How far do you need to keep your hunting locations? Do you try to get a completely different group of birds or can you go a half mile away and. Shoot the same group? Also how long will you give a stand time to cool off befote rehunting it?
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"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived" -Patton
Unless you have a flyway.. with and endless supply of birds, you need to move far enough to insure you will call a fresh batch of birds. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to call the same crow again unless you wait several weeks.. or longer in my view. Crows are quick learners and have a long memory!!
What is the average distance of a crows home range? Also, thanks skip for both your replies. its an honor to have those with so much experience hunting these birds willing to answer questions your pry sick of hearing.
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"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived" -Patton
What is the average distance of a crows home range? Also, thanks skip for both your replies. its an honor to have those with so much experience hunting these birds willing to answer questions your pry sick of hearing.
Welcome to Crowbusters!
I don't know how far the average crow travels, but I can tell you about the flock that I hunt. A few thousand hang out and roost in one of the small cities here in Maine. Every morning they fly about 10 miles to a large farm and feed there all day long.
After a few stands several weekends in a row, they will generally stop responding to my calls. (My goal is to shoot as many as possible from this farm to reduce the population for the farm, not preserve the flock for one or two big shoots a year.) When they stop responding to calls, I put out decoys near their flight-path and do no calling. They come in pairs, singles, maybe a half dozen. As I kill them, I put sharpened branches/sticks up their butts and into their heads and turn the dead into decoys. Sometimes we can get 30-50 a day this way with no calling. All of my stand sights are within a half mile of one another.
If you only have a few thousand birds to work with I can see why you hunt them like you do.
Years ago I was duck hunting with a couple of young friends of mine and I saw enough crows to spark my interest as to where they were going. The next day I followed them and found out (perhaps 3,000 crows) where the roost was located. There was only one very small flyway leading to this roost. I got permission on some ground north of the roost and waited for the next south breeze. I shot a tad over 200 crows that afternoon which was pretty good for the numbers I had to work with.
Other roosts that I hunt around that have tens of thousands or more; I like to wait until conditions are right and then hunt them. I would much rather get one big shoot (400 or more) than several average shoots, but that's just me.
Bob A.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
I have read that crows will travel as far as 35 miles one way to feed. I think I remember the average is less than 12 miles. Our crows, when they are using roost in the fall and winter probably don't travel more that a few miles as the food here is abundant. How far you need to move will determined by the time of year and the availability of places to hunt. We have the luxury of lots of places to hunt that are spread out all over Mississippi so we scout and go where the most birds are. We don't hunt this time of year. One there is no open season on them this time of year and two it would just be local birds and not enough to shoot at to suit our taste.
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"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.
If you only have a few thousand birds to work with I can see why you hunt them like you do.
Years ago I was duck hunting with a couple of young friends of mine and I saw enough crows to spark my interest as to where they were going. The next day I followed them and found out (perhaps 3,000 crows) where the roost was located. There was only one very small flyway leading to this roost. I got permission on some ground north of the roost and waited for the next south breeze. I shot a tad over 200 crows that afternoon which was pretty good for the numbers I had to work with.
Other roosts that I hunt around that have tens of thousands or more; I like to wait until conditions are right and then hunt them. I would much rather get one big shoot (400 or more) than several average shoots, but that's just me.
Bob A.
Bob, I agree.
If I had a spot where I could make one big shoot I would do it. The biggest problem is that I'm not the only one who hunts this farm. They allow many groups to go in.
Yes, any time you have other hunters hunting the crows in the same area the numbers will suffer.
In regard to how far some crows will fly inorder to get some good feed varies greatly on the area your in. The furthest I have seen crows fly to get good feed was in Nebraska and Oklahoma. They used to have a roost 6 miles east of Holdridge Nebraska (100,000 plus) back in the 1980's. One flyway would go out 19 to 20 miles to feed around Elm Creek. Another flyway would go out 28 miles to feed, that was the one that went northwest of the roost.
Back in the old Ft. Cobb days they had one flyway that went out 30 miles from Ft. Cobb. It used to cross Hwy (I 40) headed north northwest in the morning. Most of the time the crows can find good feed within 10 to 11 miles from their roost. Up in Iowa there is a roost (one of several) where the crows only go out 5 to 7 miles from the roost at the start of the season.
Bob A.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
