mrfishy

There are several methods of hunting crows.

In parts of our country there are " hugh" roosts of several thousand crows in a single roost. From my understanding, hunters build a blind at a pre-determined location after scouting the crow' s flight paths from roosting to feeding areas, using an e-caller with fight tapes along with mouth blown calls with decoys hung in trees around the stand.

Another method is the run and gun method. A hunter needs several locations with permission to be able to hunt this way, all of the land being faily close together. With this method, you have already picked your pre-determined locations to hunt. A permenant blind is not necessary but make sure your well camoed and hide well until the crows are within easy gun range since they will flare at the first thing they see wrong. You park your vehicle at the first spot, carry an e-caller (or with just using mouth blown calls) into the woods, preferrably short pines, or whatever, and give haard, loud series of excited fight calls. Most people dont use decoys for this method. The crows have to fly over the top of you to find out what all the commotion is and when they would be close enough to see decoys they are already in range for shooting so dekes arent that necessary. You usually only get one pass from the crows so shoot to kill. After about 5-10 minutes, it' s time to run and gun the second stand you have already lined up, and so on.

The last method I mention is the feed setup. Alot of guys use e-callers but I prefer mouth calls. Using this method, as like all of them, requires scouting. You have to get out and ride roads to find a large enough concentratrion of crows feeding in a particular area to hunt. Once you' ve established where to hunt and have gotten permission, you' ll have to set up some sort of blind. Match the blind with the surroundings. Place your dekes out as natural as possible in front of the blind. Be in the blind at daylight since the crows will leave the roost and head to the feeding areas. If youve picked a major feeding area little calling will be needed since the crows are already coming to the area you' re at. Soft calling with NO fight series involved is best for this type of hunting.

I have seen that you have checked out Crowbusters. Look at the free stuff from the home page. Alot of good instructional things there that' s free for the reading. Decide which method is best for you and ask away in their forum.

Good luck with the crows[:-]

GB