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Post Info TOPIC: A-Team 2011 Results
Skip


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A-Team 2011 Results
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The A-Teams last hunt: Feb 26, 2011. Our new season returns June 1 and in the meantime, those shooters shown below will be on CrowZac till then! This picture is remarkable, at least to us, as it represents the largest number of crows taken at one stand ever: 153! This was our second stand of the day. We were positioned in the brush you see behind us. We shot for about 3 hours. The birds here lay in a peanut field in which they were feeding.  They just kept coming to our calls in the 1's, 3's and 5's so necessary for a high TBC. I am not sure which nut the crow like best; pecans or peanuts but I assure you, the 4 featherless "nuts" in these pictures really like crows!!!biggrin

From left to right are: John Fox, Gary Hardison and myself. Gary and I shoot Browning Maxus with Rem. Nitros in either 7 1/2 or 8's and John busts them with his Benelli and hi-brass 7 1/2's. I think we all use Imp.Cly chokes.
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The 4th member of the A-Team is Chris Harris grinning in the middle below. He also uses a Benelli but uses Nitros, same as Gary and I.  We use only dead birds as decoys, employ face masks and gloves and use mouth calls from Gibson and Turpin. We mix those calls with various sounds from Mr. FoxPro as I find the combination of both mouth and electronic calls the most effective for us.011.jpg

Below, is a crow that John shot at a height of about 35 yards. It fell hard on the field you see above.. yet the two peanuts were not dislodged from it's mouth. I found that remarkable as the bird piled into the ground with a resounding "thud" as many have remarked about before--that unmistakable sound a crow makes when he impacts the big ball producing one of the great sounds in nature! Musically speaking, that sound is a C-flat...and in this case an "open ground C-flat"003.jpg

That is John's gloved hand holding the dead bird. I would have included the picture of John holding this bird, but his smile was too large for the posting!

So not only did we post our single best stand ever with 153 KIA's...we also posted our second best day ever: 209. Any totals of 200 or more are simply outstanding days for us. For this "season" which is basically only January and February of each year ( we wait for the deer season to go out ) we hunt as much as we can. Our total for 2011 was 1677 for15 hunts: both being about average for us. We just did not have the birds here during January probably due to unseasonably cold weather but they showed up toward the latter part of Feb.

Chasing brer crow just never gets old..and having a fine gang to hunt with... is outstanding! Our 3rd Annual Awards Banquette is scheduled for March 19th. Wives do attend and seem to enjoy.  We get to spend a few hours in reflection of our year and the events that made it special.

Skip



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lawncrow


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   Nice Job!     I'd be excited to have a shot at that many crows over the course of the year.

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Virginian


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Great shooting and sounds like a great hunt! Our season ends soon so I hope to bust a couple more.

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8fishermen


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Very Nice!!

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 "If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.  

 

Greg
Lone Star Phil


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Great job A-Team!!

Loved the "big ball" reference too!

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Lone Star Phil

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jonthepain


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Congrats!

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Skip


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I am fortunate to live in an area with lots of private farms and farmers who are almost always happy to get their crows thinned out so getting permission is realatively easy. I also live in a section of the state with year-round suitable cover, mild winters and lots of feed that crows like: dairy, hog, chicken, turkey farms and tons of corn and peanuts. While we do not have anything that resembles a flyway, we do get nice bunches of migratory birds in the late fall through February plus the permanant residents. It is rare, however, that we see flocks greater than 200 birds. We kill a high percentage of the birds that do come into range and of that we are proud. Heck, we have been working on that for a few decades!

Anyway, thanks for all the kind remarks. I wish all crowbusters a higher TBC this season.

skip

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Splash One


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OUTSTANDING.. 1677 crows for 15 days of Run N Gun has to take serious dedication. 

Love the peanut picture, I have one very similar, but with corn.. it's amazing how such a noisy bird can be so tight lipped.

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Jiminar


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Hi Skip,

Congrats to you & the rest of your team on a stellar season. Do you shoot an imp. cyl. all season? How does it perform with the 7 1/2 nitros at the 40 - 45 yd range?

Regards,   Jim

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Skip


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Jim: Thank you! We are a lucky bunch....good friends.. lots of crows.. tough combo to beat.

As for chokes, I do use IC all year. I pattern my gun ( or guns ) at 55 yards. I want 165-175 pellet "hits" in that 30" circle at 55 yards. No crow can fly though that pattern. Consequently, IF I have the lead right, I should be able to kill every time at up to 55 yards. Of course I don't but when I miss...I know it was ME.. not the gun or ammo.  I use the Nitros exclusively knowing full well there are many other shells, less expensive, out there that will kill very nicely to 35-40 yards but few shells produce the patterns at the longer ranges (40 to 55 yards)that the Nitros do. Given the clean kills I get with this shell, I see no reason to use larger shot as I would certainly have to use a tighter choke to produce the killing pattern at 55 yards and that in turn would make hitting those kami-kazi targets inside 20 yards tougher. With chokes, gauges, shot size, velocities... change one of these and you often have to change one or more of the others..to get the desired results. My combinations are not be perfect, but it works for me.smile

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Jim R


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Skip -Congratulations on a great season .


Jim R

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Mainehunt


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I'm impressed, I wish we had peanut fields or pecan groves. :)

I like your story, your photos are great, and I really like the way you describe what calls, shells, guns, chokes, etc., that you used.

Way to go.

Kev


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