I had dinner tonight with a waterfowling friend who lives in Salisbury MA. His father and uncle were avid crow hunters back in the day, 1950's and early 1960's. Bill Mitchell was from Lowell MA and Ray Slater was from Chelmsford MA, their other hunting partner (who is still alive) Sonny Burbank was also from Chelmsford. Back in the day they did not have electronic callers they had soming just as deadly, a pair of live Great Horned Owls they raised from chicks. The Owls came from Texas ordered out of Field & Stream magazine. This was legal prior to the Endangered Species Act. These guys shot crows all over, Wilmington, Bolton MA, Milford NH and other places. There was a pig farm in Wilmington and farmer would buy them the ammo to shoot crows with. Here are some pictures Bill's son Mike shared with me. Scott and I need to take Mike crow hunting, it's his legacy.
-- Edited by nhcrowshooter on Friday 10th of March 2017 02:10:15 AM
I enjoy looking at crow hunting history, great old photos.
My father used a live Horned Owl and fed old hoot live chickens. I remember old hoots cage, you could stand in it and as near as I can remember it was about 12 feet long, 6 feet high and 10 to 12 feet wide. My dad had a pad lock on the door so I would not go in the cage with out him. Old hoot could fly around in that cage. Oh, he also trapped rats (alive) that he fed to old hoot.
Take some photos when you take Mike with you on a crow hunt.
Apparently they fed the Owls a little too much crow meat. Mike told me that at least one of the Owls died from lead poisoning, they probably didn't know and never gave it thought back then.
You can tell they were mighty young in those photos, perhaps late twenties?
So has Mike ever hunted any crows in past years? You would think so if his dad and uncle liked to do it. Perhaps he is not as gung ho as his father and uncle were?
Bob there was a 20 year age difference between Mike's Dad and his uncle. His uncle was born in 1923. He and his buddy are in the pictures in the early 50's. Mike's Dad was just a kid in comparison born in 1943. He is would be in any pictures from late 50's to '60's. His Dad is in picture #7 walking left to right holding some crows and a Stevens 311 double.
Mike is an avid waterfowler, he hunts northeastern MA including the famed Joppa Flats. He is also a gung ho salt water Striper fisherman and an avid surfer of the Atlantic and does in the winter as well. I don't think he has done much crow hunting other than targets of opportunity.
-- Edited by nhcrowshooter on Friday 10th of March 2017 09:01:23 PM
In photo #3 where the two of them are by the old model A you are saying there was a 20 year age difference between those two? Or was that the uncle and a friend close to the same age where Mikes dad might have taken that photo when he was 10 years old just being with them that day?
I used to love hunting mallards and black mallards (black ducks) on the backwaters and mud flats in both CT and NY. The black ducks were a more leery bird than the common mallard. My hunting partner in those days came upon a poor soul who got stuck in the mud on those mud flats and when the tide came in it drowned him! The body was up to it's knees in mud and he was slumped over with his knees locked in an upright position. What a dreadful way to go.
The picture with the Model A Ford is his uncle and a friend. His father would have been a 11 years old. Mike says it does not look like Chelmsford. 10ga and I were talking about these photos. These guys were serious crow hunters back in the day. Buying and keeping Owls to hunt was hardcore at the time.
Pete, I thought it was the uncle and a friend. Hey, what is Chelmsford, a town? If it is the difference between 1954 and now you would not recognize most areas in that time span being away from there for that long a time period.
Chelmsford is town in MA, off I-495. I asked Mike if he had any of his Dad's old crow calls. He said they didn't use them. I was surprised to hear that. I looked at every picture very carefully and you don't see a call on a lanyard around anybody's neck. Mike said they just used the Owls.
The area where I live has changed radically in the last 35 years, farms are for the most part gone. Lots of houses and condos. Traffic jams during rush hours and when kids are going to and from school. MA is worse.
-- Edited by nhcrowshooter on Friday 10th of March 2017 11:42:52 PM
Every avid sportsman I have known feels they were born 1 or 2 generations too late. I guess 10ga and I saw the tail end of the good old days in the 70's when we were teens.
Sure I have thought of it, but leaving what has been home for near 60 years and friends I have known for 40+ is not an easy thing to do.
My crow hunting mentor got started hunting crows in 1958 when he was 31 years old. He too had a mentor, a guy with a live Great Horned Owl and this guy called the crows with a pair of hand calls. Boyd learned to use a hand call once he witnessed the results hunting with this old timer. Boyd said that the first time he hunted crows with this old man the two of them killed 80 odd crows and to Boyd that was the most legal shooting he had ever had up to that point in his life.
I met Boyd for the very first time just 7 years later in South Dakota hunting crows, this was in 1965. Boyd was now 38 and I was 17 at the time. He had graduated to a "Call of the Wild" e-caller using hand calls also when we first met. I witnessed his handy work from a distance that afternoon near Red Lake South Dakota. I went over after he and his friend got done shooting that afternoon on roost bound crows.
Then as destiny would have it I ran in to him again with my brother in Kansas 8 years later in 1973 and he had just moved to Kansas from Iowa. The following year I packed up and left New York State and also moved to Kansas and the rest is history.
