My How to Crow Guide - Add to it

coleridge

coleridge

Active member
With my Crow Sounds post & others reply's; I decided to put this together:



Do’s:
-Always wear full camo including face-net.
-Move a least as possible after the call starts
-Carry a shotgun with plenty of shells. A 1 ¼ oz load of no. 6’s through a Imp Cylinder to a Imp Modified work great but even 8’s will kill them.

Don’ts
-Carry too many people. It’s hard to hide movements of ten people.
-Shoot till you know you can kill ‘em. High fliers will usually come down unless call shy.
-Stand in the direct sunlight (something will glare).
-Let the crows see you before the set up. If you scare them off they won’t come back without extreme caution.

The Winter Setup:
We always try to set up in pines. The perfect setup is in ~15-18’ pines that have a few open holes for shooting. This provides lots of advantages including great camo; the crows can’t see you until it’s to late. But, at the same time, you can’t see them coming & makes for tricky shooting through trees. However, the thick cover helps trick the crows. It gives them a reason they can’t see the mob of crows they are hearing. They are down in the pines...right! (We don’t use decoys. We use the time it takes to make a decoy spread to hit another spot. More spots=more dead crows. Decoys will only give you a very few more shots) If you can’t set up in pines, find as much cover as possible. Privet hedge & holly groves will work.

The Call:
I have had GREAT luck with the JS sounds. I start very sparingly with the "Single Excited Crow". It brings out incautious crows, not looking for a big gang their not going to see. Usually a few come in at a time, then a few more, then a few more. We kill more with this sound than any due to the several small #'s coming in (it doesn’t scare off the whole flock). As things progress, I increase the call to continuous & play until things slow down. Then I change to the JS "Fighting Crows". This is a GREAT sound. No "new" crow can stand this sound. They WILL come in. However, lots of times this sound will bring the entire flock. At times they will come in volleys; but we’ve had 70-80 crows come in as a whole (When that happens it’s just a few shots & there gone). Either way, I let this call play a while… Usually, there is good shooting. Then, I transition to the JS “Death Cry”, another great call. It always brings a few back, usually very aggressive. We call them suicide birds. After a few shots, I stop the sound & give it a couple minutes of silence. You would be amazed at how many stragglers will come during this time (just give a mouth call when they get close as a coaxer). Then, I turn on the JS “Crow Reveille”. Sometimes it’s over by now but most times we get a couple more shots. I also through a crow mouth call in the mix throughout also. A hawk squeal from time to time also.

Depending on how the crows are acting I may shuffle through again but this 4-run set would be a typical spot-hunt for us. We average 6-9 crows per spot (18 @ a single spot is our best & 0 of course has happened a few times too). We don’t live in a flyway. We run & gun several spots in a day.

Since I got my FX3. I have been mixing a few FP sounds in with my series. The “Crow Duet” mixes good towards the end of Single Excited. The Bob Arnson “Ad Crow Distress” is a really good sound also, it calls lots of crows. I believe all the FP sounds (including all the Bob Arnson calls) will call crows. I have called in several with various FP sounds, they just don’t seem to be as effective as my old JS series. FoxPro rules at predator calling but the old JS tapes kill crows!

Just being curious; what sounds do ya’ll like/prefer? In what series? I’m interested to see how others trick their birds. Anybody do anything different? This is what seems to works for us in NC…
 
Coleridge,

Seems you have a good system that works.

For me, with the Fox Pro, I have had good success by beginning with the Crow & Owl Fight. They respond and I beat them back some, then I switch sounds to a young crow and they generally come in for another round or two. I rotate between these sounds and have called them back in several times.

J.S. Crow & Owl Fight has been my all-time favorite since way back in the 1960's. Also, way back then, Wightman Electronics offered a "Young and Nesting Crow" sound (45 RPM for the record player types) that was dynamite on crows. I used that sound and the crow and owl in the summer months after the crows were old enough to fly about good. They looked like a full-grown crow, but were young and easily called, as was the older birds when they heard the distress sounds of the young. Thanks to Jimmy Carter, those days are gone - when the calling was at it's best.

CrowHuntDadsFarm.jpg
 
Nobody else have any secret tactics or special sounds? I was hoping I might could help someone & may pick up a trick or two along the way myself.

I promise I'm not coming west to shoot your crows /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif


Decoying-

If you spend the time to set up decoys try this...

Get your crow decoys high as you can in the most visible spot. Take an owl or hawk decoy and put it just under the crows. Take a dead crow & fix it to the bottom of the owl/hawk (use hook or tie). Break the dead crows wing so that it dangles form the decoy. Then turn on the call & get ready for some great shooting. (You don't even need hooting or screeching sound for this to be very effective).

Test:
Anybody want to guess which side of the wind you want to be on during this setup????
 
Another good setup I have used is a combination of yours, sort of. Set up a "fighting" scene with owl/hawk and some crow decoys in a large enough open area the crows feel comfortable coming down. Use cedar trees (if available) to hide in. With normal BDU camo I have hidden in cedar trees with great results.
 
Coleridge: I am taking a guess, but I would guess I would want to be upwind of your set up. I am making the assumption that the crow would want to fly into the wind... But, since crows aren't planes, I really don't know. Anxious to hear what the real answer is.

Web.
 
I'll take a crack at it...... I would guess that you would want to be down wind from the setup... also have the owl and the dead crow on the down wind side of the tree.

Reasons: As the crows fly in they are concentrating on the owl and dead crow in the tree which would mean they would be hovering/flying into the wind... a bird has more control with the wind in their face.

Plus the birds are in the air working to stay on location looking in the opposite direction from where you are and will not see you moving when you blast their [beeep].
 
Predatim: Your response to Coolridge's question makes FAR more sense than my answer!!! I guess it just shows that I am very green behind the ears. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Camo your gun as well.

Stay motionless as crows approach, they are extremely keen-eyed and will spot the tiniest motion. However, once they get to a position of about 20-30 degrees from vertical to you on their approach, they are often looking further ahead and not down at you.

If you suspect or know a flock is in the area, don't shoot the first solitary crow into your set. It will often be the flock sentry. Let it return with the all-clear and bring back the rest of the flock.

Be aware of the three levels of crow security: Treetop perched sentinels which are very hard to spot as you enter an area, treetop silent drifters which ghost along at low altitude, and high-altitude overwatch flyers.

Stick with high-base #6 loads, they will kill at longer ranges rather than just breaking the near-side wing as smaller shot often does, and they also work well shooting up through leafless branches in winter.

Use dead crows as decoys. Drives them crazy.

Learn the crow 'language' and be able to perform it on a mouth call, especially the distress cry.

Try to avoid hunting the same areas the exact same way and times. As you learn crow behavior patterns, they are smart enough to learn yours.

If you spook a flock out of one of its hangout areas and they leave in one direction, set up a couple hundred yards in the opposite direction and wait for them to try to sneak back in via the back door. Again, don't shoot the first sentry.

Observe the wheeling motion by which a crow makes a sharp directional reversal. Your only shot may be as it makes this turn and it's difficult to figure the lead until you see the shape of the maneuver. If you wait until they straighten out, sometimes they'll be out of range.

Vary which vehicles you drive to the hunting areas. Crows can read and remember your license plate. ;-)

Use shells which fire an explosive projectile with a proximity fuse that detonates as it approaches its target. ;-)
 
Around here we don't have great numbers of crows and they generally come in groups of no more than six at a time. Most of the time they will make big circles if there is much open space. So I will put the decoys out and the sit about 50 yards from the decoys. I have found the most exciting action though is when you set up in thick trees with the owl decoy visible they will bomb right in.
 
We use a Johnny Stewart 512(?) caller with two main tapes, "Sentinnel Crow" by Dennis Kirk and "Crow Come Here" by JS. We set the speaker about 50 feet upwind of the blind and put about 2 dozen decoys in trees, near the speaker and on the ground to the left and right of the blind. Crows will often fly right to the speaker with this set up.For a blind we use leaf-o-flage pinned to bushes or sticks surrounding us on all four sides.

We never use an owl because we're trying to get small numbers(1-5) crows at a time to come in to feed or looking for a fight. We try to hunt near a flight lane and plan to spend at least several hours in the same spot. When crows don't respond we change to the more aggressive tape, but getting a flock to come in is not our goal. Get them too excited and you'll educate too many and have to move to another spot. We don't have that many spots to hunt.

Good camo, a good location, and shooting at only "in range" birds will increase your kill numbers.
 


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