Killing a lot of crows in a day is always gratifying. But quantity is not the only prerequisite of good, and fun, crow hunting. Quality of the hunt is also required to have a good day in the field, including good weather, a lot of crows to shoot at, a good total score, and a high percentage of hits.
Thinking of the above, lead me to remember the highest number of kills that I have made, without a miss, when using a shotgun or rifle. With a shotgun my highest score was only 14, missed the 15th shot, and killed the 16th shot, making 15 kills in 16 shots. But about 5 years ago, I clearly remember killing about 30-40 without a miss. But I did'nt keep score. With a rifle, I killed 28 in a row, shooting from a car. The rifle was a Remington Model 40xb, chambered for .244 Remington cartridge. The shots taken were about 100 to 250 yards distance. I reloaded my ammo for the rifle, and it was very accurate. I still have some of the targets that I shot with it, and that was about 45 years ago. Ain't history fun!
Post some of your scores, and let's have fun with this topic.
I can't say for an entire shoot. But, I do remember killing 19 in a row once without a miss. I was hunting in a pecan orchard. My buddy Brian and I had had a good shoot killing about 60 I think. He had to leave to take his son to a football game leaving me alone. I simply made a layout blind so to speak and took a nap or 3. The crows were coming in slow and loud. It was so easy. Simply had 19 soft shots in a row coming straight in. All were singles.
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Taking them as they come my highest was 26 or 28 straight before I blew a shot; all one shot kills.
My highest percentage was with a 20 gauge back in the 1980's on an afternoon flyway shoot. I killed 99 crows with 104 20 gauge skeet loads out of a model 12 (Winchester) skeet gun bored WS-1. I was using either # 8's or 9's that day. It was close shooting and the birds were very soft.
Here are some stats from last week and part of this week.
January 25th 101 Dick & I Bob - 53 with 63 Trap loads = 84% Average.
January 26th 209 Dick & I Bob - 105 with 130 trap loads = 81% Average.
January 28th 198 Dick & I Bob - 103 with 120 trap loads = 86% average. This was the shoot where I shot 19 straight plus one pigeon which would make it 20 straight.
January 29th 88 Dick & I Bob - 43 with 49 trap loads = 88% average. On this hunt there were about 7 or 8 shot at point blank range; 20 to 30 feet from the muzzle.
January 30th 111 Dick & I Bob - 59 with 70 trap loads = 84% average.
By this time of year a guy is really "in the groove"
I believe mine is 14 in a row. I was dialed in that morning, with my Metro Maxus, and hunting by myself. Consequently, no birds were flaring from other shots and I could pick my shots without interference.
Bob, that is some remarkably good shooting! I have never had that kind of averages. Occasionally I do shoot 80%, or a little better, but not very often. If I scored with your consistency, I would expect a cold beer, and barbeque supper, paid for by hunting buddies!
The birds were coming in just one or two at a time so a guy did not have to rush. I am going to post up some new photos from parts of last week and this week. I will have some new action photos also. I would be honored if you used some of my photos in your next crow article.
While hunting with Jerry Tomlin this past November we got 18 in a row, but it was a group effort. If you have hunted with him, you know how much Jerry loves numbers...he was happy!
Demi
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The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.
I used to keep up with shots without a miss until I realized I was NOT taking shots I should be for fear of a miss and doing damage to my percentages! Since crow hunting is not an ammo-conservation event... I count only the number of downed birds! TBC rules....not percentages!
I was taking them as they came in all these hunts, not just the pud shots in order to have a good average. A bird at point blank range is not a pud shot where your pattern is smaller than your fist. There were no real far shots 90% of them were under 40 yards.
Early in the season when you can have some wild shoots I could not agree with Skip more when he says he did not go out crow hunting to save ammo; I feel the same way.
Interesting as this post should come up because last summer I went solo on a casual crow shooting run and gun mission and shot 22 straight before scoring a complete miss. Ended up killing 24 crows with 26 rounds... Federal Promo loads, 7 1/2 shot. Thought to myself that it would be interesting to have a "One Box" crow shoot tourney... if one was to have a group of friends that share the passion. Here in Manitoba years ago a town called Ashern was in the middle of some great sharptail country. These birds are locally referred to as "Chicken" and the community of Ashern Manitoba held what was called the "Ashern One Box Sharptail shoot". Ted Nugent would often partake as the story goes.
Ted
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I used to keep up with shots without a miss until I realized I was NOT taking shots I should be for fear of a miss and doing damage to my percentages! Since crow hunting is not an ammo-conservation event... I count only the number of downed birds! TBC rules....not percentages!
Skip
That's how I do it too, can't hit them if you not shooting at them percentages come in 2nd if at all
percentages come in 2nd if at all