Crow Busters Forum

Raptor:

Great field report and I understand your frustrations, the causes of most can be fixed easily.   

In spite of the outcome, it sounds like you just got hooked with your second dose of crack 'crowcaine'!

Your story made me think of a time in a prior lifetime when I was introduced to duck hunting by some good (and I subsequently learned, decidedly cruel) friends.  I don't know if you've partaken of duck hunting but the equipment requirements alone are enormous, much like crow hunting.  Boats, motors, static decoys, action decoys, PFD,s, camouflage netting, fuel, chest waders, boat registration, coffee thermos, gun bag, decoy bags, push poles, boat trailer maintenance, decoy weight and line maintenance, duck calls, weather forecasting (if you aren't paying attention, you can get yourself killed), clothing, cartridges and shotguns.  I quickly learned that if you screw up and forget just one item, your hunting experience will suffer greatly.  Although I am a 'checklist' guy, I didn't create very detailed checklists but I did and still do practice the art of 'aggregating' or bagging - that is, put all of the items associated with an activity in one place, preferably in one container or bag and take care to return each item back to the container after each hunt.  If you need two or three bags, so be it - just keep them in the same place.  Of course, you secure any firearms in a safe.

Abandoning duck hunting only eliminated the boat, motor and trailer but that simplified hunting very much. 

When the Texas Crow Patrol sorties, I grab my shotgun/metro tube, a web harness (125 rounds, water, snacks and TP), my crow bag (leafy gear, ear plugs, gloves, hats and other possibles), varmint mussette bag (Fury II, motion deke, and different flavors of buckshot) and an owl deke if needed.  Takes less than two minutes.  No worries.  Plus, hunting with Gadget Bob and Texas Matt guarantees that if forgot something, they have you covered three times over.

Another gem that worked for me when I was developing my duck hunting skills is that I created a one-page form upon which I documented each duck hunt I participated in.  I still have those pages, in a three-ring binder titled, "The Duck Papers".  It called for guest names, numbers, species and sexes of decoys deployed, weather details, wind direction, wind strength, water conditions, temperature, and visibility.  The form also had an open area where I sketched the boat position, shore line, foliage, and decoy arrangement and set up.   The last information I entered was in response to the question, "Now Dummy, what did you observe today that was noteworthy and what did you learn?"  That critical thinking is extremely valuable and I guarantee that even if you think you know everything there is to know about an activity, you will discover new information if you think long enough.  I carried that field discipline over to crow shooting and it has made all the difference.

Hey Corporal Philbert,

Genius reference - crack 'crowcaine'!!!  Well played, Tonto.

Regards,

No worries! I said locally, I go to the local public lands. However, I do have a club membership in Marshalls Creek, PA, though I am not as familiar with the game lands up there yet, except for Del Water Gap Nat. Park. I also hit a favorite place in Bath, Northampton (I think) county on Sundays. I am sure we can find a place convenient for all. My brother-in-law has crow fever too from the time I introduced him to the sport. 

Feel free to PM me here and we can get other contact info offline.

John

Guess I should add my last hunt in. Same game lands but different spot not to far from my other hunt.  Anyway call was broken so I brought my hand calls.  Set out more decoys and a few up in a tree.   Got some cammo stuff on and sat back in the bushes.  I have not really used the mouth calls before so I seriously was thinking this was going to be a waste of time and possibly a bad move in terms of educating the crows in the area what a rookie hunter looks like. 

I called a few times,  some sounded OK some sounded really off. Not a reply initially and none for more than a half hour even during the quiet times where I figured my calling was not helping things.  Anyway I sat and wondered how long before it is time to move somewhere else and wondered what the members here do.  At the 45 minute mark I heard a crow off in the distance.  Still had a thought from the prior week that there might be another hunter in the area that I might have been calling too and they calling back to me but I figured I had nothing to lose. I tried to copy the call I heard. Then it gave three short bursts that I also copied.  I heard some calling from a different area.  Thought there is no better way to practice imitating a crow call than trying to match what ever kind of call they made.  For about 10 minutes it was not consistent where I would call and the crow would call back but I got a return call often enough to at least make the time go by. I could see a big piece of the sky and this whole time did not see a crow.  I only planned to hunt for an hour and as often seems to happen when that time came the crow really seemed to perk up and become real responsive.  Then to my surprise here it came flying right towards me and the decoys.   It got right to the edge of my decoys and either did not like what it saw or maybe I moved and was caught but the crow made a sharp turn to its right and flew away. Maybe even a glint off of my shotgun.

Another fail but at the same time a success. At this point getting a bird to come in my direction is a success.  Well I had to stick around for a while but that was the extent of seeing or hearing any crows.  Packed up and went back to the car.  I scanned the sky for crows as it was getting late in the day and I though I might see some flying to their roosting areas but it was pretty quiet.  All told I probably have not put in more than a few hours of my time which is probably less than many of you spend on a single hunt so I am not expecting great things but I think I have gotten a small taste of,  as the one poster said, "crowcain" and I find myself spending more time thinking about my next outing. 

I thought I would have all the details worked out to hunt on a private farm this week but that is probably not going to happen until next week.  I think things might work a little better in farm lands than just some open fields.  I wish PA had hunting open all week as for me F-Sat-Sun make it tough as in the summer something is always going on.   Nights like tonight (Tuesday) I have nothing going on so it would be easy to spend the late afternoon trying to figure this whole thing out.

I had a mp3 player speaker that I only recently gave to my granddaughter but they can be had for pretty cheap.  The caller I have if from Firefox so I am pretty confident that they will be able to fix it and it will be dependable for future use.  I also was forced to use a mouth call and while I certainly am no expert I think that even with those I should be able to get some success.  Where I hunt is not far from a river and the one area is pretty much just forest so I was planning on taking my kayak and using it to hunt crows but this year as soon as the river gets to a normal level it rains like crazy and then it is up very high and fast where I think using my Kayak would not be much fun.   I would be on my own so it would require that I go up river initially which is pretty easy to do when the river is not raging. 

I am hopeful that I get my caller back before Friday as the weather is supposed to be pretty nice and the wife is out of town so I can spend a bit more time out hunting. Hopefully, this Friday I get on the scoreboard.  It will not be the first Crow I shot as in the past I hunted a property that was a big hangout for crows so on occasion one would get too close and a few times we just hid in the trees waiting for one to fly over.  How I wish I had access to that property now that I know a little bit more. In any case the number of crows I killed in my lifetime happened all on the same day it would be a dismal day for many members of this forum. 

Kill em.'