Since its slow, how bout sharing your best Hunting time, doesn't have to be about numbers killed, just that great day afield after Mr. Crow.
Mine so far would have to be with the boys (Men) last fall had a lot of fun on this particular hunt. Started at 1:30a:m when we left, we started cutting up right out of the gate, seemed like everything we did from the 3hr drive to building blinds, hanging decoys something happened that was funny, we had good shooting and really dogged each other when we missed. Also got to see some excellent shooting too, but we still didn't give any credit just kept callig it luck and jawing at each other, and it was always 2 against 1 no matter who was on the hot seat. To many things happened this day to remember at one time and share, but if we had only killed 3 birds it wouldn't have mattered, this was the most I had laughed with the boys while hunting ever. Just hope we have a bunch more in the future!
Well i had many but my favorite was always one week before the opening of bird season so this was the last week of September in about 1977-78...I had the perfect blind; a hedge row that stretched out to the middle of the east field. You walked in and sat down on this big rock an d you could set your ammo alongside you, nothing exposed. No one even knew you could do that. No one else used it. Only your head and mine was thoroughly camouflaged was "exposed"...I had a length of hedge row in front of me where i put a decoy which was comical as I would watch a crow trying to land alongside this decoy but it was too heavy. Anyways in that day i wore Tiger stripe camouflage. I wanted others to see me as unique..and i was indeed (legend in my own mind syndrome). I wore a camou boonie hat and my shot gun was an Ithaca 12.ga. with an vent rib an orange bead front..
I was not a good shot in that day but to me shooting 14 crows even though I must have seen possibly 800 until 1:30 pm when it died down. It was always on a Friday and i worked 3rd shift. The size shot I think then was number 6...I didn't know any better...I always took 4 boxes with me...about a dozen decoys and an owl...the Ithaca featherlight was great only I wasn't good with it but it felt really good an di hit more with it than any other shotgun up to that point...the mossberg was ultra reliable but by comparison couldn't compare...felt way too heavy....I got outside the blind being a a dedicated Crow Shooting secrets book study-the author whose name escapes me -from Long Island a policeman-I went to pick up a dead one or rearrange it like the English do but in any case in came this flight of about 15(?)-it was non stop in those days. To the lower left front I bagged a double to my utmost amazement. It was years before i could again!
That day was very memorable indeed.
While there were days just as good elsewhere for me i never had such a blind again. But this was basically the peak of this crow area for what that was worth as within 5-8 years all that dried up...the dumps -in my views-would anchor them and now they blew on by to their wintering grounds in the general Boston area...other hunters had also began to pheasant hunt so this too didn't help. Still they were around but not there...that area was only a one day shoot and you had to beat pheasant season. Later on it was still good but nothing like that day..that last Friday before october 1st... Later on else where there was better hits and more numbers on the ground but there was nothing like that..in the 70s...
I remember so many it's hard to know where to start.
I had a hunt with Jerry Byroad a number of years ago where we did not bring any water and it was really to hot to hunt that day. It was 94 degrees outside by noon time and we quit at 3:30 p.m. with 456 birds down. We stopped by a farm house and asked if we may have some water, they invited us in and I think I would have paid $ 5.00 a glass I was so thirsty. It did not start to get dark until 7:30 p.m. at that time of year and Jerry wanted to set up again in a different spot for a flyway shoot, I said I'm wore out, lets get them tomorrow! It's funny the things you remember.
I remember a shoot with the late Jim Lundquist back in the early 1980's where I had to run to town because we were almost out of ammo! By the time I got back Jim had shot an additional 135 crows while I was gone. Jim would not pick up his shotgun until I shot 135 crows and then we traded off on each pass. We ended the day with over 600 crows in the bag.
My two best solo hunts were back in 2010 where I shot 711 one day (two setups, one morning, one afternoon) and two days later shot 834 in one spot all day long.
In 2001 or 2002 I took Drew Moore on a week long crow hunt. He wrote an article about it called Ole Time Crow Shooting in the 21st Century. Drew was from Kentucky and posted on the Bulletin Board quite a lot in those days. He had the time of his life, we got not one but two five hundred bird shoots on that safari. Both were from one spot, never moved a step. One was an afternoon shoot and one was at a different location in a feeding area. We shot just shy of 2,000 crows in 6 days.
I remember my first big time crow hunt, it was in the very late 1970's and I was solo that day. It was a morning hunt and by noon time I was out of ammo. I had shot 410 crows with 623 20 gauge skeet loads in # 8 shot out of a model 12 20 gauge. I was to far from home to make a run back to the house. I could have shot for another couple of hours that day, I wanted to set my hair on fire I was so mad at myself for not having more ammo in the truck that day.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
At that time my attention was drawn to the dumps of the time. All the crows would congregate there..when it looked dike no crows anywhere but a few in the fields, here was the place to go. And it was always hot! When Monday came you went back to the cornfields. Nobody around; it was hot again! Bu to be smart you didn't haunt the fields. I knew someone who did and he destroyed the quality of the hunt. This individual sat out there all day long day in and day out..he educated crows and they would leave that area..he ruined another area too...he was a great scarecrow..he is retired now because he weren't about to drive 2 hours to go where one needed to be these days...the only other alternative was to sit in the woods somewhere and listen for migrating crows and call them in...shooting up through the trees..and that isn't too cool...you got to be really fast..
anyways at that time you had a great time until about late october....the crows were moving on..but when the dumps folded it was all over...area had a thousand locals or so...today that same area holds about a dozen generally, the 50 or so a little north of that once hot area is all dried up...the crows didn't die off, they simply didn't hang around anymore...until eventually they left for good...I found them all right...they just don't hang around-they blow ion by and otherwise stay further north if conditions permit...but fir the neighborhoods they roost in for the winter? It is filthy with bird bombs in a nightmare that would seem impossible...
The most birds i n any given hunt given new Hampshire was about 55 birds and damned if i can remember about where..had to be the old Keene area before they stuffed that plaza out behind the C company state police and fish and game department..I don't remembe rbut exactly but it was in that area..maybe even south east in the old soccer field that wans't there...a local farme rlaughing said :"I don't think that was leagl!" Buyt no oen bothered us...anyways I couldn't believe it. I cannot remember all the individual shots it went so fast. I don't remember but for a lot of shooting and this was the late 80s..really really weird. the gun barrel got wicked hot, and now that area is gone too...the northwest area replaced it towards where the now Wal-Green price chopper plaza now is..that area was really great too...you could count on a twelve bird shoot there...always some...but the birds have shifted where they hang out and it's all two hour drives now...the areas I used to go still has quite abit of cornfield but today you won't see more than a few crows anywhere in fall..they just don't frequent those areas anymore...and oddly ironically most of the land is posted...or else I wouldn't be saying anything now about it.
But in its' hey day it was incredible...I'd take my standard four boxes but get only about a dozen even though I'd have seen hundreds...you can doubt me but where they all hang out now the area is posted so badly they might as well call it No Trespassing town....there is a "tiny" sliver of property you can go after asking permission in the area I used to frequent but there's really nothing there but Canadian geese and "puddle ducks"...the only ones hunting it now are Vermont waterfowl enthusiasts..where the land isn't posted of course..
I did find out that an old stomping ground does have crow activity but nothing like the 70s.. a place to go if i get bored offering sporadic shooting is about it...maybe i will take up water fowling again if i go back to keep from falling asleep? Steel shot isn't terribly expensive and they'll fold a crow too...
Ironically if the land is posted on one side of the river you get a non resident license and go on the other!
The aforementioned area is so posted that the only place people can walk is the sidewalk or stores and parking lots without being guilty of trespassing anywhere! You just won't believe it! Even walking down the road-you better not get off the state property!
And the peoples' attitudes there? Goes with the territory is putting it mildly...unless you are in the hospital...it is no mans' land...and I am talking dressed like anyone else no camouflage...it is pretty cold...year round!
Some oen in Bawstin' once wrote calling "New Hampshire an unfriendly meddling state neighbor" well it's too far north to impact Bawstin' any but otherwise that individual must have visited that area because he sure described at least that part of the state! That is before we ask what the REAL speed limit IS! Very,very fast to put it mildly!
I had a hunt with Boyd Robeson at a local hog farm where the hogs were fed outside. We would keep our eyes on this one sow that would point like a hunting dog when the crows were coming. That sow knew a free meal came from the air! Those hogs would shred those crows to pieces.
I forgot my shotguns one morning (was in to much of a hurry) and used one of Boyd's backup model 12 20 gauges.
The only other time I forgot my guns was in the early 1980's. I had both of them leaned up against the outside of the garage wall. When I got to my hunting destination (about a half hour drive from my house) I got ready to unload the truck and could see no guns! I missed a good one that afternoon, it looked like the ground was moving there were so many crows on the move! Since most flyway shoots only last 2 1/2 hours it was pointless to drive home and try to return. I just drove home hoping my guns did not get stolen! I was lucky, they were both still there!
I was hunting out of state four years ago when the land owner was sitting right next to me in the blind. Three crows came in and just as I killed the third bird the land owner fell backwards off his bucked and out the back end of the blind flat on his back. He was bleeding like a stuck hog, I asked him what happened, he said "your second crow came right into the blind like a lawn dart and it's beak wend right through my right ear" what an experience that was to say the least!
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
I remember one time with Jerry Byroad a pair came in and just about a fraction of a second after I killed the second bird I got clocked by the first bird.
Jerry was laughing and said "don't blame me"
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
Here is a story about my old crow hunting mentor Boyd Robeson.
Boyd was friends with a motel owner here in Hutchinson back in the late 60's to early 70's when he took him on an afternoon flyway shoot. You know how when a pair of crows come in and at the last moment they crisscross when two guys are shooting. Well if each shooter does not stay on his side there can be a problem. This is what happened in the excitement of the moment, the motel owner was not a seasoned shooter and blew Boyd's barrel off!!
Boyd told me he was shooting a Winchester model 12 12 gauge Diamond grade when all of a sudden the butt stock came loose from the receiver faster than you can blink your eyes! Boyd at first did not know what had just happened! The shot charge from the motel owners shotgun bent Boyd's barrel 45 degrees with a nasty looking kink in the barrel. Needless to say the motel owner paid Boyd for a new barrel!
This is why I like to take turns when hunting crows, especially when things get crazy on a hot shoot. A guy always shoots better when he knows he has the birds all to himself.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
Yeah about crows criss crossing...I say to my partner :"OK" when he says "you take the one on the left..etc."...always they switch sides at the last second-never works..but this is kind of funny..maybe...sometimes crows still come in while my partner is returning to the blind(all natural) and there's one way in...I alert him and he bends over and i shoot the crow above him which nails him in the back!
Anyways he says predictably:"THAT HURT!"...So I know he is going to shoot one for me from above...we have done that to one another...wasn't deliberate but i Said:"You are gonna' PAY for that!" But I was joking...but charma proved me wrong...'WHAMMO!"...So later i discussed wearing a helmet....!
One thing these days is that we use individual blinds, just a wrap like a horizontal bed sheet made of burlap camou tied between trees....putting crow decoys a little further out stopped that bomb drop idea too...the thing i do now that gets his goat a little is when a crow crosses his blind...well my shot spreads better being a little further away so....as I am using high brass to cycle my 11-87 my ejected rounds have a tendency to to nail him...I was surprised...I thought that a little far away for that!
I just thought of this; want to know his political leanings? He is always on my RIGHT!
