Crows worth it?

[somethingbenign]

The hunting bug is hitting me hard, way harder than it should have considering I haven't even bagged anything yet. A bunch of seasons are closing at the end of this month and I'm looking at what the next thing to go out for is. Crow opens tomorrow and goes into April so I have plenty of time to go out, screw up, and finally figure it out if I'm lucky. Question is is hunting crow worth it? What kind of meals can a guy make? If I'm just going to shoot something with no real meat value I think I'd rather go after coyote since I have a few friends that are interested in that.

 

[troy fairweather]

lol let us know how they taste. never went but looks fun.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I think there is a nursery rhyme about eating crows so I guess someone at them at some time. Came from a poor place where people at a lot of odd things (racoon, turtle, goundhog) but never heard of anyone eating crow aside from the proverbial ones.

 

[Grumulkin]

You may have heard the phrase, "eat crow." I don't think crow would be tasty but if you try it, PLEASE let us know.

Crows are quite intelligent. Unless you really get into hunting them using decoys like owls, etc., you will probably only get a shot or two. Around my place, crows have pretty much learned to avoid my air space.

Coyotes are quite challenging. Last night there were two in front of my place that took off at HIGH speed when I shown the light on them. No chance for a shot. The ones I've gotten I've usually waited for in the spring and summer months (early morning or evening) and shot them when they got close enough.

 

[troy fairweather]

there is a big crow, think it's an raven. this bird stops by my dads house twice a year, he stays for a few days then leaves. he will go up to use and kinda mumble words, cant tell what he says. the bird is very smart, and if crows are half as smart i would think with out decoys and cover they would be hard to hunt. then again i have seen shows in england e=where they have shot hundreds of crow a day.

 

[.308 Norma]

I've never ate one (other than the proverbial ones) and I was surprised to find quite a few Crow recipes with a quick Google search. Here's a few of them:

https://bertc.com/subfive/recipes/threecrows.htm

https://www.cooks.com/recipe/tf91k37n/smothered-crow.html

https://www.cooks.com/recipe/eu9p3639/crow-casserole.html

Let us know, okay? I'm interested.

 

[FL-NC]

I knocked a couple down when I was dove hunting this year. They are more of a "sport" bird, or depredation type deal. I read somewhere crows largely live on eggs stolen from other bird's nests and their hatchlings, so killing crows saves other birds. I've never hunted them "on purpose", but I could see where shooting at them could improve your game for things like ducks.

 

[somethingbenign]

I read somewhere crows largely live on eggs stolen from other bird's nests and their hatchlings, so killing crows saves other birds. I've never hunted them "on purpose", but I could see where shooting at them could improve your game for things like ducks.

If this is true I may try and take up crow on principle then. The pheasant and quail populations around here are just starting to bounce back and anything I can do to help would be nice.

After the end of February the only seasons open are crow and skunk and for some reason crow sounds more appetizing.

 

[GBExpat]

I don't shoot crows I feed them (among other wild critters).

Quite often, when I am in the backyard at my pistol range, I will have a pair of crows (or more) in the trees behind me making disparaging remarks about my shooting and suggesting that I stop that and put out more food for them.

I would be surprised to find that any of the Corvids are what one-who-is-not-starving might consider "tasty".

 

[Patocazador]

Crows are smart. If you hunt them in a spot, they will be super wary the next time you try. Change calls, decoys, tactics, and sites and you can be successful multiple times.
I hate crows and shoot them whenever I can but they will not fly over my yard or pond because they have been shot at those spots before.

When I was in college, my buddy and I shot crows at least twice a week .. always at a different place. Several times the landowners would ask for the birds to eat if we didn't want them. We never wanted them so a few poor families evidently ate crow although I've never seen anyone eat them.

 

[Mr_Flintstone]

Crows are super intelligent. Some studies show that they are as intelligent as primates, with one study showing they were as smart as a 7 year old child.

I’ve never been able to bring myself to shoot crows. I used to have five crows that stayed at my place year round for several years until one of them got kicked by a pony while picking up stray pieces of feed, and I had to shoot it to put it out of its misery. That was over a year ago, and there have been no crows back since that day. They never bothered my garden, or anything else on my property the whole time they were here. I miss them sometimes; jabbering at each other, and at me anytime I’d walk outside. They were kinda like pets.

 

[redneck2]

I’ve crow hunted quite a bit in the past. They are tough to kill in the winter. I used high brass #4’s.

I used a digital caller. If you see any crows around don’t bother to set up. They will see you and warn the others. You won’t get a shot. If you start calling, they will come out of nowhere

If you wound one don’t kill it. Let it do a distress call

I found out that making your stand, killing a couple, then moving on was the best. Once they figure your location you won’t get another shot

Good camo and not moving is critical. If you can find a stand of pine trees that’s best.

If there’s snow, lay the dead crows out with their wings spread and use a little red spray paint around them. Blood drives the crows crazy

 

[Airman Basic]

An old friend of mine had a triangular corn field that crows sometimes just trashed. If you entered the field, they were gone. The field was bordered by open pasture on two sides and a patch of woods on the other. The crows would walk out the woodside as we neared the field. The old owner had a method he swore by. Three people would enter the field and two would leave. He said crows could only count to two. Got a few shots that way.

 

[greg_r]

I have hunted crows as long as I can remember. Back before they were regulated the farmers paid a bounty on them.

I swear the things can count. Three people can walk to a blind and two walk back and a crow will not fly over. I like to call starting with an owl hoot. Then follow up with with crow calls. I do this in the thickest woods I can stand. If the blue jays come, but no crows, you might as well give up. The crows made you. Shootbtrue, you don’t get second chances. Once a stand has been shot at, abandon it and find another. The crows will not come back.

 

[WestKentucky]

Electronic calls is the way to go. I have a couple cassette tapes from way back and I have done it a few ways. Boom box with batteries worked well. Trick is to get set up and hide for a while if you are seen. A long while... like 30 minutes. Then get a few of them circling. They come in aggressively and they are on a mission to find the source of the commotion.

Another trick if you maybe umm...work 3rd shift and have a crow with 1 white feather on his tail keeping you awake all morning... you can put said boom box in a window blaring out to the great outdoors and sleep soundly when that loud obnoxious critter is laying dead in the front yard.

 

[MCgunner]

I've shot 'em, but I sure ain't gonna EAT one.

 

[MCgunner]

The hunting bug is hitting me hard, way harder than it should have considering I haven't even bagged anything yet. A bunch of seasons are closing at the end of this month and I'm looking at what the next thing to go out for is. Crow opens tomorrow and goes into April so I have plenty of time to go out, screw up, and finally figure it out if I'm lucky. Question is is hunting crow worth it? What kind of meals can a guy make? If I'm just going to shoot something with no real meat value I think I'd rather go after coyote since I have a few friends that are interested in that.

Do you have hogs? They're year around kill 'em if you see 'em around here and THEY are awesome off the smoker. We have no closed seasons on rabbit or squirrel, either.

 

[25-20 WCF]

45 years ago a buddy and I shot a bunch of ptarmigan and stopped at an Alaskan camp area that night to cook them. We were frying them on the tailgate of the pickup when another camper stopped by and asked us what we were cooking (smelled great BTW). My buddy didn’t miss a beat and told the guy it was raven (at that time shooting raven was legal). He said that it looked great and he would shoot a few and try eating them. After he left we lol and to this day I wonder if the guy ever tried eating raven.


.

 

[somethingbenign]

Do you have hogs? They're year around kill 'em if you see 'em around here and THEY are awesome off the smoker. We have no closed seasons on rabbit or squirrel, either.

Hogs haven't gotten this far north yet. In the next 5-10 years I wouldn't be surprised if they get into NE though. Sadly I don't know if I'll still be in this state. If I had hogs to hunt I doubt I'd ever do much else.

 

[6.8KT]

The hunting bug is hitting me hard, way harder than it should have considering I haven't even bagged anything yet. A bunch of seasons are closing at the end of this month and I'm looking at what the next thing to go out for is. Crow opens tomorrow and goes into April so I have plenty of time to go out, screw up, and finally figure it out if I'm lucky. Question is is hunting crow worth it? What kind of meals can a guy make? If I'm just going to shoot something with no real meat value I think I'd rather go after coyote since I have a few friends that are interested in that.

So you want to kill a wild animal just for the sake of it? That's pretty messed-up.
This is where I diverge from most of you.
I do understand that hunting as a sole source of one's meat is perhaps more noble (although if everyone did it, all wild animals would be dead in a week) than consuming the tortured, factory-farmed abominations that most people buy at the store -- which is why I only buy free-range, pasture-raised, grass-fed type meat.

This is a good read for those interested:

The Oil We Eat
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-05-23/oil-we-eat-following-food-chain-back-iraq/

Excerpt:

Food is politics. That being the case, I voted twice in 2002. The day after Election Day, in a truly dismal mood, I climbed the mountain behind my house and found a small herd of elk grazing native grasses in the morning sunlight. My respect for these creatures over the years has become great enough that on that morning I did not hesitate but went straight to my job, which was to rack a shell and drop one cow elk, my household’s annual protein supply. I voted with my weapon of choice–an act not all that uncommon in this world, largely, I think, as a result of the way we grow food. I can see why it is catching on. Such a vote has a certain satisfying heft and finality about it. My particular bit of violence, though, is more satisfying, I think, than the rest of the globe’s ordinary political mayhem. I used a rifle to opt out of an insane system. I killed, but then so did you when you bought that package of burger, even when you bought that package of tofu burger. I killed, then the rest of those elk went on, as did the grasses, the birds, the trees, the coyotes, mountain lions, and bugs, the fundamental productivity of an intact natural system, all of it went on.

 

[MCgunner]

So you want to kill a wild animal just for the sake of it? That's pretty messed-up.
This is where I diverge from most of you.
I do understand that hunting as a sole source of one's meat is perhaps more noble (although if everyone did it, all wild animals would be dead in a week) than consuming the tortured, factory-farmed abominations that most people buy at the store -- which is why I only buy free-range, pasture-raised, grass-fed type meat.

This is a good read for those interested:

The Oil We Eat
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-05-23/oil-we-eat-following-food-chain-back-iraq/

Excerpt:

So long as it's legal and it's an animal I like to eat, I'll kill it. I see nothing wrong with that. I will also kill chicken thieves. I have a particular problem with raccoons. If you see a problem with that, so be it.

As for everyone hunting their food, won't happen. Too many prefer to have someone else bludgeon their meat for 'em. Cleaning game is messy.

 

[earlthegoat2]

If I had hogs to hunt I doubt I'd ever do much else.

That is exactly what I do. I hunt public land so as such, I don’t deer hunt. Too many morons, too many rules, and too many check stations.

I wait til after deer season and start hogging.

 

[MCgunner]

Hogs haven't gotten this far north yet. In the next 5-10 years I wouldn't be surprised if they get into NE though. Sadly I don't know if I'll still be in this state. If I had hogs to hunt I doubt I'd ever do much else.

Yeppers, I prefer pork to venison and prefer to hunt pigs to deer.

 

[Captcurt]

I love to shoot them. Back several years ago (thinking about statute of limitations) we made a day of it. We would drive a couple miles down back roads, set up with our electronic call, kill 4 or 5 and drive to another place. Had a truck bed full of crows. Found out later that season was closed that day. Now you have me in the mood. I may go tomorrow.

 

[6.8KT]

So long as it's legal and it's an animal I like to eat, I'll kill it. I see nothing wrong with that. I will also kill chicken thieves. I have a particular problem with raccoons. If you see a problem with that, so be it.

As for everyone hunting their food, won't happen. Too many prefer to have someone else bludgeon their meat for 'em. Cleaning game is messy.

I have a family of raccoons under my house right now. They're always begging for scraps. They're cute.
Now, if I were raising chickens (which I do want to), and they were killing those chickens... well, I'd like to think I'd figure out some way to separate the two, difficult as it probably is.
If I were absolutely depending on those chickens for protein (eggs and broilers), and there was just no way to keep the raccoons away... well then I'd be forced kill the raccoons -- because it would be me or them.

Some of you though... just callously kill anything you consider a pest or vermin, and sometime for pretty stupid reasons (or even no reason) -- like "my flower garden!"...
That, I can't abide.