doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT - Any crow hunters here?

Seems that this winter I'm seeing more crows than ever before. They are everywhere around Raleigh, downtown and in the 'burbs. Any of you crow hunters notice the same thing in your areas?

I'm no longer much of a crow hunter but am an observer of what's going on in the animal world around here (northern Illinois), and I've seen a sharp decline in crow numbers for the past few years. A friend who is a wild bird rehabilitator tells me the sharp decline is because of the West Nile virus. Also down are the bluejays. Chopperlump

Here in Eastern Pa, I used to see them coming off roost early in the morning and you would see many lines going only they knew where. In the evening you would see the same lines going back to roost.
Haven't hunted them since I was young, 40+ years ago. Still like to watch them, one of the smartest birds around. You could count on one hand the dead ones you see hit by a car.

Flat out problem here in So. Cal. Populations at all time highs. decimating all the song bird species. We live on a "mountain" 10 or so miles east of downtown San Diego. They are everywhere. Huge flocks. Just tonight there was something attracting them to some tall eucalyptus trees in the yard. There were probably a hundred there.
Of course, no shooting anywhere around. And the population just keeps growing and squeezing out the other species.

Jake

I heard rumors the decline in Crow populations was caused by a Sport in Missoura armed with a Kimber .22.

my father and i always enjoyed it. where my folks live in MS, the crow population is anything but on a decline. not uncommon to see dozens at one time around their place. last time i visited them we went off behind their house a couple times but didn't have much luck. too windy, they wouldn't come in good and when they did they were right down in the trees. we made a pretty poor showing.

as an aside, once long ago - i was sitting stuck in school of course - my dad put the speed load feature of his 3" mag 20 A5 to good use and if i remember right, killed 13 with 14 shots and the last 9 shots were all singles. they were coming in so good and so fast he never had time to reload; just shoved individual rounds into the magazine. you get used to a speed load A5 and every other auto just seems like a really bad idea. in all fairness, most of the hunting we have here it's not a particularly useful feature any more except on vermin.

he said that was one thing he'd never eaten when he was a kid growing up and i was curious enough to try it last fall. it wasn't awful and in fact had no taste whatsoever except for salt and pepper. i wouldn't starve if that were all there were but i'd really prefer something else. for such a fair sized bird there's almost no meat on it. the actual meat part of the bird is very tiny. i think a dove has as much or more breast meat.

A pellet gun works well on them. I had them nest in my front yard and come back for a couple of years before I got rid of them. They had a huge nest up about 40' in the top of a pine tree next to my garage. They would take off from the nest and swoop down along my driveway- splattering my cars with huge piles of crap. I got sick of this crap. LITERALLY. I stood out in the front yard with my pump-up Crosman pellet gun with a 4X scope one day and waited for them. When they stuck their heads over the side of the nest to look around, I shot them under the chin. They'd stagger around and then fall out of the nest to the ground. I got three the first day, thinking I had gotten them all. But I noticed the last one the next day and got him, too. They never came back. Prior to getting these I noticed one out in my back yard, high up in my maple tree about 40-50 feet. I went in the house, pumped up my pellet gun and nailed him. He was dead when he hit the ground. When I measured it from my deck to the tree it was about 125'. And at least 40 feet up. Not bad for a little pump up Crosman. I still see them flying around but they never seem to fly over my house. Next to rolling Irish Setters up in the wheelwell of a car, I can't think of anything more nasty and fun to dispose of............Denny Crane

Decoys, mouth call, Kimber and Eley subsonic hollowpoints - it is good sport.
The crow population has rebounded to almost where they were before West Nile, but still I shoot only a few per year.
I call them into the trees and take no more than a thirty yard shot. Right after deer season is a good time, as they have had their fill of the gut piles.

I have hunted them sporatically for years. Around Ohio the populations seem to be up quite a bit. Used to be quite a few crow hunters, but rarely see any anymore. I still have my Herter's crow call I got about 42 years ago, along with 6 crow decoys and an owl decoy. Used to work great, but I guess so many people took it up it grew less and less effective. Like dove calls and wood duck calls I guess.

Both the crow and raven population has exploded in Southern Ohio. I don't hunt them,don't need to, just open the patio door and take them as they leave the bird feeders..MDC