate him on the joys of crow hunting IF he lived in my "crow territory". Perhaps selfish to say, but the worse crow caller/hunter on the planet can educate your birds very nicely.smile

skip


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Island Shooter


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Agreed,

I guess it boils down to:

Fun and friendship and/or weak hunting buddies = 3 in blind.

Serious crow hunting = 2 in blind.

I.S.

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Mark


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I would agree with Skip..3 would have been too many on our shoot for sure..I have been on a few shoots (two that I can recall) where a 3rd gun would have been beneficial. This is a rare case and it would have only been benfical if the shooters were experienced enough to shoot at the optimum time and hit the target(s)Crow shooting is a great time to spend with good shooters and series "crow busters"however ,TBC is what it's about for me..

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Mark


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I had the honer and privledge to shoot with the great Darrell Gibson a few weeks ago. I wanted to share a photo of our shoot.. We only picked up 80 birds but got to the "field" ~2.5 hours after sun rise and the "field" had been shot the week before by a 13 yr old with a "e" caller and pump 20ga..He picked up 23... The other gentlemen in the picture is a good friend of mine.. Darrell is a joy to be around and wealth of "Crwledge."

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Gadget Bob


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Hi Mark,

Thanks for posting this photo of the great Darrell hunting crows.  He is a legend in the "crow business" and it is good he gets to have some fun hunting them himself from time to time.

He has an open invitation from the TCP to hunt with us any time and we hope he gets down here to Texas one day, just like Skip recently did.

Regards,

Gadget Bob

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