I recently found a fly way about 5 weeks ago. The only land I can hunt is state land and its about a mile and a half from the roost. I am very confident that no one else is hunting them in this area, maybe even the entire state for that matter.
I have hunted crows for well over 10 years and found to have most of my success without any decoy set-up. Without dekes, they will make numerous passes looking for the source of the sound. By then, Bamm, never knew what hit them. With dekes, one pass and they are gone, almost like they could see it was a set-up. Even though I would often put birds 15-20 ft high by standing up fallen branches.
The first time in the new spot, every group of crows that passed came in to investigate and were in shooting range, a couple thousand birds at least.
Second time most came in and I guess you can see where I'm going. Last night over a thousand birds passed with only one coming into shooting range, which we did get. So I went from well over 100 shots to just one shot.
I only hunt the area once a week which would be five times total. I use a Foxpro crow fight as it is the only sound I have on the caller mixed with a hand call just to get the attention of distant birds. I am going to purchase Bob's 10-pack of crow sounds today so I can mix up the sounds but what else can I do?
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated and sorry for the long post. Thanks Guys.
I've also had success with just the caller & no dekes, sounds like ur doing it right for the area ur in. I hunt an area with mainly high passing birds & they don't seem that interested in the dekes, they do however seem to fly into the call to check it out. Where I am theres a lot of tall trees, so I don't really think they see the dekes. Jerry
we used foxpro fighting crows on a field i hunt, we had the same thing happen, i think the best thing you can do is let it rest, or maybe just handcall. we are going back to the spot today for the first time in 5 weeks, so hopefully they are calm now
My advise? Find a new place to hunt...ie: new birds to hunt.
IMO you will not have the shoots you hope for hunting the same birds in the same location once a week no matter what hunting tactics or sounds you throw at them.
We found yesterday that CROW FIGHT would bring them in, but then they would leave, or not come close enough for shots. However, if we played CROW FIGHT and then switch to DYING CROW when the birds were a couple hundred yards out, they came in pissed off and would commit better.
We experimented with this a few times, so I don't think it was a fluke. We had out 6 flocked decoys on the ground and a tanned muskrat hide under one deke, (although I don't think this hide made any difference.)
I have 10 different crow sounds on my FoxPro, out of the 10, CROW FIGHT, DYING CROW, and YOUNG CROW work the best for me. I would like to try some of Bob A's sounds too.
Unfortunately, finding a new place isn't really an option. Here in NJ, hunting is the exception, not the rule. When you walk into a store with camo on, people look at you funny. If I walk into a store in upstate NY with camo, they ask if you got anything so gaining permission is very hard.
I have also back tracked these birds by following them on the roads and on Google Earth and they do not pass over any huntable areas. I rifle hunt in NY which is only 20 mins. from the house, 13,000 acres of public land without a crow on it.
So this brings me back to trying to figure out how to change my set-up to get them to come in closer.
I have considered an imitation carcass with some decoys around it like a feeding set-up.
I also like the picture of the owl with a crow in his talons.
I also hunt the same spot once a week and average 25 to 50 crows a trip. I mainly use "Crow Fight" but switch to "Dying Crow" when the birds start to flare which sometimes brings them back into shooting range.
