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Anybody do a goodly amount of crow calling and killing?

Thinking about trying to get into it to fill some of the dead time in late winter.

Tips, tactics?


I do have an e caller plus a hand held I carry turkey hunting. Cannot find the decoys I had 20+ years ago but can always get more as well as a MOJO if that helps.

👍🏿👍🏿

I use an old Red Rock caller based on the old Johnny Stewart cassette deck. About a dozen dekes. I painted the owl decoys shoulder with a splash of bright red so he’d look crippled. Death cry, reveille, & fight are the only tapes I use. Take care with the first one coming in if they come as a flock. You shoot and miss that one and it will carry them all away or go land 100 yds away or so and warn them off. It’s why I usually use the death cry first to try to get them in a few at a time.

I used a crow mob getting all excited on my fox-pro...in minutes I felt like I was doing a sequel to Alfred Hitchcocks 'The Birds'....

have had distress calls bring the black suckers in, take the first dead one, ram a stick up his arse stick in the ground, it works for a while

I hunt crows as soon as they show up here in the spring. I made about a dozen silhouette decoys from coreplast (corrogated plastic), painted them black, and mounted on a heavy wire spike. Set out 30-40 yards in front of my blind and use both a mouth (crow) call as well as an e caller. Best results are first light. It's ok to leave the dead birds out with the decoys as long as they are upright. For some reason they don't like to see their kin laying on their backs. I hunt crows much the same as coyotes and will move and setup several times a day. Depending on the country you are hunting you should be prepared to see coyotes because they will show up to see what the birds are doing. My hunting companion is a combination gun in 12 gauge / 222 and it has been very useful when a coyote or fox shows up but can also limit you with one shot if lots of birds arrive at the same time. Another trick is to use an owl decoy with the crow decoys. This works especially well when the crows have their young in the nest. Good luck and have fun.

I shoot more than a few outback, it is a out the only thing to do in March around here. I use several callers, some cassette, some CD, some card, and some electronic that can be downloaded from the Internet. Fight, death cry, and reveille are my most used but I use others on occasion.

What I've learned is the survivors catch on to the calls pretty quickly hence the many types. Being I hunt out the backdoor the birds get a lot of experience quickly. Having a number of different sources for calls mean I ca n get in several hunts before having to reuse a call. That leaves the birds a little naive regardingthe calls.

The difficult part is finding decent hiding spots as there is a fair bit of snow still on theground meaning no leafed out trees or bushes to hide behind. Trying to build a blind is a losing proposition as they spot the structure immediately and shy away. I swear some of the older birds recognize snowshoe orboot tracks in the snow and use extra caution when approaching. This is especially true if setting out decoys which reduces their utility. If lucky I can use them the last week or so of the season but that is very iffy. The way things are going, the snow will be shin deep into April.

We have a November through early March season. Kind of sucks it is so short.

Comes in a couple of weeks before foresrms deer and ended March 3 this year. That doesn't leave much time to fit it in between deer and coyote killing.

Haven't done it recently. Used to help out my friends father-in-law on a dairy farm. They'd peck holes in silage bags , it would rot and be worthless for feed. Couple of decoys out and an owl decoy on the bags. Electronic caller playing owl / crow fight. They're smart birds and wise up quickly. We'd shoot a dozen or so with shotguns until they quit coming in. Then snipe the others with 17s or 223

This reminds me that I need to find my Herter's 45 [crow calling], now that record players are available again.

I used to do a lot. Just don't kill the first two that show up. They are scouts and if you kill or scare them, his is usually over.

For a short time I worked in Downtown Norfolk beside a bakery. I almost schit my pants when I saw the number of crows that showed up every morning. I don't know if it is the smell or they dump out the bad bread for them. It was literally close to a thousand. I always thought about getting the bino's and GPS out and tracking them back to their roost. That would be some serious shooting. catching them coming from their roost.

Dang!

I got some crows bothering my ewes.


I have a ground blind.....would that help?

Do you shoot them with a shot gun?

Here's how we would do it :

1) Find a "flyway" if possible.
Find where crows are feeding during the day or where they roost.
Never hunt the feeding area or the roosting area but rather set up somewhere along their flyways to and from.

2) We had a couple of 30-40 foot tall trees where we would set up.
12 crow decoys went on one tree and one owl decoy was in the second tree.
Put the owl on a long pole so you can get him high without breaking your neck.
Make the crow deeks look as natural as possible.

3) You have to build a super-tight blind.
Way tighter than a duck blind.
Even with a nice tight blind, crows will sometimes look "down the chimney" and bust you.

4) We used an old Johnny Stewart e-caller.
"Death Cry of a Crow" was the best.

5) If you're set up right they will come pouring in.
Sunny days are best.
We never had to move around like you would for yotes.
One good set and a good location, new "customers" are always rolling in.

6) Hold your fire until you can at least score a double.
Crows can turn and burn quick.

7) Hot 1 oz loads of 7.5 or 8 shot at about 1400+ fps
Bring lots of ammo.
If I recall correctly, I'd take 8-10 boxes of 12ga

I was once set up for a goose hunt. First light, crows started making their way past me, as I was waiting for geese or ducks. No waterfowl, just crows. I thought I shouldn't shoot crows as it might spook the game I'm set up for. Silly me. So instead I had a nice crow shoot, dropped a half dozen that just happened to fly near me. The geese never did appear.

My recipe;

I bought six dove decoys that have the clothespin type attachment and a motorized dove decoy with the rotating wings. I painted them all gloss jet black. I made "t" shaped posts of heavy wire that I push into the ground and clip the decoys to them.

I bought a half yard of fake fur from Hobby Lobby that is slightly striped, so it could be a coon or any number of smallish predators. I cut the fabric so I have two pieces, 18" x 18", and used one to drape over my e-caller. The other is a spare.

I set up the mechanical decoy about 6"-8" in front of the covered caller and the other decoys scattered around, some on trees if there are any available.

I start with Crow Distress, then to Fight if needed. Works really well for me, even though the decoys are small for a Crow, I guess they think they are midget Crows...or something.

Ed

Yes, or a rifle if they are sitting around.

I've called and shot them using both electronic callers and mouth calls. The mouth call is more work, obviously, and somewhat distracted me from the job at hand, but it got the job done.

A guy I bear hunted with would park his truck in thick cover near some young pines, roll down all his windows and play a crow calling cassette on his truck stereo. He would stand in the nearby pines to hide himself.

The pine tree trick works great. A cluster of pines about 10' tall are perfect. Crows can't see you until they're on top of you, and by then it's too late, if you're doing your part.