Crow Hunting

Crow Hunting
            I had a friend named Chuck when I was in high school who lived about a mile or so away from me and since we rode the same school bus we shared a lot of time together and learned we had many of the same interests. We were both avid hunters, we each had a pump shotgun and we loved small game hunting. Mostly, we went partridge or rabbit hunting but, once in a while, we would do a little varmint hunting if the game presented itself.
 
            One summer we decided it would be a great idea to take up crow hunting since there were flocks of them covering the surrounding corn fields around the neighboring farms. Many of the farms belonged to the parents of our friends and it was easy to get permission to hunt around their properties. Actually, most of the farmers liked the idea of someone shooting the crows because it saved them from having to chase them from their fields. Most dairy farmers didn’t have the time to worry about chasing crows from their cornfields. A side benefit was the permission to hunt during small game season for birds and rabbits on their lands.
 
            I was quite an avid reader too, so naturally I had to research the best ways to savage the crow population. A decoy was recommended and the owl decoy was supposed to be the best thing to incite a flock of crows to attack in numbers worthy of our shooting abilities. Camouflaged netting was also supposed to hide us in a ground blind so the winged scourges wouldn’t see our ambush. It must be remembered that back in those days personal “camo” clothing and accessories were not readily available so we were only worried about hiding our blinds. I also decided that I had to get a crow call and practice calling to put the icing on the cake.
 
            Herter’s to the rescue! An order for an owl decoy, a camouflaged netting kit and a genuine George Leonard Herter crow call was sent out post haste.  While we waited we started scouting the area for the best sites to set up blinds and put out our decoy.  Chuck came up with the idea of putting the owl decoy on a rope so we could just toss it over a branch and haul it up into view for all the crows to see.  Our plan was to set up a bunch of blinds around various fields and then just take the decoy from blind to blind as needed.
 
           My “Herter’s” order arrived and Chuck and I soon prepared the decoy and set out netting over several of our best blinds. In the meantime I practiced calling, paying strict attention to the note scales and prompts in the instruction booklet that George had thoughtfully provided with the “genuine” Northwoods crow call. I soon was calling in crows, only singles, not any flocks, but I could sometimes slow a crow that was passing over and get it to make a second pass so I considered that proficient enough to make our hunting a success.
 
           With no school our summer routine was mostly consumed with chores and odd jobs but we managed to get a couple of days each week in our blinds. The first few hunts were a tremendous success! We ambushed crows as they flew in to feast on corn as it ripened and I even amazed myself by calling in several birds with my expert calling technique. The owl decoy, on the other hand, was not quite as advertised. It drew an occasional glance from a crow or two but it didn’t seem to elicit the rage the catalog had said it would. In fact, the crows actually ignored it for the most part, seeming to sense it wasn’t alive.
 
           I suspect we didn’t have the correct placement or the expertise in crow decoy deployment to make the decoy work like it was supposed to. Perhaps it was a faulty decoy, or, maybe it was just not a decoy for Upper Michigan crows. We had a wonderful summer when all was said and done. In the beginning we had many days when we bagged numbers of crows and it seemed like we were going to get rid of every crow in the area, but, the crows soon got smart and we stopped having much luck from then on. When the summer ended and we quit hunting, the crow population rebounded in no time flat.
 
           I think we gained a lot of wing shooting experience and we certainly had a lot of fun getting out in the outdoors and shooting up boxes of shotgun shells. After that summer we didn’t do too much crow hunting. The fever had worn off and we moved on to other more pressing matters. The crow was eventually designated as a migratory bird and was regulated to a short hunting season and lost its appeal as far as hunting was concerned. I suppose the wily crows had outsmarted us once again!
 
           I was rummaging through my old hunting stuff the other day and found my old crow call. It brought back the memories of that long ago summer and the good times Chuck and I had hunting crows. Chuck passed away a few years ago so I couldn’t share those memories with him but I’m sure if he was here he would remember those days as fondly as I do.
Chris