buck460XVR
Member
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2007
- Messages
- 10,113
I've hunted crows off and on for 50 years. Most of the time it was opportunistically and not an intentional "crow hunt". I learned to call crows with my mouth as a kid, so anytime while hunting and things were getting slow and I heard crows in the distance, I would call and have a chance at shooting one or two. Very seldom did I get more than that from a flock, before they learned and advertised to others there was trouble. Best time I had was when I wounded a bird and it continued to call to it's friends as it lie on the ground. Even then, I only got one or two more before the rest of the flock sat in a tree outta shotgun range and called frantically. I've found that for aggressive birds, the best way to call them is with a predator call using wounded prey sounds. Even then I only get one or two from that spot or flock before they just sit in a tree outta range. Years back I had GWP that was so used to me calling to crows on those days when grouse and woodcock were hard to find, that it would sit next to me and look at the sky after I called. Strange thing was, he could tell me when and where the crows were coming from before I could see them coming in thru the trees. I always suspected he heard either the sound of their wings or some other subtle sound on a frequency I couldn't as it wasn't a sight thing. He would cock his head over in a direction similar to when he was pointing ground birds and within a few seconds, a crow would fly over. It happened regularly enough that it wasn't coincidence and I got so after I called, I watched him instead of the sky. He would never go pick them up tho, even tho he would retrieve every other game bird after being shot, including woodcock(which many bird-dogs refuse to do). I think he hated them as much as I did.