I was solo and shot 74 and retrieved 67 crows. 25 degrees out Wind - NW-5 mph. Used 109 20 gauge hulls = 68% average.
April 5th.
Tom Rund & I shot 102 crows from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Flyway shoot.
I shot 62 and Tom shot 40. 45 degrees out, Wind - S-10-15 mph. I used 122 410 gauge hulls with a 5/8th ounce of # 9 shot = 51% average. 2 1/2 inch hulls. I used a full choke Winchester model 42 pump gun.
April 6th.
Boyd & I shot 100 crows from 7:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. Flyway shoot, Wind - S-SE-20-25 mph. 60 degrees out. We both used 410's I used 81 2 1/2 inch hulls in # 9 shot = 61% average, we both shot 50 each.
April 10th.
I made a notation in my first log book that most of the crows are gone now, headed back to Saskatchewan, Canada. We went on 59 crow hunts that season and averaged 60 crows per hunt.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
HHmm...let's see now, what states? I know it's critical not to be more specific and that is totally understandable....were those areas good before? Were they a return visit to these areas whatever? Did you return later with a different shotgun and did better or was it the weather conditions?
My biggest draw back or handicap at that area I used solo last year was that all the crows save 99% came out of the south or behind me as it was a goose blind...which resembled a miniature farm stand...no one would see the crows anyways as the leaves would prevent it....but at the time there were few leaves indeed....
I meant until the crows were right on top of me; I wouldn't otherwise see where exactly they were coming from the south of me....if they swung around and down that is how i could shoot at them. Naturally any coming from the north or east I could pick right out and get ready..
Well now , having such great areas to shoot well if i had the kind of numbers in my area that some of you do then I wouldn't leave that area at all....unless-here again-I would want to shoot 2-300 crows each time out...
Anyways what kills me is that in the late 70s my shooting was just plain old every day lousy. Today i would have racked up a hundred each time out until it got dry. What was cool was they really poured down into that old area after by and large pheasant season was largely over and the hunters were now in the woods looking for deer...now with all the orange leaves and frost on the pumpkins I could see flocks of a hundred here and there and i knew it was time to set up!
However-again-I never hit that many in those days...but many of you folks in here would have shot a considerable amount compared to my shooting then...
In your areas in the plains like that you could do that with the little bore .410s...you had crows like hailstones! Up here it would have been difficult at least for me specifically-I don't have that kind of skill or crow numbers..I'd need to use a .20 gauge at as the smallest to shoot crows. Now i know there is always someone who can use the smaller bores and do very very well with them...I would love to be able to do that. Easier to lug the extra ammo of .410s for me would be fantastic! But; here there is plenty of competition...even to the east some where i won't name....things have to be done differently...very few of us can find an isolated spot specifically to shoot crows in this region. This is also why I use the techniques I do that are non-standard-others use the same areas I do or have...they won't come in! But using my techniques they do and have! Nothing like you folks much out of new england in numbers of course but my techniques work!
If you got competition then you got to be adaptable...or use the same area again and again! I used to and the field was so big I could use a different set up 300 yards away with the same results! Different calling techniques...after all four corners were used up then it was time to find another area altogether...and those were the days!
I love those memories!
So keep sharing what you got; I eat it up! (yeah-I "eat" crow!)
What stood out in your post is when you said if you had the same conditions now as in the 1970's you could have shot a hundred crows or more on some of those hunts. I know where you are coming from, it's called "the learning curve" everyone goes through it when they are first starting out.
Jerry Byroad used the 410's a lot because he, like you, had to walk into many of his locations and he could haul much more ammo using the 410 bore. Jerry not only hunted in Maryland but also hunted in New York State and Pennsylvania. Jerry only shot the 3 inch 410 shells with the 3/4 ounce load of 7 1/2's. Boyd my old partner shot the same load out of his model 42 Winchester. I hand loaded the 2 1/2 inch hulls because I got loads of them from the skeet range for free! I used the 5/8th ounce load in # 9 shot.
Over the years I have had on rare occasion an old friend from back east come visit me during hunting season out here. They get worn out because they are just not used to such volume shooting. They love the wide open spaces out here where you can drive right to where you intend to setup. It is rare out here that you have to walk into a spot more than just a few yards away.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
A quarter mile hike was and is typical. Around here the farmers don't want you using any vehicles in their fields.
I recall snap shooting I think it is called. Where it is pure instinct. I don't know where i learned to do it but that is the only shot I don't seem to miss. But this type of shot isn't comon for me, I generally know what direction they are coming from.
It is breath taking to see a hundred or more crows about 2,000 feet up dropping like bombs with their wings folded to see what is going on. Initially i'd hear a crow calling faintly away and naturally my bloodshot eyes scan the horizen puzzled...where are THEY? Suddenly i look straight up and it looks like fleas! I start mouth calling and in they come! This isn't the spooky crows who don't get that high when visiting the fields; these are the migrants for some reason at that height. Not all migrants around here go that high, but on a beautiful sunny day with some long drawn out clouds will...on heavy winds i have seen them zip over at nearly tree top level...any ideas? Do they do this in your area?
Never understood the logic in saying no vehicles on the fields after the crops are out. To much inbreeding I think, they drive a combine over those fields, tractors too, so how is a pickup going to hurt anything?
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
Well now you got me there Bob (again!) I have seen in example one fellow drive his pick up out to one spot of this field and another field even bigger they don't allow any vehicles even as you observed; a tractor was out there and it was!
Some farmers don't seem to have any common sense and hug trees and others I don't know regarding vehicles...I could drive i think along side this one field and i would but there really isn't enough crows there anyways...a lot for these folks who are quite content shooting 30 every now and then and that is cool but i have to go about 2 hours and that isn't enough for me...again some more info on .410s...trouble is around here the ammunition is the same price as a box of .12ga. or a twenty!
Out here a box of 3 inch 410's are more expensive than 20 or 12 gauge skeet or trap loads. I used to reload the 2 1/2 inch 410 gauge hulls with 5/8th's of an ounce of # 9's. You could reload 410's pretty cheap back in the 1970's & 80's.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
One more thing, I have only run into a few of those screwballs over the past 47 years out here. When ever they set rules like that I just move on, after all it is there land and what they say goes!
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
Well years ago what got me was these fellows stopping their vehicles-usually a pick up truck-and racing across a field and trying to ambush these geese before they knew what was going on...well i knew these folks ( knew these farmers a little) and anyways I knew the farmer wasn't going to appreciate that unless they asked permission first; oh sure today you can see geese out there after the corn is down but it means little, the land is now posted!
Even so I do't know how a guy can run 300 yards and expect the geese not see him coming and somehow manage to get off a steady shot all out of breath and all!
About the crows? By this time the crows were few and far between...they weren't there anymore despite all that corn...!
I can relate to you talking about some of your hunting areas in NH that have gone away over the years. Things change over time, you just have to change with them. Here in Hutchinson when I first came out here in 1968 the roost at Medora had very close to two million crows! Six years later when I moved out here a home builder started building homes on some of the roost property and as a result about half the crows never came back after that. The main roost was on a whole section of ground one mile long by one mile wide, nothing but caltalpa trees! The builder bought 160 acres to build on which was one quarter of that roost, still there was a million plus crows from 1974 to 1984. By 1984 I could see that every season less and less crows were coming to Medora; by 1988 I knew it was not going to last! By 1990 it was finished, St. John in Stafford County was finished in 1984 because the farmers pushed out the roost over there with a bulldozer! That roost in Stafford County had a million plus crows too, it was 37 miles west of Hutchinson.
I hunted crows in Sedgwick County with Boyd Robeson since 1978, that was down by Wichita. That is where Boyd & I shot the 859 crows in one day. Jim Lundquist & I had a few 600 plus bird shoots down there. By 2000 Wichita was finished because they were hazing the crows that roosted in the city limits.
All my crow hunting is out of state now, you either go where the crows are or quit.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
