Was just thinking about this. Has anyone or does anyone let them land in your decoys? I have shot them when they are coming into land maybe 10-15 feet from the ground. I use feeding setup and soft calling for the most part so they come in nice and slow looking to join the decoys. I am gonna try it this year and see how long it takes then to realize they are decoys. Has anyone let one or two land and wait for a couple more to showork up before shooting?
We have let them land before but that can be dangerous.. Reason, because you may hit the decoys when you shoot.. and you may be watching him and miss a group that comes in.. we normally just "harvest" any as soon as they get above the decoy spread..
Yeah that's what I was thinking. Pet them land then take a passing shot at the next bird to come in and take the landed birds as they try to leave.
The only ones I shoot on the ground are hoppers/walkers. If a bandit happened to land in range, I would be hard-ressed to not shoot it. And yes, one can hit decoys on the ground. Here's a battle-scarred one of mine. It's just like the dueling scar on my left cheek that I acquired during University at Heidelberg.
-- Edited by Old Artilleryman on Monday 31st of August 2015 02:37:17 PM
I never shoot at a crow amongst the decoys ...always try to blast them in the air-if it happens? Well heckle and jeckle ain't gonna' sit there why I shoot at its' buddies to be sure...if this is your style maybe you like buying more decoys?
A little old town west of me had a bad habit of shooting my decoys...one guy was loading up for another shot-one guy shot twice..carefully until I yelled:"HEY-what are you SHOOTING at?!?!?
That area is all plowed under and a nice little medical factory now sits upon it!
But the decoys were not destroyed but you could shake one and hear it rattle-new to me! That was years ago. Now i go where no one bothers me....well what were these fellows other wise hunting? Pheasants so I thought? I cannot imagine what a plastic decoys tastes like-oh well-to each their own!
A little old town west of me had a bad habit of shooting my decoys...one guy was loading up for another shot-one guy shot twice..carefully until I yelled:"HEY-what are you SHOOTING at?!?!?
That area is all plowed under and a nice little medical factory now sits upon it!
But the decoys were not destroyed but you could shake one and hear it rattle-new to me! That was years ago. Now i go where no one bothers me....well what were these fellows other wise hunting? Pheasants so I thought? I cannot imagine what a plastic decoys tastes like-oh well-to each their own!
Real Einsteins, eh?
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"Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave." -- Andrew Fletcher 1698
I got fooled by waterfowl decoys once but once i got close enough I could see they weren't REAL but these "einsteins" were almost on top of them...I don't get it...this was about 1988.I bet they are all dead now, one of them certainly is...you cannot be that old drinking all the time..yeah i met the first one...I started laughing at his apology...he was funny looking anyways...some old guy dressed in blue with what appeared to be a cabbie hat(with general Burnsides mustache and round glasses of a bygone era) of sorts and dressed in dark blue with an over under...I wished him good luck and he crossed the field and he actually got crows to swing my way instead of landing soon as they saw the field some 300 yards away or so...but the second one son the western side of the field were a pair alright-the fellow jumps out and starts shooting!
I rarely shoot one that is on the ground, certainly not amongst my decoys, as they are expensive at £8.50-£10.50 each :(
BUT, sometimes I take other shooters with me, and they find it "funny" to blast my decoys.
Then they can't understand why they never get another invite
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If it moves and is legal but also moral, SHOOT IT !!
I took a guy with me years ago who wanted to shoot one out of a tree where it lit with my decoys. I said don't do it, there is such a thing as fair chase (by not shooting a sitting bird) and he went ahead and shot it any way. I turned off the e-caller and started to take my decoys down out of the tree and he said "what are you doing" I said "your done" and I picked up loaded my gear into the pickup and it was a very cool drive back to town with this guy. I never hunted with him again because that really irked me the way he conducted himself.
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To listen to this radio talk show go to episode 12, Bob Aronsohn
Yeah I'm not going to shoot them while they are sitting amongst my decoys. Those things are $20-22 a piece. But if I let one land in them how long till it figures out they are fake and leaves? I'm hoping it's long enough to let another bird or two come into range and take those then take the one that among my decoys when it's Flys away.
I'm with Bob on this one. I know they are just crows but I've have learned to respect the crow just as much as any bird I've ever hunted. Honestly tho, I've never had em land in my decoys. Never have let them get that close. I can't physically do it. I get a crow close enuff it's breast feathers thru the back. If a pair comes in with 20 behind em I take the pair. Learned that lesson years ago. I have had young birds come in very low and probably would have lit but never made it to back peddling stage😜
We hit one hard on a shoot and he fell in the tree as we shot at others, We thought he was hung up in the forks of a small limb, tree was only about 20ft tall and about 25 yards in front of blind. About 2hrs later and a lot of shooting all around and thru this tree we began picking up the "carnage" I looked up an saw this crow move and told my son to shoot him and as he shot the crow made a valiant effort to fly away not showing any sign of the hard hit, Long story short he had set thru a hail of gun fire for a long time right in front of us and we never saw him move, don't know if he was that smart or just scared to death.
Back to the question, I like the soft shots when they try to land, makes up for the ones that turn into flying acrobats and make us look bad! (lol)
Guess Im in the minority here as far as shooting a flightless bird.
It does not happen all that often but I'll continue to do so. If I had a hunting partner that did not like the idea, I'd have no problem flushing them before busting them.
My goal before each hunt is to fool as many birds as possible. If birds are landing close, they are fooled. They all die the same.
