Your holding a goose so I would say you are familiar with the U set up or V. Set it up at the most effective range for your gun choke combo. If there are leaves or pine trees I opt out of putting decoys in the trees. 2-12 decoys.
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If you are gonna be dumb you gotta be tough
You can't fix stupid!
O yeah I kant spel eether
Sentries or look outs, you got to have them in the trees. Jon used to laugh till a Hawk about took his head off. You got to have them in the trees along with on the ground. There are some folks that rock out some set, they'll chime in.
I'm still pretty new to crow bustin', but I'll share our "newbie" set up.
We are still experimenting with things, that do and don't work, but here's what we've used with some success.
We usually run between 12 and 18 decoys. We have 24 of the GHG flocked decoys, half aggessive callers, half lookers.
We will hang 3 to 5 in the trees, as high as we can reach, in pairs, or fairly close together.
We then spread the others out in as natural positions as possible. Some close together, some spread out. All the ground decoys are placed, no further than shooting range.
We have taken tomatoe juice with and poured it in the snow and put 4 decoys around it, like they were eating a rabbit, or something. It seemed to work well the 2 times we did this.
The blood set up, seemed to get the wary ones, a little closer to the tree line we were in.
I got a question for you guys that hunt with the flocked decs, How do you keep them clean? My plastic Flambeaus are always getting mud on them as we hunt ag fields mostly.
When I hunt with my partner we only deploy ground decoys(14) and Busters(3). When I am by myself, I usually only use 3 or 4 and one Buster. I sometimes put them in trees when I am by myself. I honestly can't tell the difference in them being in the trees and on the ground. Others will scold me for that last statement.
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"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.
we have a buddy deer stand in the edge of a bean field beside a broomsage field. lol it gets u up close to the birds. they never see us till we shoot. put about 5 hard decoys on the ground, 3 foam clothespin kind in the treeline beside us 10' high, & a cutout taped to a battery operated wobbly stake. & we leave the dead ones laying there. turn the js caller on come here crow & were good for about a hour or 20 crows. oh its also at the crack of dawn. we call when we hear them cawwing prolly a mile off. think their coming off a roost a few miles away.
When I started I had three carry-lites. One in a tree or fence post and two on the ground.
Later, I got a buster II that I used until it stopped working.
A year later a friend started to come out with me and he is a decoy whore, bought a dozen carrylites for the first trip out. (Already has a couple hundred goose and duck decoys). I have borrowed them from time to time. When I do, I put four or five in the trees and ten or eleven scattered around me within shooting range. I usually put one on my far left at 45 yards and one in front of me at 45 yards. I'm right handed and these are my ranging ones. If the birds is closer to me than the decoy, then well within range.
I got a Foxpro Firestorm this summer, so that now comes with me and is working out well. Money well spent.
If I want to travel light, I will take a half dozen decoys and put them all in the trees around me.
With our flocked GHG deocys, we just try to keep em' out of the mud as much as possible. We also cary and store them in 12 slot, Avery Duck decoy bags, to keep them from rubbing all the flocking off.
I've never had them get really muddy as of yet, but all my goose decoys are GHG fully flocked aswell, and when they get some mud on them, the only way to clean them without damage is to wait til, the mud dries, then take a broom and lightly brush the mud off. Once it's dried, ith pretty much just dusts off. In the summer I usually take them all out into the backyard on a sunny day, and hose em all off, then they dry quickly in the sun.
We put an Air Crow, (Wings spin in wind) on a stake either 2 feet high or 8 feet high. I put the FoxPro under this decoy and turn it on. Drives them wild.
Skip Good to see you on this site. I was the guy that bought that Slipknot from you a year or two back. Sometime you gotta get down here to Maine and we will hunt. I'm with Mainehunt on this one as we've tried several set ups. The Edge spinning crow decoy pulls them in better than anything I've seen.
ive been playin around w a rabbit skin that has been tanned.i sprayed the white parts of the under belly fur w red paint. i must admit ,i looks just like i scraped it off the road a pitched it out in the field.i put 3 hard bodies around it and hide the e-call under it .a couple more in a tree off to my side & a few more card board cut outs and three 'fancy' coat hanger decoys ,with the wire bent at an angle so they move in the wind alittle,on the ground farther out around the road-kill. this has been doin pretty good so far.gonna try it again tomorrow.
if you got large numbers of crows well then that is your answer there. But i would start out with half a dozen UNLESS you live in an area where you got thousands or more then put out 2 dozen or so...I used 50 decoys before as I needed variation as i wa ****ting the same area too often so i varied the amount up until i put out 50 dekes. Always face them into the wind-not uniformly now...but scattered and at different angles towards the wind. Use soem kind of predator decoy too. Any large hawk decoy or even a coyote or fox will work.
Also blend in with your background. i know people who used green camouflage when everything was tan and brown and gray. Predictably the crows hung out there or way too high.! I could spot them a mile away! Imagine a sharp eyed crow!
I like to -if at all possible-just use a mouth call first with a few decoys. Or an electric call particularly if that is the only area you have. Or just an owl or hawk decoy on a fence post or on the ground and just calling. gradually if you must haunt this area every week end (not recommended) add crow decoys and then more and more using a different set up or you will soon get skunked badly.If you live ina migratory state-that is-where they pass over on their way further south-eventually the crows will dry up. So do what you can.
Ever see a bunch of crows in a field? Some will be on a fence, some low in the tree and a few high. This is what you will want to do eventually. Under no circumstances go where pheasant orgoose hunters frequent it as by now the crows will have become very wary of that area and do you want to have to jump out of your blind and shoot the bull with a pheasant hunter? "Wow man-are you shootin' crows man? I didn't know you could do THAT!" It HAS happened as well as dummies shooting at my decoys too! (Twice!)
