With less than 30 days left of our season i like to mix it up a bit & try different things & different guns at the end of season. Today was a foggy cool morning with visibility about 1/4 mile. A good old guy recently gave me some decoys & a hawk so i thought i would put it to use today. It was a good morning with the fog. I got a total of 15 & was never seen. The hawk setup worked great & kept them hovering in the kill zone. I was wearing the leafy suit & made a little nest under some limbs of a cedar tree, they had no idea i was there till the shooting started & even then i dont think i was seen.
While not always productive for me, I love to see crows just appear out of the fog! Around here, they usually avoid flying where they can’t see everything, so 15 would be a good fog total for us.
Demi
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The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.
Demi, I had two things going for me. The fog let me get in there without being seen ( by crows ) and this was at a deer lease of a friend of mine and these crows had not been shot at . I,m sure they were all locals. They came in like they didn't have a worry in the world. The problem around here is that all you'll find is small group's. Calling in 20 or more in any given spot around here is almost impossible. I guess we just don't have the food sources to keep them here this time of year. Paul.
Looks like you're making the best of it Paul. We've never used a hawk decoy but guess it would be comparable to an owl. So here's a couple of questions. Did you set him on a post or on the ground? Did you use a fighting call right away or start passively? Did they all show up right away or come in small bunches?
We've had mixed results in the fog. My thought is if its foggy, say only a hundred feet deep, they stay above it where they can see. But if the layer is three hundred deep, they choose the lesser of the two evils and stay down. I have no idea if that's accurate and am just speculating. Good report and keep givin' it to 'em.
I've had great success in the fog. One year I went out to collect a shot crow when a fresh crow came right me seeing that dead one. Needless to say I didn't miss 18 feet!!!
Another time heard a crow while waiting for my then partner to show...I used calling to act as an audio beacon. It worked better than I thought!! This one looked like a B-52 landing and land he did! Big old boar crow too at about-well-he was so close the only way you might have missed was because your gun was empty!!!
Hawk decoys work as good as any owl however never really noticed any difference but the red tailed hawk works exceptionally well! I used to stuff a fallen tree limb up its' exit only and put this makeshift "pole" in the fork of two limbs. Very effective but the set up was I made it look like a hawk slipped out of the woods to the edge of apparent feeding crows right there in the field. An incoming crow came in and went ballistic!! I also shared some ballistics too!!
Looks like you're making the best of it Paul. We've never used a hawk decoy but guess it would be comparable to an owl. So here's a couple of questions. Did you set him on a post or on the ground? Did you use a fighting call right away or start passively? Did they all show up right away or come in small bunches?
We've had mixed results in the fog. My thought is if its foggy, say only a hundred feet deep, they stay above it where they can see. But if the layer is three hundred deep, they choose the lesser of the two evils and stay down. I have no idea if that's accurate and am just speculating. Good report and keep givin' it to 'em.
Randy
Randy, I started with the Hawk on an old piece of corrugated metal barn roof that was laying on the ground. It was close to some cedar tree's so i put one decoy above and behind the Hawk about 5 feet off the ground. I had another decoy on the ground 5 feet in front of the Hawk. I started with mouth calling but no takers. I gave them some Johnny crow fight at mid volume and got the two that came in. That's when i took one bird and planted it directly at the base of the Hawk upside down as if it was eating it. Then it was a mix of Johnny's fighting call and distress call and the mouth call with 10 to 15 minute break's in between. Some of that time was spent running down a cripple & looking for another that dropped way out of sight. For the most part they came in at 3 or less. I'm sure if i had gone full volume right away i would have been swarmed. Hawk's outnumber owl's around here by at least 50 to 1 so i think the Hawk is a better play than an owl. I know they would have shown up without the Hawk decoy setup but it made it more realistic and they were focused on it rather than me. AND IT WAS QUICK & EASY. Paul.
