Sure they are moving through the state but nothing at all like last year. You'll see this big flight and maybe a couple traveling together half hour afterwards! Next another group of 50(?) whom you could get a round off or two and then nothing for up to an hour later! I have seen no roosting behavior at all where crows trickle from the south every so often and then more and more come through up to twenty usually about more or less...I don't know if my goose shooting colleagues got into the roost somehow or not..I don't think so, not many crows around anyways. But all this rain every day and now that depression Sunday night through Monday after has impacted the movement big time! Sure I am getting shooting but extremely lethargic coming and going...many crows refused to come near my set up...there's the first clue...someone else has been there but all the same the crow activity was scarce...I could not believe given the otherwise big annual migration would have been on Wednesday if not for the rain(but not for me regardless.)! The migration has been painfully slow...lethargic!
Frankly I've never been in the right place at the right time anyways. One year I saw them gathering all along this tree line and zipping right on by-why? About a mile down the road this cornfield was covered in what had to be a thousand crows! You had to figure I hadn't a chance to attract new arrivals. And I didn't!
-- Edited by Top Cat on Saturday 4th of November 2017 09:46:17 PM
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Top Cat Statutes never replaced or rewrote the constitution!
There is nothing we can do about the weather, sometimes it works for us and this year it has so far worked against us. We started to see the first groups of migrating birds heading south on Friday. We saw a few large balls of them yesterday, we shot 38 birds but we stayed out for 8 hours to do it. The migration is late and it is has not been strong. I suspect it's just really starting and the wind having a southerly component much of the time is holding them back along with much warmer than normal temps. There is nothing you can do, except put yourself out there and shoot what you can.
-- Edited by nhcrowshooter on Sunday 29th of October 2017 07:54:30 AM
I watched as a small group of around eight(?) gathered in trees the end of the field at the edge of the woods. One crow decided to check me out so about tree top height or a little more he began his glide mode. Suddenly out of nowhere-how did it miss this-me included-a female sharp shinned hawk attempted an attack .Now she is roughly the size of a pigeon and a crow might be a bit much. So it was it countered and that hawk was now on the run. They ended up in a canopy of yellow and brown leaved tree-birch and so forth. This was about 300 yards out and when the sharpie made an initial attack with the feet it quickly realized it was in over its' head and now the crow was on its' tail as it dived for the deck. Crows will kill owls and hawks if it can-this is no game. It climbed in height using speed to get above the crow still on its' tail and in fact so close the point of the bill was clearly on the tip of the desperately fleeing hawk. After the trees I did not see the end of this little battle.
But as is often the case crows often forego my set up 500 yards out whatever to pursue and harass typically the red tailed hawk and the bald eagle (or Golden as the case may be) and no attention to my set up at all....
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Top Cat Statutes never replaced or rewrote the constitution!
OK! All this bird activity has got me wondering about another thing. Can't help but to ask.
The other day, I set up and a bunch of buzzards came to my calling. Then nasty boogers (about 20) appeared above them. The buzzards kept getting higher and the nasty boogers did too. Finally ended up with the nasty boogers so high that SAM missiles would have been needed to hit them. I quit calling for about 15 minutes and when I started again, the same thing happened. Happened 3 times. What's up?
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Crows often fight buzzards and in this case a bird in the hand equals two birds in the nush. They had their "playmates" right under their noses so why visit you? I have seen a crow break off an air battle with a red tailed hawk some 2,00 feet or so up to dive down on my set up however...but mainly when crows are harassing hawks,owls or eagles they won't come near me.
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Top Cat Statutes never replaced or rewrote the constitution!
It might not have done that if its' buddies weren't busy with that red tail otherwise the red tail would attempt to grab it on its' way down!! Also I have seen red tailed hawks high over head taking time out to dive bomb my set up too!!
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Lone red tails that is-never had a flock of hawks ever attack all at once...however circling overhead I once counted 99 turkey vultures in a huge tornadic kettle once overhead-absolutely amazing-never knew we had that many vultures total anywhere in new England!
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Top Cat Statutes never replaced or rewrote the constitution!
Went out Friday of last week and shot 340 crows with 475 trap loads. I had not picked up a shotgun in 9 months so my body was a tad stiff from the punishment. Had a morning hunt yesterday where I got 75 crows with 87 trap loads. Soft shooting, they came in in formation and I got two quadruples and about half a dozen triples; the rest were singles with an occasional pair. I tried some one ounce loads in # 8's in a trap load and it worked very well on high birds. Now when I say high I am talking 40 to 45 yards in height.
OK! All this bird activity has got me wondering about another thing. Can't help but to ask.
The other day, I set up and a bunch of buzzards came to my calling. Then nasty boogers (about 20) appeared above them. The buzzards kept getting higher and the nasty boogers did too. Finally ended up with the nasty boogers so high that SAM missiles would have been needed to hit them. I quit calling for about 15 minutes and when I started again, the same thing happened. Happened 3 times. What's up?
Sounds to me like you just happened to be in a place that was where a nice thermal was building. Soaring birds know these spots and will quickly gather in order to get a free ride to high altitudes. It saves energy because they don't have to flap their wings. It had little to do with crows, calls or decoys all of which buzzards ignore.
Demi
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Went out Friday of last week and shot 340 crows with 475 trap loads. I had not picked up a shotgun in 9 months so my body was a tad stiff from the punishment. Had a morning hunt yesterday where I got 75 crows with 87 trap loads. Soft shooting, they came in in formation and I got two quadruples and about half a dozen triples; the rest were singles with an occasional pair. I tried some one ounce loads in # 8's in a trap load and it worked very well on high birds. Now when I say high I am talking 40 to 45 yards in height.
Hey!! Save me some!
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Top Cat Statutes never replaced or rewrote the constitution!
Went out Friday of last week and shot 340 crows with 475 trap loads. I had not picked up a shotgun in 9 months so my body was a tad stiff from the punishment. Had a morning hunt yesterday where I got 75 crows with 87 trap loads.
Hi Bob, I used to shoot almost 12 months out of the year between crows and clay targets (skeet & trap mainly) but found another passion besides shot gunning and that is pool & billiards with a little snooker. I used to travel to South America during the off season in North America for mainly ducks and geese. Mexico was also good for waterfowl but you had to sacrifice some crow hunting to do it as it was in North America.
I just bought a brand new shootin iron today. I got a Beretta A - 400 XPlor model in 12 gauge with a 26 inch barrel. It has what they call a "Kick Off System" that is supposed to reduce the recoil up to 70 percent. We will soon see how much of that statement is hype?
My number two gun ( I use a pair of Beretta Urika model 391's as well ) had a piston in the gas system come apart under stress. I have shot that gun for 10 seasons and this is the first malfunction. The gunsmith is repairing it and I will get it back this week some time. The breach bolt was locked up tighter than a tick half way open. It would not budge so I uncased my backup gun to finish out the hunt
So how have you been doing, how is that new farm working out for you? You ever watch that place about an hour before sundown to see if the crows roost in those big trees I saw in one of your photos?
I was able to get to the farm four times. All the corn is cut now so no more crow shooting unless they start ripping into his silage bags. I still visit there once a week to shoot pigeons. The farmer loves that I keep coming back!!
I'm not able to be there in the evening hours due to work and family. But now that it's getting darker earlier, I might be able to check it out. As of last Sunday, there were still a bunch of crows there, between 50 and 100 in a small lot of trees close to his farm house. They wouldn't come out of the tree though.
I plan on going there tomorrow for pigeons but will bring the crow decoys in case they have picked all the fields clean and moved to the bags. I don't think that's going on yet otherwise the farmer would have let me know.
You retired from Law Enforcement and went and got another job? What do you do for work now?
If those crows are the only ones that hang around that farm and no new arrivals come in during the next moth or so then they will be on to your tactics and that is not good.
I have to pull the butt stock off my new gun because I can tell the point of impact is to high. I was clipping the crows this morning on the top side, I had to daylight them on there bottom side in order to get a good solid hit on them. I am hoping that the shims that came with the gun will give me enough drop at comb to make it shoot somewhere between 60/40 or 70/30. Right now 100 % of the pattern shoots dead on just way to high. I patterned it this morning after my little hunt.
I deliver mail and do armed security, both part time.
If you shim the stock so the comb is lower, how does that shift your point of impact if you will (presumably) still use the same "sight alignment"? What about a taller front sight?
Hopefully your Beretta has the ability to drop the stock. The manual for mine said that the stock was set at the low position, and you could flip the installed shim to have the comb higher if you needed. There was no mention of making it lower.
-- Edited by Bob O on Friday 3rd of November 2017 11:42:18 AM
-- Edited by Bob O on Friday 3rd of November 2017 11:43:35 AM
-- Edited by Bob O on Friday 3rd of November 2017 11:44:29 AM
-- Edited by Bob O on Friday 3rd of November 2017 11:48:00 AM
That is correct Mein Herr, if you know your noggin is to high on the comb then you need to have more drop at the comb to have the pattern come down and hit the desired point of impact.
OK! All this bird activity has got me wondering about another thing. Can't help but to ask.
The other day, I set up and a bunch of buzzards came to my calling. Then nasty boogers (about 20) appeared above them. The buzzards kept getting higher and the nasty boogers did too. Finally ended up with the nasty boogers so high that SAM missiles would have been needed to hit them. I quit calling for about 15 minutes and when I started again, the same thing happened. Happened 3 times. What's up?
A couple years ago I was headed downtown when I noticed a bunch of birds behaving peculiarly....I got closer and saw amazingly a huge dogfight of several turkey vultures under attack by ultra manueverable crows...the turkeys were wheeling and dipping to avoid that dangerous peck in the head by the strongest bill in the bird kingdom...they were intermingled..I'd never seen a battle like that before..they weren't high up either..maybe 200 feet max..what happened was these turkey vultures were attempting to roost in this neighborhoods' trees when a straggling low flight of migrant crows came in and started harassing them..the vultures main defense was to swat one away that got within reach...spectacular dogfight..the second closest thing I can come up with took place in the early seventies when a big kettle of broad wing hawks (oddly enough) came under attack by three crows..now over the years this particular hawk isn't seen as a threat by the crow. I have seen one sit amongst crows who acted like nothing was up unlike even the much smaller sharp shinned hawk that the crows would tease so it appears...anyways these hawks began wheeling in the overall shape of a huge bee hive each however wheeling at various heights when these crows attacked who suddenly backed off gliding and wheeling themselves. The hawks were otherwise just flapping along where they behaved as if the next up draft or whatever became soon available...
All birds -squirrels included -will appear excitedly if they hear calling with great alarm; especially blue jays and the occasional hawk-never had an owl show up....
-- Edited by Top Cat on Saturday 4th of November 2017 02:09:07 PM
-- Edited by Top Cat on Saturday 4th of November 2017 09:50:35 PM
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Top Cat Statutes never replaced or rewrote the constitution!