I am looking for some advice on crow hunting in marshy / swampy areas. I am currently in the military stationed at Langley AFB. Most of the public hunting land / WMA's in my area are very marshy / swampy. I have always hunted crows on our farm back home (they caused a lot of crop damage), but never tried in very wet marshy terrain. Any advice for crow hunting in less than ideal areas?
I am looking for some advice on crow hunting in marshy / swampy areas. I am currently in the military stationed at Langley AFB. Most of the public hunting land / WMA's in my area are very marshy / swampy. I have always hunted crows on our farm back home (they caused a lot of crop damage), but never tried in very wet marshy terrain. Any advice for crow hunting in less than ideal areas?
Welcome to the forum, glad you joined.
It works well, I hunt them along rivers, lake edges, bogs, swampy areas. Usually good places to hide, you might want waders if cold or to keep leeches off in standing in water.
I use a decoy on a pole so I can get it up above the foliage at water's edge.
One thing to keep in mind, some places require you to use steel or other non-toxic shot if hunting over water. Just check your local laws to be sure.
just waiting for a pike or something to grab one on contact...
Jon,
I always think the same thing. We have a lot of large snapping turtles in our waters up here. They eat many young ducklings, young geese, etc.... My hope is that someday, I will be able to witness a turtle grab a wounded or dead crow after I shoot them.
I recently went home to PA on leave for a week. I took my newly purchased Weatherby SA-08 with me to test back home on the farm. The first day I was home I ran into the farmer who we lease out some of our land to. He was complaining about a bunch of starlings and crows eating his freshly planted seeds ( around 12,000 seeds if memory serves me right). I said I would shoot whatever starlings I saw. These birds were everywhere. They flew in a flock that looked like a black cloud. My brother and I shot them non stop for 3 days. You could literally see your choke pattern drop out of the flock. We shot around 300 starlings. On the 4th day we took our guns and about 8 rounds each with us and went to walk around the farm to look for a beaver damn that was flooding one of our fields. I heard what sounded like a single crow in the woods about 500 yards away. As we walked from the field into the woods I could hear the sound of the call getting louder so I knew we were in the general area. I had a crow mouth call in my pocket and thought "what the hell". I began calling and withing a couple minutes the crow was flying right at us. My brother shot twice and missed. I yelled at him to stop shooting and then I began calling as if there was a wounded crow left behind ( It sounded more like a dying rabit call). Within a minute of calling I heard what sounded like a swarm of crows. It was like "crow-mageddon", there were at least 30 crows darting, diving, and extremly pissed off. My brother did not hit any (he was just scaring them) and I was able to hit one with my last shot. It was unfortunate. We were in jeans and t-shirts, had very limited ammo, and were caught unprepared. But I will tell you it was by far the most adrenaline pumping event I have ever had while hunting. The challenge of shooting fast moving crows in very thick woods was a blast. I was literally laughing while trying to keep track of the damn birds. GOD I AM HOOKED
