after waiting patiently for the weather to clear finally got out sunday and today...and had two extremely different hunts in two areas within a 10 mile radius...
Sunday my buddy Phil joined me for his first crow hunt of the year......we set up in my meth lab location and right off the bat i noticed a major shift in crow behavior....prior to the terrible weather( heavy snow and winds) this week the crows in the area were leaving the roost at sunrise and in slow steady numbers over the course of 3-4 hours...then location hopping during the middle of the day..and then trickle back to the roost the last few hours of the day....well Sunday they were already off the roost 45 minutes before sunrise and on the move much more intensely then i have seen all year...the first hour and a half was lock and load with small groups bombing in your face style steady......then boom by 830am it became a slow trickle....good thing i was shooting well and dumped 14 out of 16 crows by 830am...my partner was shooting a new gun and struggled...only managed 5 out of 13 crows in the same time period....we decided to stick it out and had a slow pick of single birds before all action completely died at 10am( there was no birds in the air for miles) ended up with a total of 26 bandits down (2 fell into thick brush) seemed like the birds moved early got to where they wanted to be and just didnt move...tho when they birds moved they decoyed very well...i was simply amazed at some of the shots my buddy missed...
Monday(this morning) i hunted solo....but had two major mistakes take place that cost me dearly.... 1) i over slept my 4:45 alarm and did not wake up till 7am... 2) yesterday i got lazy and did not prescout my location and after rushing out of my hotel and arriving to said location i found the 1 mile access road blocked by a 5ft pile of plowed and frozen snow...i quickly hightailed to a plan b spot along a river that the birds use as a flyway...but by the time i arrived i basically had missed the morning rush flight....i still made a sit anyway...and did have 4 singles decoy very well...but after dispatching them the action ground to a complete halt...with no birds in the air nor hearing any distant calling i threw the towel in slightly disappointed in my screw ups knowing they cost me a decent shoot this morning...
i hope this weather remains static this week the the crows readjust to the pattern they were on 2 weeks ago...will be back hunting Friday...
thanks JT.... sunday was realllly fun...just wish it was more spaced out....today just annoys me cause im better then that and shot myself in the foot...oh well...lesson learned...
as for decoys...i am running 18 flocked decoys....6 of them are green head gears the rest are soar no mores.... i running 4 sentries at various heights...rest are on the ground in a feeding set up...
caller is a fox pro crossfire with all the crow sounds fox pro has to offer but the excited crow and come here call have been working well with this set up
