Back in the late 1950's and early 60's we hunted them hard in southern Michigan, during the closed season on other game. Mostly, in the early spring after the rabbit season had closed.
We would set up in the brush in a farm fence row - usually with a paper mache owl on a fence post and a couple of crow decoys in the trees close by was all you needed back then, and we also used an Olt - hard rubber crow call. It worked just fine. The best places we found were farms on the Lake Erie shore. The birds liked to scavenge the dead fish and stuff on the shore and they were always patrolling along there. They usually used the lake shore as a migration path in the spring too. But they seemed to stay more inland on the fall migrations.
The only time I ever shot them over an electronic call - was once, when I got an invite to shoot at a guys house on the Detroit River. He had a little shack on the end of his boat dock with a shooting slit, and three guys could shoot side by side.This was back in the late 1950's and he had made a tape recording of a bunch of Crows chasing an Owl - and he had a few crow decoys set on the shore ice in front of the dock, and the Crows by the thousands would come floating down the river on the ice flows and would come in to the fighting call in big flocks and we shot till we ran out of shells and the guns were so hot you couldn't touch the barrels, and the ice was covered with dead crows.
I have not hunted them since the mid 1960's when I left Michigan and went to Alaska. There are no Crows in interior Alaska, only Ravens - and you don't kill them.
Those Crows are really interesting birds to hunt.They can be so intelligent at times, it's almost spooky. And at other times, they can act so dumb, you can't believe it's the same bird.
The Crows that live around my house, can tell whether I am carrying a gun or a hiking staff when I leave the house to walk back to the woods. They will just sit, and let me get to within easy shooting range if I have my hiking stick. But If I have the gun, they will fly as soon as I get to the edge of the yard. This happens every single time.
I think, they rate as one of the most intelligent birds.
they are very smart! i have about 10 acres of woods behind my house and i have been trying to nab a crow with my pellet gun for years, like you said they can tell whether i am carrying a gun or not.