I have been hunting quite a bit lately! I don't have any decoys yet, and have been running and gunning on the river off the boat. It has been working great, but like most people say I get one to two shots and that's it per spot. The average number of crows I call in is usually 10-15 per spot, and a couple times I have had 25-50 come in. I have set up probly 25 times and have only had 1 stand that didn't produce crows. My question is if I change to a feeding spread with say two dozen decoys with the number of times they come back increase?? What is a good feeding e-call?
feeding setups usually take some good "come here" calls and gathering calls. You want to avoid fighting calls until you think the spot is getting shot out through the day. Crow Gathering, Crow Party, Crow Duet are some I like also on FoxPro they have 2 named Crows and Crows2 both ive used with success. The old johnny tapes like crow reveille was also a great gathering tape. Hopefully some more experienced guys hop on here and give ya some ideas!
I would say that, in general, the number of times "crows will come back" anywhere during a given stand or over weeks and months diminishes quickly. They become call shy, and decoy shy, and tell all of their friends to avoid the location and not to be fooled. Keep in mind, their intelligence and communication ability is ridiculous. You are not going to fool the same crows very many times, and they will pass on information to other crows and even offspring that have never encountered your wrath.
Hey thanks guys for all the info in what feeding calls work best. I guess I wasn't that spacific in my first post sorry, but what I was asking is will I get more follow up shots on feeding spread vs run and gun the first time or two I hunt a new area? Since I am not really in a fly way, but what that said there are abundance of families in the 10-15 strong groups where I live
If there are only a few groups of crows in any specific area you will generally get the same number of chances at them whether you are R&G style hunting or feeding set up style. Dont expect the crows to stick around any longer just because you have decoys out.
If you have a good area where they are guaranteed to come until you burn it; usually one hunt will do it, initially you just set out a few decoys-you won't need a lot here. you won't even have to call in a feeding set up however it's a good didea to be able to know how to answer any that do call as they come in. It's an art no question of it. I have heard crow calling that was grossly amateurish period-the big dummies just blew into their call like a trumpet...oddly sounded like ayoungc row...barely but ti worked...and they burne dthe place out....but the bottom line is to keep this in mind; dya one you will get as many as you can. day two; maybe one or two...day three; you will find yourself drinking coffee more than shooting...counting those geese flying 2.500 feet over head honking...don't haunt the area is the bottom line.
If you can do it? I use the trumpet like authoritative "ought-ought (pause) "ought'...when i hear an answer I follow with the raspier three call "Caaww...ccaaww...caww" not too long though-don't drag it out. But it is science. I prefer not to use e-callers or anything like that ...see I prefer "virgin' territory where calling is kept to a minimum. Think of it this way: you got a ton of crows? You get more crow hunters or wanna' bes. Don't botehr with fields where hunters are there often-a crow has no idea what they are about. A bang is bang period.
What i am saying is sooner or later everyone uses e-callers in an area full of crows and all you manage to do is to remind them of what not to come to...too many areas that were good or should have been went to hell in no time flat at that time-people got into shooting crows in an area that couldn't hold that many crow hunters- the crows would all leave within a week...therte certainly is a time and place for thr e-caller sthough and i have something like that. But these days i rarely use them. My moption deocys do all the work. The bets caller i have found? You won't believe this-it's the "cawlin' crow" PERIOD. Set this amongst your decoys(get the flocked one) and you won't have to do any calling and can just focus on shooting. It is the gold mine i had been waiting for...it is absolutely devatsating and works far better than those electronic calls....