Crow Busters Forum

     Randy

     How far are you placing your ground decoys from the blind, from the pictures they look really close. I’m putting mine 20-30 military steps away. One military step = 32 inches, so that’s about 60-75 feet away from my blind. Which I’ve found is almost out of my kill zone. 

Here is a late season setup.

  0n the morning of 5 February I located a number of crows feeding about forty minutes from home. The next day would have a favorable wind so I made a phone call to my partner. He was tied up on the 6^th but being starved for some shooting, I located a spot and built a blind for a solo hunt the next morning.

 The wind was ENE at about 10mph, mostly cloudy with temperatures in the upper 20’s. Crows were flying by me at 7:15. Literally. No amount of coaxing could get them to even check things out. After about a half hour I was thinking one should at least fly by in range by accident. I got my first shot at 8:30 and my second at nearly 9:00. All the while there were crows trickling past me. At about 9:20 they started coming off the feeding ground from the SW and I managed nine more in the next forty five minutes. Things dried up at shortly after ten and I packed up and headed for home. I hadn’t expected much, but eleven confirmed that on this day I had been beaten. At least I got some work done that afternoon.

 Randy

 The blind is in the foreground of the last photo.      

 On 17 Feb. another hunt fell together for us. We could drive to about 50yds of our prospective set-up, but it wouldn’t be easy. We had a foot of snow cover and the drifts were hardened. Speed was critical to make it through the deep snow but made for a bone jarring ride. Slowing down increased the risk of falling through a hard drift and hanging up. We pounded through the evening before to set up. A bit of work was involved digging our blind into a snowdrift. The trip out was easier as we could stay in our tracks. Snow had been forecast for overnight, but the amounts predicted were increasing by the hour.

 We headed out the next morning in 4-5” of fresh snow, a NE wind and 20 degrees. The wind was to increase to 10-15mph and the temperature was to rise into the mid 20’s. Heavy snow was to continue into the early afternoon bringing an additional 4-6” before tapering off. We had about a quarter mile drive into a field and our previous path was hard to find in the fresh snow, but we made it.

 We got our decoys hung and were back in the blind at 6:40. But weren’t quite ready. Crows were diving in before I’d even called and I hurriedly stuffed in a couple shells and commenced fire. A couple were down before my partner joined in. The action remained hot for about a half hour, with both passing and decoying shots. The heavy snow kept their elevation and visibility low.

 When we finally had a chance to assess our situation, the only pretty sights were a couple steaming gun barrels and what lay out front. We had open gun cases underfoot, full of snow. Open shell boxes, filling with snow. One spilled, its contents trampled into the snow.  The open decoy bag, hurriedly pitched behind the blind, now full of snow. We shook our heads. It don’t get no better’n this.

 Steady shooting continued at crows coming off the outbound flight. Most came from the WSW, some from behind us and a few from the east. Around nine they started coming from the SW, decoying fairly well and providing good shots. It didn’t take long for the dead’s to be covered, so during lulls, we’d shake the snow off some of them. We were behind a low hill and the wind was nearly calm at ground level. We also noted that the snowflakes were heavier than the crow snow, as they fell faster.

 The shooting slowed around noon and we took the opportunity to adjust speaker directions and move some decoys. We had time to discuss whether or not we would make it out without shoveling or who we’d get to pull us out. We needed to remove the carnage on this hunt and speculated how many times we’d need to load the sleds. There was no way we’d find them all or recover all of our empties.

 Things picked up around 2:30. The snow had let up and some stayed high, but many responded, coming over the trees from the SSW, hitting the deck out of the wind. The lulls were longer, but we had nice flurries of action until shortly after four.

 It took several trips to get cleaned up and packed out. Our AM tracks were gone and a couple of times I had to back up and make a run at it, but we got busted out to the road. Conditions on the way home were nearly as bad. It would take two days to dry everything out but it was one of those hunts we'd never forget.

 Randy

Aerial view

The blind

Views from the blind

A load of crows