Been hunting out of ground blinds with about two and half dozen decoys and an owl decoy. We use a fox pro spit fire with crow fight. we have had some what success from that spread. 24 being our best day. But our problem is they seem to get lazy and land in the trees or hang up which results in several high shots. My question to any one is, is there any change of spread for a crow fight that is more effective for finishing birds closer in the spread.
Try putting a split open dead crow in front of the owl at its feet. Alo make sure you have a couple of floaters as if they are going in to mob it, and maybe one or two crow buster II flapping deeks to. If that fails, try using a stuffed fox or coyote as a decoy, they really hate those.
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If it moves and is legal but also moral, SHOOT IT !!
Too many decoys! You are simulating a feeding AND a fighting setup! It's not natural.
Have the owl on a short post with a dead crow spreadeagle at its feet. Pluck it a bit and have the feathers floating around on the ground. Put one crow on the ground five yds away.
Pick open ground with one place for them to land (tree/pole). Put a sentry in that tree. Set up the blind (narrow and highish so they can not look in) 15 yds away. Make sure you can reach the tree/pole from there, or put a sooter near that tree.
Let the first one come and attack the owl/fox - don't shoot!. It will scream and dive at it and draw attention to your set up. Once the commotion has started start shooting. Shooting at the diving crows is not easy, that's why you put the owl nearly on the ground. The crows will circle fairly high and then dive.
It's not an early season tactic but a final cleanup action for end of season educated birds. Always get maximum results from feeding setups first. The fighting setup will wear off faster than the feeding one!
-- Edited by Zeddicus on Monday 2nd of July 2012 07:12:48 AM
It may be a volume thing. I've learned that a set up like that never works well in the open. Crow fight always works best in the woods. We can't shoot em til october down here so leaves are not a problem. Make sure all your deeks are higher than your owl. Also don't live with the owl fight set up. Birds smarten up real quick to that. A crow loves a fight but will not allow an butt whoopin! They always have and keep the edge.........
Threeway, if crows are hanging up out of range, making high passes or landing in distant trees I'd bet that you are hunting educated and/or call smart crows.
Ted
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Life's tough... It's even tougher if you're stupid. John Wayne
Try run and gun, no decoys and setup far from tall trees. You have to stay hidden really well to hunt that way, but you should be able to fool them. If you do a feeding setup, use less decoys 4-8. Fighting setup is great if it works but you usally end educating all of them and killing a few. Unless the birds are aggresive in my opinion a fighting setup is very unreliable. Also call less, even not at all, sometimes they come in just to the decoys. I think they are harder to fool with an owl. It is what every hunter uses, they become call shy very easily. Like Chip said fight calling seems better if they are looking for the source rather than seeing it from a distance.
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whatever i'm doing i'm thinking about crow hunting
We have tried the groundblind trick or layout blind.
Which worked pretty good in some places. We even had some birds drop right down to the deck. They didn't fly off. We have also built ground blinds on the bank of the lake.
But what we have found to work the best for us are ghillie suits.
-- Edited by Puppypopper on Wednesday 4th of July 2012 01:08:40 AM
