Crow Busters Forum

One thing I have learned about a crow setup is to never have crow decoys lower than the owl decoy.  Tall in the trees and the Owl close to the ground.

It must have been something else that kept the crows out of range...I regularly put my hawk above the crows or even the owl. last time we were out in october (2013) we had the owl on a four foot pole i think and the crows away  from that and the crows came right on in and I was  a lousy shot that day  having allowed a friend to loan me his shotgun and i barely knew my own. it's true for me anyways. And the weirdest thing was there is normally no pole normally in the cornfield to begin with but they came right on in and sadly-all at once so they weren't about to come back that day. Not there anyways.

 But it worked real sweet.

Another time I put up a red tailed hawk in a tree with the crows appearing to be as feeding in this field. It worked really well too so if the crows stay away they must see something. If you are not  camouflaged correctly you are in deep doo doo. I used to hunt with someone who always wore that NATO camouflage of the eighties.( The only ones wearing it was America so that made it 'NATO" right?) And that green stood out among the brown oak leaves and dull yellow marsh grass as if he was holding out a red flag!!! 

You got to camouflage your hands and face too.

 On yet another note:once i wore a WW2 marine reversable poncho on the green side in front of an apple tree and it was green and the crows never saw me! But I had to move to shoot the gun at it however. i don't recommend that style of shooting but it works!

Kevin:

You're right on with that observation of not having your owl decoys higher than the crow decoys.  The crow fears the talons of the owl and to cede altitude to your clawed foe is foolish.

In a prior life and wanting to earn my membership into the Texas Crow Patrol, I fashioned a collapsing and camouflaged PVC pole with an owl decoy on the top section. With a post hole digger and ten minutes I could put the ominous owl decoy I called the "PODS" for Portable Owl Decoy System, at about 22 feet, certainly at the top of the commercial pecan orchards we hunted.  What could possibly go wrong?!

Shortly I observed the same thing you did - crows will not fly below a perched owl.  So, your crow targets will certainly be 'jacked up' by the height of any owl decoy you deploy.  I know this to be a world standard, like the values in the atomic chart.

Continue to put your owl decoy from 0 to 8 feet off the ground and, I might suggest, have a Halloween bat with flapping wings in the talon area of owl decoy. Nothing focuses the attention of an inbound crow like the image of one of his bubba's squirming in the grips of the talons of the pesky owl.  Keep your shot gun magazine fully loaded.