Is it just me or is the afternoon much harder to hunt then the morning? I have tried a couple of times to hit the afternoons but can't really seem to get anything to come in other maybe 2 or 3. What do you all look for in an evening hunt? Will you hubt the same places that are good in the morning? Or will they not gather in the same places as they do in the morning? I haven't shot this place yet but it has always been a good morning area.
So maybe my best bet is to just do some scouting and run and gun in the afternoons if the oportunity presents itself. The public land I am hunting close to home is about 2k acres and I have never been on the 800 acre side so maybe I will finally scout it when it gets a little cooler and see if there are any spots I would like to set up for morning hunts.
The area of the country in which you are hunting crows is a big factor in the way you go about hunting them.
For example, as Island Shooter points out he does best when hunting during the morning hours when the birds are going out to feed. He I assume is hunting in pecan orchards and over peanut fields in his part of the USA. Now he is from the southeastern part of the USA, in the northeast where I was from I got decent shooting in the fall both in the morning and afternoon. Six years ago I hunted in Maryland and New York State with Jerry Byroad and we did ok both in the morning and afternoon because Jerry knew the area and the birds habits.
Jerry used to spend a month with me during the crow season out here in the central part of the USA. We were on my stomping grounds now and I knew the areas and the habits of the birds both during the morning and afternoon. If I got us in the right spot on a breezy day in the afternoon we would get some shoots that were out of this world in regard to shear numbers. The crows responded to the calls and wanted to take the place over they were so mad before they cleared the trees! Here again, it depends greatly on the section of the country you are hunting in as to how you plan to hunt them.
I see. I always assumed that location would change the hunting but didn't realize it would be to that extent. I am in central Kentucky But I still don't know enough about the crow habbits around here to really plan my strategy from am to pm hunts. So far I can tell a difference in the groupings from last winter but I am to understand that's normal. What is there intent for the afternoon? Do they only feed in the morning? I am fairly happy with how I am doing in the mornings even though I still need a lot of improvement but I just can't seem to figure out what they do in the afternoons. Any insight?
The crows feed before heading to the roost in the late afternoon also. The thing is, you have to be in an area where they have thousands of crows to do any good because you need lots of crows strung out over spaced intervals to really knock them dead. Once the move is on in the afternoon and you get the right wind conditions (10 to 15 or 10 to 20 mph) you can shoot hundreds of birds in a matter of just 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
Confirming Bob's comments, most of my hunting is in A)Pecan orchards, B)Peanut fields, C)Dove fields. All are areas where they feed vs. run & gun. AM is best in the S.E.
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The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.
Well I did finally find the local trash dump for my town. It's in the next county over but it's only about a 20 minute drive. This weekend I am going to be driving all around it and try to find a place to hunt. I would give anything for a triple digit hunt. I thought about looking into guided hunts for crow as long as I could get those kind of high numbers.
After 8 years of crow hunting, I have often been tempted to eat some crow meat just for the experience. While hunting in a dove field last year, I had made up my mind to finally take a couple of crows home with me and prepare a meal.
I had never shot this field that was located in a nearby small town. The property owner was hunting with me and we were talking about various things between flurries of birds. At one point after my remarking about the large number of crows, he said to me as he pointed to the direction they were coming from "Demi, we have a never-ending supply of crows here...our town dump is just a half mile in that direction!"
Needless to say, I quickly changed my plan and have yet to taste crow meat!!
Demi
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The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.
