Shot approximately a 400 acre picked bean field surrounded by 700 acres of picked corn. These are large wide open fields which have posed problems with us and did so today. Temps were 37 at daylight, overcast and some layered fog. Birds woke up and we put around 10 on the ground then what I didn't want to happen did, a murder of 40 plus came across widest part of the field and we only killed 3 and educated the rest. After that they came in groups no larger than 10 an mostly 4 or less, the way I like it. Picked up 51 and counted 12 that fell in ruff stuff for a total of 63 which is the best we've done on this property. Had a equipment tragety, Son made a direct hit on the paint pole which had our high decoy right after first light and took 10 feet off of it.(lol) Was able to rig it back but it will go to the dump now. We were able to bring about a fourth of the high birds down into range, that's main problem we have is them getting high. Our blinds were good and we had birds trying to land in the set so some things went good to. We shot alright but have shot better, Son took his Browning Citori and found out breaking it open in a small blind doesn't work well and went to the Versa Max after maybe 30 minutes. It was nice to leave home at 4 am for a change,had a great time and maybe learned a little more on these big crop fields. I think my Son took some pics and if so will post them later.
How many decoys did you use, and did you vary your placement? Wondered if you tried using Lay Out Blinds, as they work very well for me here in NC when Crow hunting our large fields. Also interested if you or your son, felt that you needed to reconsider your use of different ckoke tube on a day such as that one, however, it sounds that it turned out rather nicely. Good gunning.
Welcome to the forum.
We had I think 10 on the ground and 7 in the trees, the ones on the ground were scattered in front of blinds to simulate feeding. We do change chokes as conditions call for it, but for the most part we stay with modified. The layout blinds would work well I think but I prefer to sit in a blind for comfort and the thermos of coffee (lol). We are still in the learning process on crows and from what I've learned so far that won't change. Again Welcome and I look forward to your posts.