Unless you are shooting in overcast skies you need to keep your dekes flat black or a minimal of shine...I had trouble with flaring crows one year because the owl I used was too shiny. So I put it in the shadow. Owl and hawk decoys can be dulled with a clear coating found at hardware or hobby stores."dull cote" is one such product.
Our decoy's are a yr. old, was cleaning them with WD-40 and wiping down with clean rag to take shine (did ok). Ordered a flocking kit and did all but a few, seemed to have helped, no shine at all. Only down side with the flocking, we have to be careful and pack in separate bags to keep them from rubbing together and damaging finish and keeping them out of any mud. They give me more confidence in our sets and I need all the edge I can get on Mr. Crow.
(clean rag to take shine off) sorry didn't want to retype.
Well we went as planned today! Started shootin' about 10:30 that's after we placed all 11 dekes.
Here's my old ugly mug, but of course we hid behind face masks so as not to scare the crows to death without shooting a shot!!
My hunting partner Charlie Thomas.
The Crows didn't have quite as good a view LOL!! We got our hands on 20 but we scratched down 4 others that sprouted legs like a turkey and ran over the mountain!
One we thought was dead and it was placed as a deke about 15 feet in front of Charlie, a half hour later, it all of a sudden came to life and flew almost in his face he turned around and put another load of 7.5's in his butt!
Used a sinker and fishing line to hoist dekes in trees they were about 25 feet up.
This is what the layout looked like from where I was sitting and there's a few dead crows in there also!
~CBHF~
PS: Sorry but it was hard to place the pics where I wanted! On my home forum it works a little different!
I might have to set up in the woods at one spot that I hunt. I've never done it, and the crows know me there and could be surprised by a plan like that.
Hopefully next week we will be in my territory on the Greater Kanawha River Valley where it's flat for 2500 yards in some places. I hope to be in the edge of the river bank with big fields in front of us. This place they mostly grow soy beans and corn! It's a major flyway for crows and all sorts of wild fowl!
I have a place where a fence row with trees meets the river bank should be fun stay tuned!
Yesterday we were on a knoll with very limited sight free of limbs. I kept telling Charlie we need to have better clearings for shots.
I'll bet there were 5 dozen shots we had to pass on because or tree limbs. It's hot because there is a landfill about 500 yards away! Actually by next year we plan to cut out about three or four trees and that will make it 100% better!!
There are a few areas I know of where a stream cuts through some hills and leaves an opening in the trees about 30 yards wide, might have to try that now
hey huntinfool saw on the classifieds your in mason county im from ohio just across the bridge from parkersburg best of hunting to you and welcome aboard.
