Howdy, Boys - well, tomorrow is the last day of the PA crow season (if someone understands why there is a closed season on crows maybe you could explain it to the rest of us) and I'm not gonna have a chance to get out - the picture is a crow that was my second try at crow taxidermy - did 3 copperheads and am working up the nerve to try a bass - the cow skull that my buddy is perched on was lying about 30 feet away from the spot where he had a "hard landing" as we used to say in the aircraft business, so it seemed natural to include it. My son says that it has a vaguely Satanic experience - I just tell him that crows have "inner beauty".......
Awesome! Good job, I like the skull. A dairy farm where I hunt has many skulls laying around, the problem is all the skulls have a large hole in the forehead. LOL!
One important thing that I learned mounting the crows is that what it LOOKS LIKE you are shooting at is a lot different than what you are ACTUALLY shooting at - what I mean by that is the crow in the photo has a 33" wingspan (maybe 90% feathers,10% meat and bone), tail that is 7'long x 10' wide (100% feathers, 0% meat or bone) - actual size of what you need to get pellets into is : body not much bigger than a 12 oz. can, neck about 3/4" diameter, head about the size of a golf ball - just something to think about.............
Last year I took a "volunteer" and plucked it to see what the actual size of hittable area was. I think I came up with about 20 square inches if it was a floating overhead shot with wings spread. To give a reference to size, a face on clay target is a little over 14 square inches (4.25 inch diameter). Not a lot of difference.
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"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.