I Really Hate Crows

Most recently on the 2^nd day of the dove season, which marked my 50^th dove season, I saw almost no doves at all and got not shots as I drove around the hunting area in search of one good dove field. What I found was a flock of about fifty crows congregated around a field harassing some wild turkeys. I stopped and uncased the little Browning A-5 Light Twenty. One of a matched pair of A-5s, Romulus and Remus. I loaded up with 3 small yellow shells. Dove loads number 8s in a light Winchester field load, it was all I had.

Ahh, but I have the ultimate secret weapon for the demise of crows. You see I speak crow. Now you city boys and girls that think you are a skillful nimrods, you have no idea how I do this. Along with the simple fact that even if I tried, I have never been able to teach anyone else how to call crows with the human voice. Most people when they see and hear me do this think I'm crazy until crows from completely out of ear shot start dive bombing the whole area.

But you would have not thought me crazy had you seen the way I cleverly concealed myself in the bushes. You would have marveled at the way I included a wounded rabbit call along with the crow call, which again was all only done with the human voice and not with the aid of any calling device. The shiny black lead bird came in with his head turning from side to side while others lit in the nearby tall pine trees. He was the epitome of one smart crow, somehow spotting a slight movement he turned the whole flock away. But I think not. I started calling again.

You have to think like a crow. They are greedy and never give up as long as they are in numbers. So with the lead bird came the rest of the loud hellish messengers of death. This time they came head long to the call, relinquishing all caution and looking for another small forest creature to annoy or steal a free meal from. Instead, was the tactically placed Uncle John, master of concealment behind the pine tree.

The florescent glowing chartreuse sight followed the big black bird from his tail to his beak, touching off there with the slight hint of recoil. The lead bird stopped in midair, made a gurgling evil cackle sound as a last act of defiance and actually flew backwards a bit until he started a spiraling plummet to the forest floor. A fitting end. To quote the Raven “Never More.”

My best crow shoot happened while dove hunting in Logan County many years ago, South of Magazine near the third bridge of the Petie Jean River to Sugar Grove Arkansas. I was hunting with the finest wingshot in the field I ever met, my old school chum Billy Franklin. We both had two boxes of shells and Billy had a Remington 11-48 while I had rigged out a contraption being a Marlin Goose Gun with a 36 inch barrel and the first of the Red dot sights, a Weaver Quick Point. This centered the pattern and would knock out a dove at 60 yards.

However there were no doves in the maze patch, due to an overwhelming flock of crows. Billy was like me. He could call crows with the human voice and so started such a mayhem that would make Alfred Hitchcock wince. The crows came in a like a scene from “The Birds.” They were met with methodical fire from two young Arkansas sharpshooters. They never seemed to stop coming in, as crows that were hit on the ground made with distress calls leading the rest right into the guns. Some were hit so close they seemed to burst apart in a shower of black feathers, in the end we ran out of ammo. Billy exclaimed, “Damn I missed one.” I told him I had not. We looked at the black carnage we had created in the small patch of woods in the middle of the maze patch. 99 crows with 100 shells.

This almost never happens as most of the time crows being called only hang around for a a couple of shots and then they are gone and its difficult to call them for about a month. I get a lot of shots at crows while hunting small game of another species, usually a dove or squirrel hunt. My highest score for one sit with a 22 magnum was 5 as I called them. All but one was taken perched in a tree. However, I lucked out on an incomer and took him out on the fly. Such a shot is possible. It is all what you practice.

That leads me to the most impossible shot I've ever seen with a rifle and a bow. They were both on crows and I don't mind if you don't believe this but it is quite true. I was Jackrabbit hunting with a young MP at White Sands Missile Range out in the desert. I had my Anshutz 54 Sporter in 22 long rifle, with a 4X12 Bushnell scope. I still have the rifle and the scope.

As we stopped eradicating Jackrabbits for a minute, a lone crow flew from my right to my left. I haphazardly aimed and remembered how to hold for that distance along with a lead. The unbelievable happened and the crow dropped 180 steps away. Of course it was pure luck but it happened.