Happy new year to all. I been having trouble getting crows to come in when pressure is high. They flying around won't even look at my setup. Anyone else have this problem.
Oh yes , haunting the area will educate the crows so well that once in a whiles one might get one or two..I knew this area now all dried up where this one hunter haunted it until no more crows came in or for that matter even flew anywhere near the place...
Now that same location my partner and i looked and 300 something crows or thereabouts all got up at once and left not returning for the rest of the day or again that season...when they do that around here say getting on to November it's over period...they hanging about with the old masters now and what they say goes...then you've got to find a flyway for ALL your shooting. And far enough away so you don't cause the roost to move. Someone on here shot up a roost and the roost move a bit of a distance away. In my view not terribly smart. What do you want to do?Spend half an hour to go to the new roost or just keep it 5 minutes down the road?
That is what happened here years ago when we had crows...eventually the area dried up as there was no more food being produced to hold that many crows for what it was worth , at the time, about 150....?
I know that isn't many but for around here not terribly bad...
Another story was a huge roost for years out in the plains states until some wizards shot it out of existence when the best thing to do was to just wait under some flyway and have crows around all the time at any point on the compass now they got to travel quite a distance and no one knows where that particular roost went!
As of right now I have to travel 2 hours one way to get 20 crows on their way to the smallish roost...now I can go two hours to shoot a flyway of thousands of crows realistically knowing I might score a hundred if everything else holds true...
I'm sorry I should have been more clear about the pressure part. Baramertic pressure was what I wanted to say. Not many hunters at all that I know of in my area
I have had good shoots in both high and low pressure days.
Agree. If you equate barometric pressure to high = good/decent weather and low = crummy weather; both the crows and me will stay home if it's really lousy outside, or too windy (>15 mph). Cold doesn't count, unless the snow gets too deep to make it to my sites--which doesn't take much with a 2-wheel drive truck.
Oh yes, "Hunting pressure" sucks also.
-- Edited by Old Artilleryman on Saturday 2nd of January 2016 03:22:34 PM
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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
If the crows are staying too high so to speak it's either migration or else you got competitors.....and in migration should be no problem; I never had a migratory bird fail to answer my calling. You have to call migratory ones as they will keep moving on if you don't...but I have spotted them at the last minute and caught them before they went out of range....I love to do this as first they are a tiny flea sized speck in the sky then they fold their wings and drop like bombs opening them after a dozen feet from ground zero...it is quite breathtaking. Don't worry as sometimes I take their breath away too...
The best days for me are during the Fall migration and they happen when there is a high pressure system in place. Those days when birds are moving in large numbers and seem to endlessly keep coming to the call and decoys happen on what waterfowlers would call a bluebird day, which is a high pressure system. When we have a day during our fall migration that has bright sun, blue skies and a wind out of N, NW, or NE you better get out in the field, have lots of shells, food and something to drink in your truck, you'll be shooting crows all day long.
Haven't seen a lot of what I would call migratory birds. I have in years passed just not this year. No big flyways. Just run of mill local crows. I don't hunt a spot but maybe once a month and some times they come in great and sometimes they don't. And on them days I have noticed the barometer is higher. Thanks for all the input. I'll stay after them.
I always found crows to be "fair weather" creatures. Bad weather can work to a shooters advantage as well... especially along flyway situations. I think the actions you describe are those of educated crows.
Ted
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Life's tough... It's even tougher if you're stupid. John Wayne
If you have found a likely good crow area don't you suppose others have not either...I went back to this one area and got a really "nice' shock....the crows totally ignored me and right away I noticed the little roost was non existent-the crows were always there and checking things out....always a few watchful eyes to drive off whatever bald eagle came along or the ever present red tailed hawk...I noticed too the crows weren't just high cruising over they were pretty high! I knew the boys had been back...oh well, it was always their territory so what could I do?
The moral of the story is never hunt obvious places everyone else uses regarding crows!
Years ago no one knew you could get the police permission to hunt this dump that was otherwise off limits when not open. No one could see you and therefore no one knew....the shooting was fantastic for what it is worth given this area and all that....but the farm barely a mile away the crows would openly go when absolutely no one else was there! This area all the locals hunted getting one or two crows a day....you could drive by on a week day and see lots of crows but if the orange vesters should show up-bingo-all would lift from the field as one and off to the south they went!
Very unfortunate as that farm was a pheasant, goose and deer area so to speak...
I found this great cornfield north of here but every time I went there was always somebody there hunting pheasant...few crows would go there anyways....another clue..if you don't mind popping a crow here and there you'd be happy. But for me? Too far to go for just one crow. I won't do it. I don't summer hunt either...used to but then there were always crows around so hit and run was a lot of fun....this area then had a lot of corn growing...I lived between the feeding area and the roost....again-all that is gone now....the hot spot now is all posted and guess what? More crows than I had ever seen in person!
Well what are you going to do?
M12 you may be right. Going to a fresh spot Saturday They giving a little chance of rain so maybe it will all come together. We can only hunt Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Tennessee
At the time the "little' roost had about 50-100 birds to my right; this is the one the boys annihilated..they didn't kill every last one of course but made sure the crows would not come back! So anyways they all became part of the bigger roost about a half mile to the north where the boys couldn't hit it-too close to houses. So that fact alone anchored the crows but now you couldn't get them anyways as mentioned before.
M12 you may be right. Going to a fresh spot Saturday They giving a little chance of rain so maybe it will all come together. We can only hunt Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Tennessee
Nothing like shooting fresh crows...although I would think by the time they get down south most crows have had a run in with shotguns. That 3 day crow thing defies logic IMO.
Ted
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Life's tough... It's even tougher if you're stupid. John Wayne
Couldn't help but think about this picture.. A result of some "high pressure"...
Idea for our friendly Mods who run the main site:
establish a place there to locate "mutant crow" photos. We have them: of this bug-eyed fella, various cruddy tumors around the eyes and feet, piebalds, one-legged, etc.
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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
