Crow calling

[Zombiphobia]

who calls crows?

Used to go with my uncles shooting crows with an electronic crow and owl fight tapes. Could be some fun times with lots of shooting.

 

[Skyshot]

I used to call in crows for my son when he was little, we would hide in an old smoke house and ambush them. It was a good way to let him shoot some rounds off in his shotgun after a day of grouse hunting with zero birds.

 

[MtnCreek]

I do and love it. They've pulled enough corn and bean sprouts of mine that I have no love for the crows!

I set one of those plastic owls out and make fighting sounds with a plain old wooden mouth call. I don't have a mojo crow, but a mojo dove seems to work pretty good. Crows are pretty smart; I think they have the capacity to learn and remember.

 

[marksman13]

You better believe they can remember certain set-ups. We hunt with electronic and mouth calls and often with decoys. We got lazy in a certain place and tried putting decoys in the same trees every trip. The birds never would come low enough for a shot after the 3rd or 4th trip. Happened a coupled times before we rearranged the decoys. Killed 6 crows in short order. We wore out that set-up with in a couple weeks. Birds stopped coming all-together. We knew we wouldn't be able to hunt in that area for a couple years, so we just hunted it like crazy while we had access. They are smarter than many give them credit for. Hunting crows is great practice for duck and turkey hunters.

 

[Zombiphobia]

marksman, do you have positive results mixing electronic with mouth calls?

 

[TNboy]

I've hunted them successfully with both electronic and mouth calls. Decoys and an owl will help a ton. I can't recommend just an electric call if you plan to hunt the same area repeatedly, as it seems the crows have the memory of an elephant. First time I used the electric call I set it up just by the back of the house as I had heard crows in that direction. I headed for cover about 30 yards away and had 3 crows down in 5 minutes. Those were the last crows I killed at my house. Sometimes when I try to call them in now they come but they fly very high and will not come down. I need to try a mouth call and decoys.

 

[marksman13]

I have my best results when using the electronic and mouth calls in tandem. We usually set up with electronics first to bring birds in, especially if we are hunting "dumb" birds. The trick is to keep a check on the volume. Once you hear crows talking back to you, turn the volume down. Extremely loud calls will spook birds, especially if they have been shot at before.

After the first shots are fired I'll usually kill the electronics and switch to a mouth call and make a crow in distress call. That's usually good for one more shooting session even on educated crows, especially if your set-up/camo is right. I can remember one set-up in particular in which we called birds back for six different shoots in the same set-up. If you have the right amount of emotion in your mouth calling the birds will come. They are so curious they just can't help it.

The biggest mistakes we made starting out was not taking set-up/camo seriously enough and turning up the call too loud. I'm torn on decoys. For "dumb" birds they can be a help in bringing birds close. I think educated birds are best hunted without decoys. Seems like they recognize the lack of movement and stay too high to shoot. Seems like they get along more curious when they can't see anything obvious and swoop low for a closer look.

I'm not an expert, but I do consider myself pretty serious about crow hunting. It's probably my favorite past time. Hope this helps.

 

[Sav .250]

Nothing like getting a bunch of crows all excited ........They sure did respond to the electronic caller. Plus, the shooting was out standing.