This is my first season and I am head over heals in love with crow hunting. It is "The Perfect Storm" for me when it comes to hunting.
First off, it is a wing sport and ever since I was 8 years old learning to dove hunt with a Rem 1100 .410, I have been eat up with wing shooting. It is my favorite hunting by far.
Second, I was a sonar tech in the Navy so the technology of the callers fascinates me and what all you can do with it to bounce sounds around to call crows from distances far greater than we can see. I have just built my second caller that works great and I can narrow that sound down to be very directional or I can broadcast it all over the place.
Third, I get to shoot all the shotgun shells I want to. I can sit and pattern a shotgun all day and never get bored. I love a shotgun and the inter-workings of it. I haven't added hand loading yet, but I have a feeling it is coming.
Fourth, It is a sport that can be enjoyed while sharing a blind with friends and family.
Fifth, They are very intelligent and learning to use proper decoy placement and setups is challenging.
These are a few of the reasons and in no particular order, it all depends on which one I am working on in that particular moment. If you noticed I did not list TBC. It is important on occasion, but not always. If I am working on my calling equipment or practicing with a hand call, then just getting birds to respond is rewarding enough. The TBC becomes a distant second. Some of the most fun is when we are hunting educated birds. These are hard to call and kill and are a great training ground for new tactics. I am more proud of some of my 10 - 20 bird hunts on the same field we shot last week than I am of a 60 bird shoot on a field we have never shot.
Anyway, what makes you spend a lot of hard earned $$$$ and time off to get up before daylight and sit in the cold to hunt something just so you can feed the local Yotes, possoms, and coons?
__________________
"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.
I'm kinda with Phil. I think they look pretty when they fold their wings back and glide into the ground like lawn darts. Had one that actually was squawking on his way down and stopped when he hit the ground. His beak penetrated the ground and he did not say peep until I pulled him out cleaning up the "playground"
Other reasons is to give more pheasants, ducks, and maybe geese a hand growing up. No limit....and there is no immediate threat to the species from us hunting them.
and besides, their fun to hunt. The variety of shots from overhead, behind, low, crossing, slow drifting to getting out of Dodge speeds, coming straight at you, etc.
I started as a way of bonding with my three sons. They were not interested in sitting on a riverbank, in a boat, in a tree (deer hunting), or up against a tree (turkey hunting.) Much too passive for teenage boys who were also on the football and baseball teams.
But get them all camo'd up, sneaking around the woods with shotguns, oh boy! Call in a bunch of po'd bandits, get off a bunch of shots, splash some, and then on to the next stand! Non stop action! Even the anticipatory, frozen stillness of waiting for them to come in range, when you can hear them but not see them, is pretty intense...
Now that's fun!
Well now two of them are grown and gone, and I end up going with just me and the dog most times.
I like all of y'alls answers too I guess this is the first type of hunting I have done that I can have as much fun at the house tinkering with all the play pretties as I do in the woods actually killin' critters.
__________________
"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.
love to wing shoot, almost always see lots of birds & like NH said, you don't have to clean them, where I hunt they just float away down the river. Just great fun !!!
i wanna kill everything legal at least once. lol crow hunting just turned out to b a little more fun than expected. i can always get at least 1 to come in. it seems so easy sometimes then i shoot & realize that it isnt quite so easy to hit them. hunting them really is nonstop fun. i cant call in waterfowl, turkeys, or rattle up a deer but i can get the crow to come here.