Good Afternnon On the Corvids

[djgeoff]

What started out to be a bad day yesterday getting up at 6 am collected mate then touring his shoots end up great.

 

we had done the first two farms with not much luck and progressed to the third about 3pm

 

we spotted pigeon on some wheat rang the farmer to see if it was ok to drive down verge of field, he 'no you can come to farm and get these crows for me'.

 

so we set off to his farm, no crows were around farm so drove out other side of farm and saw approx 50 in far corner of field on very short grass.

 

Near to this corner was what looked like a dried out pond with few bushes and couple small trees.

 

mate decided he did not what to walk to it so he went for a near by wood, so of i went across field towards this clump of bushes closely followed by about 15 very inquisitive bullocks.

 

I though tactics here to get rid of them, i thought i would go through all this under growth to get to my spot.

 

just when i thought i had sorted it as i set my hide up there was a nudge from behind and you guessed it 15 bullocks all looking on.

 

so i struggle on herding them away to the middle of the field, then legging it back to grab my decoys and setting out in front of my hide.

 

no sooner as i got back to hide picked my gun up looked out front and yes they were back licking my decoys to death and one even decided to carry one off until i went after him........... i thought i have had enough of this i quit.

 

Went out picked up decoys just about to pack up and the bullocks had bogged off! Ho-ray at last!

 

so i did my S A S bit to get one decoy out within seconds nailed a crow, went out turned it up the right way and carried on like that for the next 3 hours.

 

And as more shot crow were on the ground more came from the air, i could not load auto fast enough, in one flurry one finger of my glove got caught in the shell loading mechanism, which p me off.

 

Then i could not believe it was coming near to the 3 hour had fives shells left, sun behind me and i noticed lots of flicking shadows on the floor in front me then from nowhere dropped about 50-60 crows as i brought gun up another load piled in from behind and left. there was at least 100 in front of me, there was that many i could no longer see the fence line 40 yrds away.

 

With the second lot coming in i think it must have made me loose my concentration for a split second and hesitation on my target, so i thought just shoot you cant miss... took one shot, but guess what i did......unbelievable how could i miss! went to take second shot and gun never fired... it never cycled next round i was kicking myself.

 

But what a great day! shot approx 50 , i say 50 because i had 36 on ground as decoys, 4 i put in hedge row as they were gutted went hit, 5 behind me some where and the rest carried on flying even though they were hit well. oh yeh nearly forgot one woody that crossed my path.

 

shame i had no camera to catch so many crows in front of me all at once, i went home, cleaned guns etc, drink grub bed and woke up 8 hrs later

 

can anyone tell me why so many crow would be interested in short grass munched by cattle? is it the cows muck there going for do you think?

[bucolic]

They go for undigested grain also its a good place to get salt so I have been told.

[djgeoff]

They go for undigested grain also its a good place to get salt so I have been told.

thanks

[.philmypower.]

Interesting. Good shooting buddy

[Frenchieboy]

I don't normally get the chance to shoot that many crows around one of my permissions except for when the fields have recently been cut and bailed, then for the next few weeks I have some great sport on them! In my case what has made a couple of the fields even better is the fact that a few days after the bails were hauled in the field was spread with a heck of a lot of fresh chicken manure! I believe that the crows like the fresh cut fields as it exposes the worms and grubs for them as well as the seeds that fall off the grass etc during the hay making!

Using just 2 full bodied decoys and 4 black cardboard cutouts to start and adding the shot birds to the pattern I have had some very satisfying sessions on these couple of fields recently. In the last 3 sessions (Each about 2 - 2.5 hours) I have got through about 50 cartridges for about 30 crows, 4 magpies and half a dozen pigeons, resulting in one happy farmer!