Do you shoot the same blind or change it up a little when you go back to a spot you have already shot? How long do you wait before returning to shoot again?
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"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.
I hunt a spot on a river, where they're flying to a dump. They fly back & forth all day, maybe a 1/2 mile. In NY we can only hunt Fri. thru Mon., & most weeks I'll hunt it all weekend. Now they don't decoy well, but they will swing in to a call. theres lots of birds & don't appear to be pressured off by constant hunting. I think it's because they're feeding & all of our shooting is pass shooting, so they're not close, most shots between 35-45 yards, & we're totally camo'd head to toe. Don't know if that helps or not, probably pretty specific to that area. Jerry
A great deal depends if the birds stay in that location or not as the season wears on. If they do then once every two to three weeks is a good bet. Gives new birds a chance to come into the area.
I remember a shoot that blows that theory all to hell is a day I killed 500 years back in one spot, then three days later I shot the very same spot and very same blind and we both shot a little over 300 more just 3 days later! But this is not the norm, you are still better off laying of at least a couple of weeks between shoots.
Bob A.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
I think it depends on what part of the country you are in, how many crows you have around, the migration and how many places you have to hunt.
We can't lay off any one blind for three weeks because we essentially have only a half a dozen to use do to limited available land to hunt AND the migration itself is about 3 weeks long. I shot 60% of my birds between 10/17 and 11/7 this year. You gotta make hay when the sun shines!
Obviously uneducated birds are best but again you have to make the best out of your situation on the above factors. We had our best shoot on 10/24 shooting 104 birds (a record for us) we hunted most of that day. The next day we went back to the same blind hunted for half a day and shot 52 birds (our third best day this year). I hit the same place again 6 days later on 10/31 alone and killed 26 in few hours and then again on 11/3 and killed another 36 in few hours by myself. Here in southern NH we have about a 2 to 3 week long migration and new birds are coming into the area each day. Although we never came close to what we killed on 10/24 it was still one of best producing blinds.
If you have to use one blind a lot do it when there are new uneducated birds arriving in the area each day.
If using the same blind in short intervals, change your presenation if you can, no flapper first time but add it second time. Fewer decoys, more decoys, different calls on the e-caller, more decoys in the trees etc. Mix it up so it doesn't look and sound the same each time.
The place I'm hunting dosen't have birds while there are still fields they can feed in, once these areas are picked clean, they move to the dump in large numbers & stay there for the winter. There were no birds there at all until last week, but now that they're on the dump they won;t leave, as a matter of fact as soon as we get some snow the number will just about double. They're there from 1st light til they go to roost in the city.
We have a place here that we shoot at least once a week. It is a dump. We set up the same way every time the same amount of decoys every time and the same calls every time. Now that being said we don't shoot large numbers only cause i don't think we have large numbers. I would guess that the dump holds 800 to 1200 birds and last year was our best year and we shot 353 birds. I would love to go some where where their is 30,000 or even more birds.
Once every 3 weeks tops. If you have no place else to go then you got to vary your set up and your calls. in that case I would only take some owl or hawk decoy and use a mouth call. the next week end whatever, add a few crow decoys, maybe use a different predator decoy. The following weekend, try motion decoys. But try to make it look like actual crows are there. Pay special attention to your camouflage too. I knew this one retired crow shooter and frankly he used the same thing all the time so he educated the locals so badly all he was getting was the ever decreasing migrants so i had to assume he was out there just to get out of the house!
He totally destroyed this area for himself and others. His blind was some burlap sheet that could be seen from the moon and his glasses shown like a flashlight in the middle of the night. The ONLY crows he was getting were migrants coming down from behind him whereas the trees were camouflaging him until they got right over him! And by this time, the migrants were now trickling down ever so few....
One day i got sick of it so i began blowing the "get out of dodge" call...he eventually packed up that day and as I was on the other side of the field I began getting some shooting ever so finally.Not with the aforementioned call of course, but with others that attracted crows. Ironically when he left they didn't see me enter so as far as the crows knew, no one was there so they came in!
Is this legal? I don't know-it's a gray area I think. But another item-when goose hunters come in i always allow them to set up with me. Goose decoys are great confidence decoys. Now I don't know the exact legal specifics of that either as I had no stamp but I was also not hunting geese either! Likewise the geese are attracted to crow decoys believe it or not! Elsewhere they would come over to my crow decoys only thing being i had no stamp and no steel shot and no plug so naturally I didn't shoot. I wasn't even expecting any geese (Canadian) to do that!
Another thing you could try if you are using the same area is to add pigeon decoys. They work great performing double duty as confidence decoys and any pigeons will certainly check them out!
During the spring I shoot mostly migrating birds. Each morning brings fresh crows mostly in two's and three's. I can shoot the same blind each day for a month with little fluctuation in kills until the migration wanes. Weather is the only determining factor where sudden severe weather can stop northern movement dead.
Fall crows gather in large numbers feeding on sunflower, corn and other crops. These tend to use the same fields throughout the fall until departing by early October. A good shoot is usually followed by a fair shoot same field couple days later. Fall crow flocks are comprised mostly of young birds and are quite stupid.
Ted
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Life's tough... It's even tougher if you're stupid. John Wayne
Another item: Only use your calls sparingly. Don't turn on your electic caller unless the crows are showing no interest. One season I didn't have to call too muc. If I heard them in the distance I would use my mouth call just to get them to have alook. Then i let teh decoys do the rest. If I got crows buzzing my decoys they will often be calling an dthis will draw in even more corws. While rare-I do like triples better than doubles!
The reason not to turn on your caller is that if they are coming in anyways; you will now be educating them needlessly. You turn it on after you've started shooting at them an dthey start flying away-this often brings then back!
During the migration, which is about 3 weeks long, there is a steady supply of new and transient birds each day. Learn to recognize when this is going on and then keep your caller running for as long as your shells or stamina or batteries last.
