We had a good hunt at one of the dove fields that I have been recruited to keep devoid of crows. This is one of our more productive fields because it is quite close to the County Landfill, so we can attract many of the crows headed to or returning from the dump. Maybe they want to rid the taste of garbage with some of the corn and sunflowers in this dove field.
We set up the blind and also put out sentry birds in the trees behind and on either side of our blind. The 25' bamboo pole with the hook-modified Flambeau decoys are the trick! In addition, we tossed one monofilament-tethered decoy over a nearby wire and finally put one decoy on top of the bamboo pole, leaning against a lone bare tree 50 yds. in front of the blind. Sorry, but I forgot to take any pictures of these.
The extra sentry birds seemed to be the trick. We used a total of 6 sentry birds plus our regular spread in front of the blind. Some of the incoming birds even landed near or above our sentry birds briefly before heading in to our spread. We had very few wary birds and the rest only flared once the shooting started. By the time the action slowed we had grounded 56 crows, with only one lost as he flew over the high fence before expiring about 500+ yds. away.
Note the (somewhat gruesome) picture of the crow we found which had a large wart-like growth in front of one eye. He was effectively blind in one eye, so we had and advantage over that one!
Demi
-- Edited by Island Shooter on Monday 12th of December 2016 03:10:34 PM
