The twins and I are going crow hunting Saturday

[ADVWannabee]

I tried my hand at crow hunting last weekend, you can see my earlier thread in this forum. I had home made decoys in the morning and got a few crows close but not close enough. I went and bought real decoys for the afternoon hunt but didn't have any crows around.

So Saturday morning the twins and I are going to give it another shot. Hopefully they will be more convincing.

The twins:

[Sheridan]

Try to set those decoys in the branches of a "bare" tree also.

[ADVWannabee]

Well the twins and I were unsuccessful. There were crows out, but not close to where I was hunting. They were over the neighboring land. I did learn that you can't call crows to you. You can turn them if they are already close, but if they aren't they won't come.

I did a little squirrel hunting first thing this morning and saw three but the leaves were frosty and loud so I couldn't get close. While looking in trees for one of the squirrels I saw, I came across this screech owl. I wasn't more than 20 feet from him and he didn't seem to mind.

[Big Uncle]

Two things that have worked for me have been using an owl decoy in a tree along with some crow decoys and calling loudly like there is a big fight. Crows like to gang up on hawks and owls.
The other thing that works is crow decoys on the ground and in low trees around a recently dead animal (like a groundhog) or a gut pile. If you pop a few tree rats and gut them in an open area it may give some added attraction to your decoys. I don't know if baiting is legal in VA, but squirrel cleaning is necessary...