Crow Busters Forum

Hello Fellow Crow Busters,

     My daughter Abbey and I got out on a crow hunt on Friday so I thought I'd give a quick trip report.   Weather was brutal...80 degrees at daylight and it got hotter fast so it was a very short hunt.   No field pictures this time I forgot the camera...I did take one when we got home of the 6 we picked up and Abbey's pretty face...but I'll have to post it later if I remember.

Hunt Details:

Started at daylight stayed out 2 hours.  Conditions were hazy, hotter than hell and humid.   We used a feeding Setup, 12 BoonDocker decoys, all on the ground, Foxpro eCaller and two handcalls (Gibson long range and a Slayer Hunter).

Blind was standing corn we sat on stools two rows back.

Crow activity was very slow., I've never hunted on a day this hot, I believe it affected crow activity and the spot may have been hunted two weeks previous, the farmer wasn't sure but someone had asked and he gave them permission he just wasn't sure if they ever showed up.

Abbey was shooting the Beretta 390 in 20 guage with IC, gunclub #8,  I was shooting my SBE in 12 guage with Mod and gunclub 1 1/8 oz #7.5.    Good performance from both guns and loads...no problems noted.

In the two hours we had 12 crows come in, two pairs and 8 singles.   We killed 8 of 12, picked up six of them...one hopped off and one fell in the corn patch and it was too damn hot to bother looking for it.

We used the eCaller very little and just enough hand calling to get their attention.  Abbey did kill one that I got to come back with a dying crow call after it had seen us and flared...that is always fun when you kill one that you thought was a lost bird.

So a short hunt...not a lot of action but time well spent with my daughter and we had a lot of laughs.  

Here's a note for Shanedog...we saw six woodchucks and killed two of them as well...one popped up about 20 yards from us and Abbey dispatched him with the 20 guage, later we saw another one further up the field so we walked up the corn row and we both shot him.  When we were leaving the farmer asked me to go check out his silage pit because the ground hogs were tearing it up, so I put on a stalk and killed one there as well.    Farmer was happy...and told me when I come back to check the pit again.   Hope to get back there with the .223 or .204 next weekend.

BoonDocker Decoy Report:

I was lurking on the site a few weeks ago and saw the Boondocker post from Shanedog so I bought a dozen to see what they were like, I thought I could use them to do some quick hunts.   To test their effectiveness, I left all my other decoys at home and just used the BD's.   As advertised...I carried all 12 of them in a small backpack.  All 12 were set up in a fresh mowed hayfield on stakes, I put a few in the feeding position the rest in the upright position.  

Setup was fast but I'm glad I read the post about taking along a screwdriver, the ground was so hard I would have never gotten the plastic stakes pushed in that ground so the screwdriver was a must.

The flocking was good on all of them...I like the bigger GHG deeks better but when we were set up...I thought they looked good.

Crows decoyed very well to them...on the crows that did come in, we did not have one crow flare due to the setup...the one that did flare was due to us moving.   We had two crows land in the decoy spread and shot at least half of them less than 30 yards coming in very low over the setup.    With the exception of one fleeing crow, I'd estimate that all were shot under 40 yards.

This was just one small test with low crow volume but I think the results were good and I think these decoys work well.   The stake is the weakest link but can be overcome by using a screwdriver to punch a hole in the ground.    Only time will tell on how they hold up.

In summary, light, easy to carry and setup and the crows were fooled by them.    Future tests to come...but I'd give them a thumbs up at least after my initial test.

I'll be using them mixed in with other decoys next time out...hope to have a few more crows to shoot at.

One last note:

Abbey has been shooting trap for two years now in the AIM program so I bought a gun and started shooting trap with her this spring.  I have never been a target shooter other than shooting at a few hand thrown targets.   Even though I have only been shooting trap for 4 months and our hunt was a low volume shoot...I noticed a difference in my shooting...I wasn't wasting a lot of shells and I got the only opportunity for a double I had all day.   It's hard to explain...but I never found myself thinking about leads and angles etc. it was more automatic than it has ever been for me.  Some food for thought anyway.

Good Hunting...hope this damn weather breaks soon.

Happy Hunter