Ventured out for one more hunt near the end of the Spring season. It was a beautiful sunny breezy day. Five to ten mph wind out of the South or South West as the day went along. Set up in three different places and had a fine adventure. Stand #1 was a roughly 40 acre bean field where I had seen crows on the ground before. Set out some decoys and an electronic call. It was about 10 am. Two decoys were facing each other with an M&M package on the ground between them. After 45 minutes of calling, no live crows were spotted, so I moved on.
The next spot was 15 to 20 miles away, then involved a bit of a walk. Set up some Boondocker Flocker decoys, and a FoxPro call, sat down in the shadows, then much to my surprise!!! two crows were landing in the tree next to my sentry Boondocker Flocker! They came in silently. The call was silent. I had not expected that. ... there must have been a better way to handle this whole situation. Crows and I are a little more educated. One of my plastic sentries took some lead.
One of the two crows that landed next to my decoy flew straight away about 250 yards and took up a position in the top of a tree. I did observe a few more crows fly past me on the far side of that crow and continue on off into the distance. They went by one at a time and kept their distance.
My FoxPro Krakatoa II was placed in the tall grass on the ground between the two other decoys shown in the second photo.
Next I packed up and travelled about 20 or 30 miles away to another place where I had taken my first crow earlier this year. Left my car out of sight and walked about a quarter mile with the gear. Set out half a dozen Boondocker Flockers, the FoxPro Krackatoa II and also a FoxPro Spitfire some distance away. Again wearing full personal camo which is usually sufficient for bowhunting and the like, I found a position in the shadows. After waiting a little while for things to settle, started fairly quietly calling with both calls. After a few minutes one crow came in low overhead. Shortly thereafter - down on the ground in the midst of the decoys. While I was still pretty excited about that, a second crow appeared very high overhead, I moved around, decided it was too high to fire. The second one turned with the wind and away it went. No more came by.
I think I'll study up on some blind that may be placed in the fields. I'll look into ways to provide some overhead concealment. I'll also plan to pattern a scattergun or two to see what I can do to improve hit percentages. While it this guy is clearly still a beginner, there has definitely been progress made from one year ago.
There is 2.9 ounces of crow meat in the freezer waiting for a decision on exactly how to cook it this time. I'm leaning towards a buttermilk marinade. Still undecided.
I appreciate all the helpful lessons from authors, CD's, DVD's, Forum discussions, and encouragement. Thank you very much!
Scott
-- Edited by FarmerScott on Friday 6th of April 2018 09:35:07 PM
-- Edited by FarmerScott on Friday 6th of April 2018 09:35:39 PM
Good report and some nice pictures. No matter how many birds are taken, it’s always good to hunt on a nice day! A couple of points:
In your first post above, you mentioned “It was about 10 am.” It has been my experience that a blind, decoys and hunter should be set up and ready before the first crow calls at first light. The earlier it is, the more hungry they are. In the lower light, you also have more concealment.
Secondly, this forum is rich with tips, techniques and methods from some of the top crow hunters. Use the “Search” feature to your advantage!
Good luck and good hunting.
Demi
__________________
The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.
Closing out the Spring 2018 season. People say the proof is in the pudding. The original version was, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. What that meant was that you had to try out food in order to know whether it was good.
After visiting with a friend who is working towards a masters degree in meat science, I changed my approach. Thawed and washed the crow breast meat. Used the coarse side of an old tenderizing hammer to squish the breast meat into patties roughly 3/8ths to 1/4 inch thick. Prepared a marinade by mixing buttermilk, minced garlic, and spicy yellow mustard. The crow meat and marinade spent two days in a zip-lock bag in the refrigerator - turned and mixed every eight hours.
Dried mint leaves were mixed with dry flour. The crow patties were pulled from the bag with however much buttermilk marinade stayed with the meat. This was coated with the flour mint mixture. Then the patties were fried in olive oil over medium high heat to an internal temp of 165°F.
Served as an appetizer before dinner, this crow was not nearly as tough as the first crow I ate. In my opinion, it was less tough than a typical sirloin steak. I did not notice any of the liver taste that was so prominent with my first crow eating experience. I think that the natural flavors of this crow combined with the garlic, mustard, and mint flavors blended well. I thought it was good tasting food.
-- Edited by FarmerScott on Wednesday 9th of May 2018 05:44:25 PM
Lessons from Season #2 - in addition to - This is lots of fun!
#1 - Step it up in the camouflage department
#2 - Listen, search and study for an improved game plan
Looking back over my 2nd crow season in the fall of 2017 and spring 2018, I saw and missed quite a few birds. Most of my prior hunting experience has been rifle and crossbow hunting for deer during that magic half hour after sunset and before dark. With deer, you are after one animal. In contrast, crows fly overhead and it is daylight. It's a three dimensional camouflage problem where a good blind and appropriate personal camouflage would be useful. The deer don't fly overhead. Crow scouts do.
On one hunt, my partner and I were in a standing corn field. Crows flew overhead. I shot and missed. The crows saw us and flew away - then announced our presence. Busted and done in that location.
During this season, I can see that I missed multiple opportunities to get more crows when multiple birds responded to calls. At other times they arrived individually but in a rapid enough succession that the later arriving ones saw either motion, or a greenish camo leg against grey brown grass in such a way that it looked like a human when viewed from above. Gotta be thinking of what my equipment and I look like from tree top height overhead.
So when I think of crows … I will search this forum, read classic books and articles, watch a video or three, and practice with crow calls. I also plan to put the "book learning" into action by: building some stationary and portable blinds, patterning my scattergun, plus … (I'm open to suggestions)
Low hit percentage. That was a struggle in the early part of the 2017-2018 season for me. On one outing with a Browning A-5 I fired a total of 17 shots at birds and got two pigeons. Unsure how many shots were fired at pigeons - best guess 4 or 5. The others were at crows with zero hits on crows.
During this off-season, I "aim" to do something about that. Read the article from Ed Davis on Fitting Your Own Shotgun. First step was to take the A-5 barrel to the gunsmith for a Bradley White front sight and a small silver metal mid-rib bead.
Gathered a variety of supplies and headed for the back forty to start placing birdshot on paper.
Through this exercise I was surprised to find that this A-5 did not shoot low for me. I also noticed a real tendency to slap the trigger and pull the muzzle higher in anticipation of 12ga recoil.
Ages and ages ago I had a coach who taught us to 'call our shots' when shooting small bore rifles. One of my good friends would sometimes verbalize that by yelling, "Come Back!" Never actually worked. Anyway, while standing there throwing lead at paper I'm pretty sure I sometimes pulled my shot string up in the 12 o'clock direction - rather than simply letting the trigger click, waiting for the recoil, recovering the sight picture, then releasing the trigger. I can work on that aspect of the 'crow shooting stroke.'
The pictures show the target frame built of 1x2's, lath, cardboard, wrapping paper held with masking tape, and aiming spots drawn with a super size sharpie.
The target frame was secured to a few corn stalks with zip-ties. As few corn stalks as possible were harmed in the process of this learning process. Distance to target was measured with a 100' steel tape. Sixty and ninety foot distances were marked with previously collected ears of corn to show where to stand for 20 yard and 30 yard shots.
I'm thinking a natural next step might be a few clay targets at a trap or skeet facility.
One thing is for sure , I don't think anybody can say you haven't been doing your homework ! Isn't it amazing what the quest of shooting crows can lead you into. Good luck !
If you can break clays, you will be much better at killing crows. Shooting sporting clays is MUCH BETTER hunt training than Trap or Skeet because it is not regimented like the other disciplines.
Finding an Sporting Clays instructor is the quickest and cheapest way to get ramped up to better scores before the season. It is also great fun! Let me know if you need any help finding a sporting clays range or instructor.
Good shooting,
Demi
__________________
The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.
If you can-try blackbirds on for size.....I got a load of practise this way. I lived near a huge roost. Maybe again not by midwestern or southern standards but I tell you-closest thing to crow shooting! Starlings are great.....and starlings will kill or drive out any bird like the bluebird killing their young ; killing their eggs..really nasty birds! Great pets though.... Island Shooter wrote:
Scotty,
If you can break clays, you will be much better at killing crows. Shooting sporting clays is MUCH BETTER hunt training than Trap or Skeet because it is not regimented like the other disciplines.
Finding an Sporting Clays instructor is the quickest and cheapest way to get ramped up to better scores before the season. It is also great fun! Let me know if you need any help finding a sporting clays range or instructor.
