Posted: 3/12/2012 3:15:40 PM EDT
| I am gearing up for Crow season here in New England. Anyone else going after them? I am actually kinda pumped. I got a hot field picked out, and tomorrow I am going to finish up flocking my decoys. Should be a great shoot but its still hunting so I am keeping my fingers crossed that the birds cooperate. |
Went out for the opener here today and it was very good despite the conditions. We have had a record warm winter and that has continued into March (I had shorts on yesterday) warm weather does not usually go with good crow shooting in the spring, but there were alot of birds around and we shot well. I decided to see how the puppy would handle crows and she did great, picked up every bird in the picture just like it was a Teal....no hesitation, but she is also super bird crazy and force fetched 
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and yes, I'm being completely serious. The breast is the only real useable meat, but it's rich and almost beefy in flavor like dove is.
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Quoted:
What gun / load/ choke are you using VT? Are you decoying or pass shooting? Looks like a slammin' shoot....31 birds? Gun is either a Benelli M1 S90 or SBE using a SRM Terror choke in .675 (I shoot everything with that choke except partridge/woodcock, it patterns every load combo amazing in my 2 Benellis....I have never seen anything like it, lead, steel, HD, Hevi etc all 90+% at 30 yds., and low 90% to upper 80's at 40 yds) I like a tight choke as I used to shoot alot of registered trap in my younger days and you need to be very precise at that game, and that has carried over. Loads are just low base 3 dram, 1 1/8 oz 7.5 lead shot All shots are decoying over 26 GHG crow decoys and 6 pigeon decoys, with hand calls......no electronics. We hunt them just like geese, find a feeding field or run traffic, make a good blind and kill a bunch....scouting is key. 31 in the pile, 3 sailer crows and a sailer pigeon not pictured. Anything over 30 is a good shoot for us, but we get into the low 80s on occasion. We have had a really warm spring (80* today) and that does not bode well for big numbers. |
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Quoted: Quoted: What gun / load/ choke are you using VT? Are you decoying or pass shooting? Looks like a slammin' shoot....31 birds? Gun is either a Benelli M1 S90 or SBE using a SRM Terror choke in .675 (I shoot everything with that choke except partridge/woodcock, it patterns every load combo amazing in my 2 Benellis....I have never seen anything like it, lead, steel, HD, Hevi etc all 90+% at 30 yds., and low 90% to upper 80's at 40 yds) I like a tight choke as I used to shoot alot of registered trap in my younger days and you need to be very precise at that game, and that has carried over. Loads are just low base 3 dram, 1 1/8 oz 7.5 lead shot All shots are decoying over 26 GHG crow decoys and 6 pigeon decoys, with hand calls......no electronics. We hunt them just like geese, find a feeding field or run traffic, make a good blind and kill a bunch....scouting is key. 31 in the pile, 3 sailer crows and a sailer pigeon not pictured. Anything over 30 is a good shoot for us, but we get into the low 80s on occasion. We have had a really warm spring (80* today) and that does not bode well for big numbers. I've got an IM comp-n-choke that does the same thing...I never change it. I've always wanted to hunt pigeon like they do in the UK complete with spinners. |
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Had a nice little hunt this morning, we have been away for the past couple of weekends and I have not been able to get out because of it. Scouted out a field yesterday that was standing corn, thanks to Irene flooding, on a friends farm.....there were alot of birds in the area and some in the corn. We decided to make a blind in the standing corn (not our best decision) instead of the near by hedgerow, any crow that came in high busted us as we had no overhead cover, to live and learn.
16 in the pile and 5 that sailed either into the creek in front of us or over it, most of the ones that hit the creek were in the "heat of battle" and I did not get the chance to send the puppy on them without screwing up the next opportunity. Had we had better cover it would have been a high 40's kind of morning, really strange for all the warm weather we have been having.....although it snowed lightly all morning. A few set up on the standing corn, they are deadly like this 
Addi and her pile 
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I know what you mean about overhead cover. We spent a day digging into a manure pile and building a frame to put burlap over our "hide". Had birds all over it for 2 days before the opener- until we got into the blind. We cut out a hole to shoot from and they could look right down in... Once the fog burned off we were done..
Here is a shot of my run and gun day on the 12th. I headed North and it started snowing! Seemed more appropriate to be shooting crows in the snow instead of with all the bare ground showing... 
Took my kid out this weekend so she took a "hero" pic of me. 
She had a great time. Snacks are key to keeping the kiddos happy in the field 
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Crow season is back in and I took my daughter out Monday morning. We were hunting a sweet corn field on a friends farm and had to wait a couple of days for them to knock some of the corn down, so we could have a nice spot to set decoys. My daughter had a little trouble connecting at first but once she did it was game on! 27 down (24 in the picture) the dog loved getting out of training mode and back into hunting.
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