Armour Plated Crows

[fortune82]

Seeing as it was such a nice day today I decided to go and thin out the crow population on our shoot as we have a lot of wild pheasants. I set up my hide and put a few crow decoys out and pigeon decoys. I have shot thousands of woodies and pheasants in my time but have never set out to target crows before. Anyway it worked quite well and I ended up with 18 in the bag however when picking up shot birds I found 7 that were still alive.

 

These birds were hit hard and hit the ground with a thump yet were still alive five minutes later, not flapping or anything just moving when picked up. Are crows a particularly tough bird? I was using Hull High Pheasant 30gram no.6 through 1/2 and 3/4 chokes.

 

What do you guys use if your going crow bashing?

Edited March 1, 2010 by fortune82

[Imperfection]

I just use normal 32gm 6's on crows like i do with pigeons.I do sometimes find they're a bit tougher,but this is normally due to them not comming too close so they're right on edge of range.If i see movement on ground i give em' another barrel cos one drew blood on me.

[hushpower]

i use rottweil high velocity 6s ,cracking shell for the corvids.cheapish as well

[wymberley]

Hi,

Had the same problem and discovered that in my case I was rook/crow bashing but shooting at pigeon. You know by its size when a pigeon is in range but the black ones are bigger so in reality they were further away than a pigeon would have been for the same sized target. When I finally twigged things got much better. Know how Imperfection feels too but my father shot and reloaded 2" and had loads left after he died. They make ideal cripple stoppers.

Cheers

[fortune82]

Thanks for that! They were all longish shots judging by where they fell but I have been consistently tackling high pheasants this year with the same cartridge! Ah well might have to throw some old 42 gram 3's at them and see how they like that!

[humperdingle]

Crows and rooks just seem to have an amazing will to live despite overwhelming odds... The percentage of crows I need to finish off compared to pigeons is just so much higher.

[covlocks]

I carry my AimX in a bag with me - I also have had my fingers chomped at by some hardy Magies and Crows. 1 pellet between the peeps at close range completes the task quickly and humanely, and saves wasting a much more expensive cartridge.

[al4x]

shot a few on a hare day a few weeks back and must say the rio 4's I was using were very humane. You do tend to shoot at them further away as they are larger, try going up to 5's or indeed 4's and you'll find they don't try and walk off. Either that or do what i usually do and use the HMR or .223

[Frenchieboy]

I have to agree with Al4x on this one. The 17HMR certainly does quite a humane job on those old blackies! They certainly are a bit harder to judge the range on with a shottie, especially if you are used to pigeons!

[bobby]

Seeing as it was such a nice day today I decided to go and thin out the crow population on our shoot as we have a lot of wild pheasants. I set up my hide and put a few crow decoys out and pigeon decoys. I have shot thousands of woodies and pheasants in my time but have never set out to target crows before. Anyway it worked quite well and I ended up with 18 in the bag however when picking up shot birds I found 7 that were still alive.

 

These birds were hit hard and hit the ground with a thump yet were still alive five minutes later, not flapping or anything just moving when picked up. Are crows a particularly tough bird? I was using Hull High Pheasant 30gram no.6 through 1/2 and 3/4 chokes.

 

What do you guys use if your going crow bashing?

Try 4s or 5s but they are a very hardy bird

I always take an expandable truncheon with me 1 like the police use. its small compact and does the job when u bonk them on the back of the head and cheaper than using another cartridge

[bearhire]

32g 4's

[Cranfield]

I think one think that makes crows/rooks seem armour plated, is that they are moving faster than they look.

This means that sometimes we don't give them enough lead.

There is a lot of truth in the old maxim, "you rarely miss a bird in front".

[THEINVISIBLESCARECROW]

My two extermes are they drop like a stone (had one that looked like a single pellet strike to the head) or just keep going.

I recovered one that dipped but flew on, I found it on the walk home.

It looked like It had been through a shredder, blood everwhere, a right mangled mess.

Tend to use 32g of 5 or sometimes 4's on them.

[tweedledee]

i have shot hundreds and probably into thousands of crows. like anything else if you don`t hit them right they won`t drop.i use 28 7.5s on occasions and with full choke i never have any bother.on other occasions when it`s windy or harder to bring them into range pigeon express 32 no 6s cope well also.put the shot in the right place and you`ll find they are`nt armour plated

[MPT1]

I know you are all talking shotgun, but I knock them over with Dynamic 22s pellets.