As many of you know Bert was an outdoor writer and author of over 10 books on hunting varmints during the 1940's through the very early 1970's before he passed away. I spoke with him over the phone quite a bit from 1974 to around 1976. I invited him to come down here from South Dakota but his health would not permit it.
Bert racked up (a direct quote from him) somewhere between eighty to ninety thousand crows over a 45 year period. I used to read about him long before I ever moved to Kansas in 1974. I couldn't imagine anyone shooting that many crows when I was 14 years old and still living in New York State.
Now after being out here in the plains states for 42 years I just shot my 158,000th crow this season. It's quite possible that with in the next three years I will have shot twice the amount of crows that Bert Popowski did during his 45 year run. Now to be fair Bert had only a manual mouth call in those days and having an e-caller is a big edge on a flyway shoot. Now the edge he had was that all the crows in those days were not spooky because not every Tom, Dick or Harry could use a hand held crow call effectively.
I can remember when I first started coming to Kansas in the late 1960's before I moved here, all the crows were soft in those days. From 1968 to 1973 I never kept track of the amount of crows shot during those years. I ran into Boyd Robeson in 1973 north of Hutchinson and I came back a month later and we hunted together for the first time and the rest is history. I moved out her the following year and the stage was set for some of the best crow hunting that you could ever imagine in those days.
So the point to all this is that time goes by very quickly, so make the most of it while you still have your health.
Couldn't agree more: Count all your blessings--including downed crows! And when you get skunked, consider it a blessing (as you mention, Bob) that you were even able to get out into God's wilderness.
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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
The average man sees big changes around him after age 50 if he is observant. Death and limited mobility of loved ones, friends and neighbors starts to pick up speed with each passing year. The average life expectancy for a male age 60 is only 19 years on average. Sure some of us will live longer, others not. For those that enjoy hunting it is a sobering thought ask yourself how many opening days do I have left.
Many of us on here have more hunts behind us than in front of us. Get out when you can.
Bert Popowski was indeed the father of modern crow shooting. As a young boy I read his book "Crow Shooting" cover to cover many times. This book was in my fathers library as he was somewhat a crow killer in his day as well. Not a shotgunner, but rather accomplished the task with a 22 Hornet. Today this book graces my collection.
Popowski did rack up a notable lifetime collection of kills,, however, all of this was accomplished with vintage pump guns, substandard ammo...if he could find it during rationing era of WWII as with gasoline, poor clothing and footwear, and none of the modern conveniences we take for granted today.
Most notably, Popowski did not have any any of the electronic gadgetry we use today to lure crows into shotgun range. He did all his "de-crowing"...as Skip Woody would put it, with the aid of only mouth calls. I'm sure if bert Popowski was alive and in the field today, with modern equipment, he would be a savage predator to the Common Crow!
Ted
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Life's tough... It's even tougher if you're stupid. John Wayne
Bert's time was also limited as he was working as a school teacher after world war two ended. When he could get away he hunted with Red Watt out of Omaha Nebraska which was not to bad a drive from South Dakota even in those days before they had interstate highways. They had a roost big enough for Bert to travel to Omaha as often as he could get away in those days. He even hunted crows in Reno county where I live in Kansas years before I even started to come out here from New York State. Bert hunted around Hutchinson (he told me over the phone in the mid 1970's) in the late 1950's.
Ted has a good point about the ammo being in short supply during the war but that was but a small segment of Bert's crow shooting carrier when ammo was hard to lay your hands on. You are only talking about perhaps 5 years out of 45 (that Bert hunted) that ammo was in short supply for crow hunting.
Bert was a very decent guy to talk to over the phone. The timing was not right, by the time I started to get to know him he was just to old and his health not very good, he passes away in 1977.
In Bert Popowski's time four wheel drive pickups were as rare as hens teeth in those days, almost all were two wheel drive which meant you had to hoof it in much more often in those days if the ground was soft. You are very limited if you are off road with just a two wheel drive vehicle.
My dad used to have a 12 cylinder Packard touring car as his hunting rig after the war ended in 1945. I remember that car with the big head lamps and running boards on it. That old Packard was a pretty good off road vehicle in it's day.
Getting back to Bert Popowski and the hunting he did from 1925 to the early to mid 1960's was a different time. I look back on the shooting during the early to mid 1980's now and think of it as a different time! It is just amazing how fast time goes when one is engrossed totally in hunting crows!
Boyd Robeson summed it up the best, he said "if your gonna hunt crows you need the time, the money and the know how if you want to do well"
