|
Post by jrbhunter on Jan 16, 2015 13:42:52 GMT -5
My oldest girl got to see her first coyote called & killed at 3 years old. Now she's 4, pushing 5, and she's wanting to get more involved. She came into my gear room last weekend while I was working on some trail cameras and found my caller remote. I went and flipped the speaker on and told her to figure it out. 30 minutes later, my ears were about to bleed and the dog was clawing at the door but she'd figured out how to run the caller and memorized a dozen sounds. My cameras were ready to be re-positioned for some deep woods bobcat scouting, so I threw her in the truck and grabbed a shotgun. The cover on this farm is really tight so I didn't want to scare her by putting a coyote in our laps, we opted for the more productive quarry of crows. She hung in there and operated the caller with the sounds she'd memorized, I'd occasionally give her a hand signal to turn it off or switch it up, but she did great. After shooting 23 rounds and bringing down 14 crows, I gave her the "kill it" signal. When she walked out from her hiding spot under a cedar tree, she said "We're going to need more owl sounds, that really gets them fired up!" I think she's got it.
|
|
bleas
Full Member
Posts: 125
|
Post by bleas on Jan 17, 2015 9:24:40 GMT -5
Good deal!!! In exchange did you have to go play Barbies the rest of the day?
|
|
|
Post by jrbhunter on Jan 20, 2015 9:28:59 GMT -5
She's got a house full of sisters to play barbies with!
My brother came along on our crow stands this past weekend. She did great running the caller. We made several stands, quite a bit of walking (for a little girl) and spent about 5 hours in the woods. She never complained, never slowed down.
Birds worked "okay" but stayed a touch high on us. Our shooting was horrific at times but we managed to knock down around 15-18. I've got some equipment coming around next week, should get into some good shooting by Mid-February.
|
|
bleas
Full Member
Posts: 125
|
Post by bleas on Jan 20, 2015 10:53:49 GMT -5
I've tried crow calling one time. One thing I guess I wasn't sure about because I've heard different answers, do you shoot the first crow you see? I've heard its the scout crow.
|
|
|
Post by jrbhunter on Jan 21, 2015 13:31:13 GMT -5
I don't believe in the "Scout Crow" thing in the same context as others. I think the crow you see first is just the closest and most curious crow in the area.
The way I run crow stands, I do believe the first wave (be it 1-2-5 birds) is going to work to my advantage if I don't shoot them immediately. Their vocals and movement are going to help seal the deal on other crows in the area. How long I wait to shoot them varies on how the stand lays out. If there are enough hills and woods around, I'll let them carry on a while (45-60 seconds) before I bust into them. If the surroundings are more open to where the sight & sound of these crows is going to carry a good ways... I'll just let them do a couple quick laps around the spread before I shoot (15-30 seconds).
I've been calling crows a long time and can't say that I've cracked the code. Sometimes I do real well, sometimes not. I'm turning up the effort this season since the coyote calling sucks. I've invested in some new equipment and retooling my old stuff. I'll be out combing over the IPC properties for the next two weeks, shooting some crows and setting 18 trail cameras that monitor hunters coming/going. With this added excuse to get out there on those back roads, I should have a LOT better camera coverage this year and be a little less rushed come Thur/Fri of the hunt weekend!
|
|
|
Post by hoosierdaddy on Jan 21, 2015 17:16:48 GMT -5
All I gotta do is sit in a lawn chair in my back yard with a cooler of beer and a few guns and kill 200 a day.......lol
|
|
|
Post by hoosierdaddy on Jan 21, 2015 17:20:00 GMT -5
I'm gonna moon ya 18 times.........lmfao
|
|
|
Post by moose1am on May 12, 2015 9:50:19 GMT -5
I've got a flock of local crows that live by my house. It's in the suburbs and I don't think that the neighbors behind me would appreciate my shooting the crows with a shotgun. Although they don't complain when I killed 10 to 15 black birds with my Gamo Pellet Rifle this past winter.
I got a new Shockwave and had to try it out this past Saturday. And of course it came with some dying crow sounds, hawk and crow fighting, and a couple other crow calls that I put to good use. I've done this before with the FX3 unit and a Johnny Stewart PM4 caller and the crows always respond at first. But after a while they are onto me and just ignore the sounds.
Once I put an owl decoy and a couple of crow decoys out in the back yard and the crows went crazy on the owl decoy. It's made out of plastic with glass eye and works for a while. One of my Wildlife Biology Professors at Purdue University had a stuff owl. A real one. I wish I could borrow that one but I fear that the crows would tear it up real quick.
I love watching birds dogfight. Their aerial battles are similar to the WWI dog fights with bi planes of the 1917 era. Some times the black birds will find a single crow and give him hell in the sky. They are more maneuverable and able to zoom down on the crow and peck at him while he is airborne and flying for his life. And Crows absolutely hate owls. So the owl and crow fight sounds will drive the flock of crows crazy.
I wish I could find a roost somewhere out in the boonies where I could actually hunt them.
|
|