First time sharing a hunt. This one took place on October 9th.
A group of us had been hunting resident geese and noticed a good group of crows cross the property. I thought about waiting a week or so after the resident goose season and then trying a crow hunt here. In fact I could think of little else. The farmer had just cut the corn where we goose hunted and a couple days later he planted a rye cover crop which was now up a couple of inches at the time of this crow hunt. There are standing beans in the field behind me and a stack of straw bales in the lane separating the two fields. In my estimate there was no reason in the world for crows to be there so I thought I’d give them a reason and use my owl decoy. My thought was that if and when the crows pass through the farm they’ll be attracted to the calling and the scene being portrayed by the decoys. I mean isn’t that the general idea? My e-caller has a motion decoy attached and both call and motion are remote operated. I set the caller out about 30 yards into the rye with the motion spinner at the owls feet, then a couple of full body crow decoys off to the side. And a decoy perched on top of the bales.
There was a shoulder wide gap in the stacked bales and that’s my hide. 63 degrees at daybreak and supposed to climb into the 80’s. I’m hoping the breeze will keep the fog away. At shooting light I tucked into the gap with some burlap and rebar stakes in front of me and I started calling.
Took awhile. Maybe 15 minutes. Mostly they came in ones and twos. I hit a couple doubles I was proud of and emptied the gun on an easy one that I blame on rushing. Called it at 9:00am with 10 on the ground. On the 400 yard walk back to the truck I heard a crow and thought maybe I had tripped the caller’s remote hanging from my bibs. It wasn’t the e-caller going off but a group of 22 crows dive bombing the owl and creating a commotion. Hadn’t seen that many crows all day and I’m helpless to do anything but watch. Eventually they flew off. I tell myself that I should have stayed in the hide another 15 minutes. I also tell myself that there should be some crows for the next time I hunt this lease.
Good hunt and report! And bringing them in 1 or 2 at a time is exactly what you want! When you are mobbed by large groups, the body count is usually low but you educate every crow in the group.
Around here, our shoots usually end around 10:00 or 10:30…good days can go to noon. And I know that feeling of seeing groups come in during cleanup…Keep shells in your gun till the end.
Keep up the good work!
Demi
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The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.
Thanks for the report Shad. Excellent photos as well. Looks like the crow hanging in the middle has some white wing feathers. You don't shoot one of those every day.
Randy, I’ve seen a couple now with lighter colored feathers. I don’t ever remember seeing a piebald crow, or even if they exist. I might send an email to my County Extension office and ask them.
The shotgun is a 12 gauge Duck’s Unlimited edition Beretta A400 Xtreme Plus with a 28” barrel. Too good to keep locked away as a collectible. Most sit in the back of a gun safe, only taken out to show relatives and friends during the holidays. It’s a lot more than just a pretty face.
Randy, I’ve seen a couple now with lighter colored feathers. I don’t ever remember seeing a piebald crow, or even if they exist. I might send an email to my County Extension office and ask them.
The shotgun is a 12 gauge Duck’s Unlimited edition Beretta A400 Xtreme Plus with a 28” barrel. Too good to keep locked away as a collectible. Most sit in the back of a gun safe, only taken out to show relatives and friends during the holidays. It’s a lot more than just a pretty face.
Shad,
Piebalds do exist. Use the search feature at the top of the page and you'll find pictures.
Thought that looked like an A400 Explor but no bronze receiver. I'm not that familiar with Beretta's. If a guy wants to show off his nice gun, it's always good to have some stories to tell about it. Guns don't create memories unless you use 'em.
Wow. Cool avatar camo^ I looked at the oddities section. I never imagined. I wonder what I’d do if I saw a piebald while crow hunting. Likely I wouldn’t shoot at it thinking it was something other than a crow. Maybe if it was mixed in with other crows but if it were a single I probably gawk at it until it was out of range. The few crows I dropped that had lighter feathers… I didn’t notice the feathers until I was picking up.
When I first saw this one I thought it was a seagull, after seeing it several more times around my house I realized it was a crow. He made a fatal mistake of coming in my back yard after I'd had a few drinks of old number 7 one evening. Now I can admire him while I sit in my recliner.
