Crow Hunting
 

I plan on starting to do some crow hunting this spring. I am going to use my Gamo Whisper which shoots somewhere between 900 and 1000 fps. I can get a 1 inch group or better at 30 yards but will be setting my decoys at around 20. Any tips or advice would be great. Cool experiences with crows would be nice too.

:fighting0007:


Also, sorry if this is in the wrong section. I wasn't quite sure which one to put it in.

Nobody after 2 days? Cmon guys :(

Never seen anyone hunting crow in my life :) I'm sure someone out there does and will reply though

Topic moved to Small game, predator and trapping forum since it more accurately belongs in this forum and I believe you will get more responses in this forum. 1-week redirect notice left in original forum so OP and others interested in that forum can find moved topic.
CalHunter
Moderator

p.s. Check your state's game laws but they may allow you to use some type of distressed animal/bird call that "draws" more crows to your setup.

Crows are tough birds to hunt believe it or not. Especially getting them to decoy and land. Spot and shoot would be the way to go.

Do you have a shotgun? You can kill some pretty good numbers of them with a shotgun and a mouth call, a few decoys made from wire coat hangers shaped into crows then wrapped with black tape. It is a lot of fun. An e caller and even more decoys helps too. Learn the calls of the crows and what they mean.

But.. If you don't have a shotgun and want to use your air rifle, get a call and set up in the woods. I've had birds land A LOT more rather than just flying by to check it out in a field.


Check out Crowbusters.com for some good tips and techniques, and to listen and learn the calls.

I have a shotgun, but there are too many houses and stuff around to use it for this (noise purposes too). I'm getting a Primos Old Crow call and 6 decoys so I should be good there.

I will be very surprised if you can get crows to land within 20 yards and shoot them with a pellet gun. They have great eyesight and a sixth sense.

I have shot many crows. They are evil.

Crow hunting is something we do when nothing else is really in season, or we're too lazy to go call coyotes or coons. It's best done much like prairie dog hunting, sit far away, use a none-too-loud rifle, and blow up dozens of them as they repeatedly come into your decoy set. Done right, it's fish in a barrel.

As the others have mentioned, 20yrds will be your Achilles heel, they're far to wary to land that close. If you conceal yourself incredibly well, you might get lucky, get a few to land nearby, and get a shot off, but likely just one shot because they'll bust you there after.

Where you place your decoys has to make sense to a crow (as odd as that sounds). I've known a few guys that would just put crow decoys out in a field, clustered together, then wonder why nothing came in.

Here are some tricks:

Place 2-3 decoys on the ground around your "carrion pile". The carrion pile can be a black trashbag or grocery bag with part of it cut to ribbons so it'll blow in the wind a bit, as would animal hair on roadkill. I have used black trashbags with white grocery bag inside it, cut to ribbons to look like black and white fur. Either put small rocks on it, or stake it down so it doesn't blow away, and stays sprawled out on the ground.

The movement of your pile decoy will catch their eye, and seeing other birds feeding 1) builds confidence, and 2) drives them to think they are missing out.

Place other decoys outside of that cluster, up on a fence post nearby, in a tree, etc. They're "at the party", but they're just confidence builders. It takes a lot to bring a crow clear into a ground decoy field. They'll often land nearby and investigate before they commit to the main density of decoys.

It's nice to have an electric call, or buddy to play a mouth call, when you're crow hunting, because 1) crows never F'ing shut up, and 2) it rattles them when the call STOPS, for example, when you put down a call and move to your rifle.

Best option you have is to call over a REAL carrion pile. Either grab a shovel and 'harvest' some roadkill (I hear banjos playing every time I do it), or try to find a carcass naturally somewhere you can hunt. One trick I use: it's deer season, when I fill my tag during the day, I leave the gut pile in the open. I go back that night and call coyotes over it, then the next day, try calling crows over it if anything is left.

The very best thing you can do is just sit and watch crows some time (best thing you can do to learn how to hunt ANY game), observe how they move, communicate, interact as a murder (flock of crows = murder). They're a very visual animal, and very social. But you won't see them gathered together in ONE spot like ducks on a pond, they'll be spread out and always moving.

A spring mount for one of your decoys with a wind-bob or even a well concealed string can draw their attention to your ground pile.

Good luck to you hunting them with a BB gun though. 20-30yrd range is going to be rough. At that point, I might just spot and stalk them, because you're only going to get ONE shot before all of them bail, even over a decoy field or bait pile. Trick to that is focus on one bird at a time, stalk up to a shooting position without the others busting you, and take the shot. Sometimes with crows, the more "sneaky" you act, the more alerted they get. Walk in like you own the place and they'll be more confident.

A buddy of mine, that I tend to have good faith in, claims that research has proven that crows have great long term memory, and have the visual acuity to recognize human faces (supposedly even discerning one person from another), so concealing your face can be important as well. He also takes that a step further to say that they'd recognize a rifle, so keeping your rifle on the DL while you move into position might not be a bad idea.

Does shooting them in my back yard from inside the house count as hunting? Although they are one of God's creatures, I hate these birds. My wife says it is very "Jed Clampett" like.
[|: )

I'd call that hunting. I guess. Either that or pest control.

Thanks for being thorough! I will try to stretch out my range with the pellet gun to 30-40 yards if I can. I'll try to get some decent winter camo for Christmas so that I can blend in with my surroundings. Crow season opens January 25th here so I will have some time to try and call them in and let them hang out to build confidence. I don't think it should be too much of a problem because I see crows sitting near the place quite often.

Depends. Are you eating them too?? lol

Wear some good Camo,limit Your movements...get a yourself a Crow Call also!
I have called in lots of Crows by using rodents sounds,Crow and Rabbit in Distress sounds or any Rabbit Distress sounds while mostly calling for Coyotes!

I've also used a FoxPro Rabbit Decoy,and a Feather Distractor to draw in Predators and had many Crows come in tho I was calling for Coyotes,Bobcats or Foxes!A few Crow Decoys would probably help draw in Live Crows also!

Try an owl devote and crow and owl fight sounds. My dad has a tape of an owl and crow fight. The sky turns black, the best sound is a crippled crow. Seen a crow caught by the foot in a trap while deer hunting on time. The sounds he made brought in the others.

CUTSLSASH:

I've hunted crows often over the years. I am a shotgun fan; a 12-gauge with a 3 or 3 1/2-inch load will do nicely on them.

They are hard to pattern or predict.

It seems like you only get one chance, after which they leave the area.

But I LOVE huntin' 'em.

3 or 3 1/2 " shells on crows? All I use is low brass 12 ga. 6 shot works fine. Most of my crow hunting is done with rifles will groundhog hunting now, so I use my rifle. Haven't just crow hunted in a couple of years. Used to all. The time with my dad when I was younger. We used 12ga. Pumps with low brass 6 shot worked great.

HA! Too funny! No we are NOT eating them.

3 or 3-1/2"!!!! Good gawd almighty my man!!!They are crows, not teradactils!!!! All we use are 1-1/8oz trap loads with 7-1/2's and back those up with 1-1/4oz 7-1/2's. Alot more bangin with alot less headaches and sore shoulders!!!!

3 or 3.5 is wayyy overkill. lol

I like to call that hunting. It's easy, sit in the house, watch tv, and when you see a crow in the yard, open the door and introduce it to the 12 gauge.