I have not been here much, but, I thought I'd stop by and show off a few photos of my ground blind I am once again using. I busted a lot of Crows last year and years before in this location and I'm eagerly awaiting the season to start here in Maryland on the 15th of August. It's a very simple design with camo burlap and I ziptied some old fallen tree branches together for a frame. Previous years have just been old brush and cut limbs piled up, but, this year I thought I'd try the burlap.
This is another ground blind I have with a flip up roof. It's 52" x 52" and constructed out of 2 x 2 frame with a tarp and camo burlap for walls and roofing. Lots of Crows, Geese and Deer have been taken from this blind.
I don't know who else here reloads their own shotshells, but, I do make some fine Crow Hammers on my reloading bench. I use some 2-3/4" and mainly 3" hulls with #4 Copper Plated and #6 Lead in a 1-1/4 oz Win AA wad and 26 to 30 Grains of Hodgdon Clays powder. The gun of choice is my Mossberg 930 with a Mod. choke.
Also attached a few photos from last years hunts with my old Mossberg 500.
Not many Crows here in Western Southern Maryland, but, every hunt is a rewarding and extremely fun hunt.
As for decoys, I use a large combination of tactics. Standard standing decoys, flying decoys, I have a Hawk and an Owl also, I modified a battery powered Dove decoy, and I also built my own caller with a car stereo CD player, 60 watt speaker and a car battery. You can never too many "gimmicks". The two liter coke bottle with Rabbit fur is the real winner mixed with the Flyers from Knutson's.
Very clever,creative, well rounded out...about not having a lot of crows in your area? Maryland is a crow hot spot which is all I am allowed to say with out getting my bacon chewed off!
I don't know about "hot spot", maybe somewhere North of DC, but, it sure isn't Southern Maryland. I have been chasing Crows my whole life and as usual, I have about 2 hours to get the job done and my days are over before 8am. I usually hunt them all four days of the week, but, I'd never call this area a hot spot.
