We were ready to re-try a dove field where we were "Trumped" on our last visit due to a Donald Trump rally across the street. The rally scared off all the crows, but it has been resting ever since. The map pin marks our blind location next to the circle of trees in the field. You can also see the landfill at the bottom of the picture. This dove field is pristine, with plenty of food, plus it is only about a half mile from the county landfill...aka: the perfect formula! After setting up the evening before, we showed up for the morning ready to make some crow snow!
Things started well with some common crows that were quickly dispatched, then the fish crows began to show up. If you have hunted them, they typically show up in larger groups, fly much higher and are a lot more wary than the common crow. The trick is to get one or two down on the ground and that usually brings the others swooping down within range.
The first group circled a few times and we eventually coaxed a couple close enough to introduce them to some #6 pellets. The rest went wild and when the dust settled we had killed 8 of them!
Not long after, we were visited by another group of fish crows that was a little larger. Same plan, but this time we were able to get 10 crows into the dirt! Although the flurry lasted only a couple of minutes, it was a real rush.
After that we worked hard to get a few commons and one more large group of fish crows to add to the count. This third group of fish crows added another 8 birds to the pile. When we took pictures we had 54 crows killed, but I stuck around and added 5 more for a TBC of 59 crows.
This hunt also gave me a chance to try out the "coat hanger method" of hanging sentry birds as has been detailed in a few of the much earlier threads. For a pole I used a 25' bamboo pole and it worked well, plus it gave me a support for a separate sentry bird. I like this system and it helped make our setup almost perfect with very few birds flaring on us.
Enjoy the photos. Note that we saw a couple of crows flying with what we thought were peanuts in their mouths. When we picked them up we found that they were acorns...a little odd.
Demi
-- Edited by Island Shooter on Thursday 3rd of November 2016 06:00:08 PM
Awesome start to another season in the Lowcountry! Would that happen to be the White's dove field? A few years ago Josh told me he had some pro's come out and work on the crow population, judging by your pictures and posts I'd consider you a pro!
Donald Trump.