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crow shooting


bagup-sam
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i want to try it out.

ive always stuck to the pigeons and was just wondering what kind of kit you need to have a better chance and how many decoys and how to set them up for best results?!!

and do the crows rect to the decoys similarly to the pigeons?!

thanks

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in my experience,you need a few decoys ,4 -8 plenty to start,spread randomly head in to wind (never tails) maybe a dead bunnie,unless theres crops or seeds that they feeding on anyways ,and sit tight in hide,crows are very clever ,and see the slightest movement.ive had some brillinat days ,when they feeding on newly planted crops,but can be very quiet some days .

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I have just been trying a spot of crow shooting as I am new to shotguns. I put a crow decoy on a nearby post away from 2 others which I put near a split open rabbit! Corvids love to see a bit of blood! ;) On my first outing I shot 8 crows in a couple of hours. Thats good for a newbie I think. The system worked well and they were flying in from their flightline. I have hidden the bodies ready for tomorrow as I add them to the pattern which definately draws more in!

Si

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  • 3 weeks later...
I have just been trying a spot of crow shooting as I am new to shotguns. I put a crow decoy on a nearby post away from 2 others which I put near a split open rabbit! Corvids love to see a bit of blood! :thumbs: On my first outing I shot 8 crows in a couple of hours. Thats good for a newbie I think. The system worked well and they were flying in from their flightline. I have hidden the bodies ready for tomorrow as I add them to the pattern which definately draws more in!

Si

me and ray have shot over 300 crows this year we have found the best way for us is 1 decoy on the best flight line good camo as you shoot them put in your patten only put 3 or 4 in as it seem's to spook them good look

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Where I shoot, the crows are not fussed about how the decoys are faced in relation to wind direction and the more randomly you scatter them the better. A decoy on a fence post or similar close by will generally make things look more attractive but make sure it is not 'looking' in the direction of,or at your hide.

A 'pull the string' type flapper will work well just to add some movement when they approach your pattern, but dont over do it. Where I usually shoot crows, they are there to eat the pig food but the best results I've had with baiting is using a split rabbit or squirrel (make sure the guts are hanging out) and 2 plastic decoys (or dead birds) one right next to the bait, one 2/3 feet away and a magpie decoy 5 or 6 metres away. That works like a charm.

 

The biggest problem with crows is with them seeing you way before they are close enough for a shot. You need to be very well conceiled and I have found that with out any shadow of a doubt you will shoot more crows if you wear a face veil, ideally the type which covers the whole head and just leaves a very narrow gap around the eyes.

 

In my experience the golden rules are 1. never let them see your face (if you wear shooting/sun glasses and have the sun in front of you they will see you as the light reflects) and 2. dont move a muscle until the second you want to shoot. If you move before you can shoot your cover is blown ! they will spot the slightest movement. they have excellent eye sight and are considered very intelligent as birds go.

 

If you are shooting birds on a flight line just leave the dead ones out as decoys and they will attract birds.

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i want to try it out.

ive always stuck to the pigeons and was just wondering what kind of kit you need to have a better chance and how many decoys and how to set them up for best results?!!

and do the crows rect to the decoys similarly to the pigeons?!

thanks

I am setting off very shortly on a mission (following a call yesterday - crows on some winter wheat - couple of small laid areas) one flocked full-bodied deek is all I ever start with when using my shotgun over drillings, flat corn or stubble, hope to do well as the weather is near perfect it is windy, part sunny with heavy rain showers!

 

Cheers, CB

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Where I shoot, the crows are not fussed about how the decoys are faced in relation to wind direction and the more randomly you scatter them the better. A decoy on a fence post or similar close by will generally make things look more attractive but make sure it is not 'looking' in the direction of,or at your hide.

A 'pull the string' type flapper will work well just to add some movement when they approach your pattern, but dont over do it. Where I usually shoot crows, they are there to eat the pig food but the best results I've had with baiting is using a split rabbit or squirrel (make sure the guts are hanging out) and 2 plastic decoys (or dead birds) one right next to the bait, one 2/3 feet away and a magpie decoy 5 or 6 metres away. That works like a charm.

 

The biggest problem with crows is with them seeing you way before they are close enough for a shot. You need to be very well conceiled and I have found that with out any shadow of a doubt you will shoot more crows if you wear a face veil, ideally the type which covers the whole head and just leaves a very narrow gap around the eyes.

 

In my experience the golden rules are 1. never let them see your face (if you wear shooting/sun glasses and have the sun in front of you they will see you as the light reflects) and 2. dont move a muscle until the second you want to shoot. If you move before you can shoot your cover is blown ! they will spot the slightest movement. they have excellent eye sight and are considered very intelligent as birds go.

 

If you are shooting birds on a flight line just leave the dead ones out as decoys and they will attract birds.

 

thats great advice , i went to do some crow bashing this morning on a cattle farm there usually alot of them as they nick the cow feed but today there was none about in the air ( 6 this morning ) could this be due to it raining?

 

i did manage to get 3 but that was it ...

 

also i have some magpie decoys so i will try that next time

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They dont seem to like the rain if it is more than just spitting. I also find it is much easier shooting in the summer. I often see just as many birds in the winter but they are not so easily drawn in and make for difficult shooting.

 

I'm just about getting the hand of it now, I've been shooting on a pig farm for 2 years that has the biggest flock of corvids I've ever seen. They number like 700 or 800 and no matter how many we shoot there never seems any less.

 

Even though there is so many birds they are ******* to shoot and for the first year we were (me and my shootin buddy) lucky to get 10 between us in 5 or 6 hours.

 

Now we are knocking down 50+ in a session of 3 or 4 hours.

 

I will admit we shoot a hell of a lot of carts for 50 birds, I wont tell you how many cos its embarassing !

 

Top Sport though !!

 

Leeboy

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I am setting off very shortly on a mission (following a call yesterday - crows on some winter wheat - couple of small laid areas) one flocked full-bodied deek is all I ever start with when using my shotgun over drillings, flat corn or stubble, hope to do well as the weather is near perfect it is windy, part sunny with heavy rain showers!

 

 

also i have some magpie decoys so i will try that next time

 

roadkill, think you will be wasting your time using magpie deeks to draw crows!!

 

On my 'mission' last Saturday I shot about 23 crows over laid wheat, picked 17, could'nt find 6.

I started with just the one tame crow and fired 29 cartridges for my bag of 23 - shot in 2 hours in late afternoon.

 

Cheerio CB:~}

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It's a shame you can't shoot over Wormwood Scrubs playing fields. I work near there and often do an hour's walking at lunchtime.

 

I would say on average I see 2-300 crows, 40-50 magpies and about 150 wood pigeons every lunchtime. They take little notice of people. it would be very good shooting but I think the dog walkers and prison warders might object!

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i want to try it out.

ive always stuck to the pigeons and was just wondering what kind of kit you need to have a better chance and how many decoys and how to set them up for best results?!!

and do the crows rect to the decoys similarly to the pigeons?!

thanks

I am setting off very shortly on a mission (following a call yesterday - crows on some winter wheat - couple of small laid areas) one flocked full-bodied deek is all I ever start with when using my shotgun over drillings, flat corn or stubble, hope to do well as the weather is near perfect it is windy, part sunny with heavy rain showers!

 

Cheers, CB

 

:good: same scenario, call from farmer blackstuff all over some laid barley. Shot the field one afternoon last week and bagged just under the ton. Rooks, crows and jacks. They haven't hit it again until now so we'll see what today brings. I'll used a couple of flocked blacks and use shot birds as we go, maybe even put a couple on a rotary and some bouncers. Blackstuff always likes numbers.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I normally take a 2 black decoys and a few pigeons.

 

Any that fall in the pattern I just leave. I'm not sure if positioning them "upright and feeding" offsets the disturbance of walking out into the pattern.

 

I always go fully cammed up, DPM and face veil, and hide in a bush. Quite often they still spot me, even though I'm dead still. I find it's better if they can't see you at all as they approach the kill zone. It does means that I get no warning of their approach. Reducing my field of view does mean that I can't shoot at all the birds that come into range, but I seem to have far more success.

 

Yesterday I went out without any decoys and just tucked myself in the edge of a wood between a grass paddock where they were resting and the barley which they were feeding on. I was at 90 degrees to their flight line as they appeared 20 yards from me, flying slowly up the valley against a head wind. I got 18 before I ran out of cartridges.

 

Not that I did anything special or clever. I just had to tell someone!

 

Merman.

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i have been shooting over layed wheat and have been setting up before dawn for best results. I use six full bodied crow deeks and a flapper. Ive only shot before dawn once on this shoot and managed 84 corvids before running out of carts.

Ive been 3 times since in the afternoon and never managed to bag more than 15. There has always been literally hundreds about when setting up but seeing me putting the hide up is like an alarm call for them. So im off back again this weekend for an early morning session after not shooting during the week.. Hopefully end up with a good bag :rolleyes:

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  • 11 years later...

When shooting crows i generly put out 12 to 15 full bodied decoys,about 30 yards from the hide spaced about 6 feet apart leaving a 10 foot space in the patern  for the crows to land in ,when you shoot your first bird put it on a flapper to one side of the patern always facing the bird into the wind i always use a crow caller do not overdo the calls if you see or hear a crow calling respond with a few calls just enough to point the crows in the direction of your patern ,keep well down till the bird is within range  i use skeet 7and a half  32 gram shells  in my browning 525 quartet and half chokes fantastick gun combination shot over 600 birds last year on a farm where there are not a lot of birds about ,mainly calling them in when they are passing over going elswhere to feed.

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On 02/06/2019 at 10:22, Archibaldmuir said:

When shooting crows i generly put out 12 to 15 full bodied decoys,about 30 yards from the hide spaced about 6 feet apart leaving a 10 foot space in the patern  for the crows to land in ,when you shoot your first bird put it on a flapper to one side of the patern always facing the bird into the wind i always use a crow caller do not overdo the calls if you see or hear a crow calling respond with a few calls just enough to point the crows in the direction of your patern ,keep well down till the bird is within range  i use skeet 7and a half  32 gram shells  in my browning 525 quartet and half chokes fantastick gun combination shot over 600 birds last year on a farm where there are not a lot of birds about ,mainly calling them in when they are passing over going elswhere to feed.

hello, are you sure on your post reference a 32g 7.5 skeet 7 ??????

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18 minutes ago, Longstrider said:

Erm .. you do realise this thread is 12 years old don't you ?

Yeah. Personally I'd rather people used the search feature & comment on old threads rather than starting a new one on a subject that been covered a 100 times before.

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1 hour ago, Farmboy91 said:

Weren't they the old Jackie Stewart load? 

Did have a conversation once with someone who swore by them through a bit of choke for drey smashing.

hello, not sure but i could not find them for sale, anyway it all help to keep the numbers down and songbirds safe

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8 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

hello, not sure but i could not find them for sale, anyway it all help to keep the numbers down and songbirds safe

These were what I was thinking of, although it looks like a 9 to me. 

But yeah 100% as long as they are being knocked over. 

Screenshot_20190605-062300.png

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