Crow shooting thoughts

[Mrlucky353]

Crows are so smart.

Am convinced they know the effective range of CCI 22 Mini-Mags.
And they fly away right before you get in range.

[ogre]

When I was a kid the the county paid a bounty on crows and golfers. I got a few but not many crows, lots of golfers. Crows are a large contributing factor to the near extinction of pheasants in this state.

How did you do that: set up a blind at the "19th hole?"

[richhodg66]

When I was a kid the the county paid a bounty on crows and golfers. I got a few but not many crows, lots of golfers. Crows are a large contributing factor to the near extinction of pheasants in this state.

I don't doubt what you say, but is there a study or something you can link us to that says that?

I live in north central Kansas and this is classic upland bird country. I never have hunted them much but love to see them, Quail too, both seem to have become almost extinct here the past 20 years or so and nobody really seems to have a good explanation and most theories have their supporters and bashers.

Again, a serious question, I hadn't heard that crows had an impact, but they are pretty nasty and I would not doubt it.

[richhodg66]

We had three crows mulling around on the driveway this morning, maybe 50-60 yards from the front door. I keep a .22 loaded there but I knew there was no way I was gonna get the door open to try to shoot one.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

I protect a pair of Great Horned Owls and a hawk nest or two, then of course the meadowlarks, robins and such. Flock of crows came in after the owls, got several with shotgun, old 16 ga Sears bolt action 6 shooter, before they left. Showed up again a couple days later, got a couple more, now they stay clear, shot a scout with .17 HMR, about 125 yds, now if a scout or two shows up, just walking toward them causes them to leave. 200 plus yards seems to be their distance if they do come through. Have not seen a flock for a couple years. I find crows are mostly unpleasant and destructive.

[Texas by God]

They certainly know the difference between my wife's truck and mine. They skedaddle when they see mine.

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[Murphy]

Wolfdog91,

Thanks for sharing your videos and experiences. Without fail, I've enjoyed them all. I grew up a city kid until I was 13. When dad moved us back home where he grew up, man did the fun begin. All my country cousins and classmates pretty much hunted. Now that I think about it, that's about all we had for entertainment. I'm 67 years old now.

And I'm going to throw in with the others. It's good to see young men like you carrying on what so many of us worry about. And that's the loss of young shooters who cast, reload and hunt. For that matter, any of the three I just mentioned. I'm sure many read your posts and watch your videos with a lot of joy. As one of the other posters stated, we need more young men like you. I have all this 'stuff' and feel like I'd have to pay a young man to learn how to cast and load. Yet, we can find them all over hollering about not having any ammunition.

One more thing, thank you for your service!


Murphy

[wmitty]

If you have not read “Varmint and Crow Shooters Bible “ by Bert Popowski, it is very good reading. His description of his pet crow named “Judas” is absolutely worth your time.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

The more I learn about the crow critters the less I feel like killing them. And i have killed my share. They are extremely intelligent creatures. I do enjoy swatting pigeons, starlings and grackels.

[jim147]

I've never seen a thread here go caddyshack. This one wins everything.

[Wolfdog91]

Hay thanks for all the kind words y'all ! Sorry I want responding quicker lol .

[gmsharps]

I’ve seen a group of crows drive a red tail hawk to the ground and continue the attack until they have killed it. I have intervened a couple of times shooting whatever I had with me and broke up the fight. If I see a crow within shooting distance they are toast. They are smart but very destructive.

Gmsharps

[Cosmic_Charlie]

We have quite a few who nest in our neighborhood. I have seen them destroy songbird nests, flying away with chunks of them to build their own nests with. The last one I killed was about 8 years ago from our back deck. Lucky 50 yard head shot with a souped up scoped Crossman. 22 pellet pistol.

[44magLeo]

Great story. I didn't try stalking crows that way but did stalk lots of woodchucks with a 22. It was tough for me at the time.
I can remeber some of the older hunters talking about crows. They said a crow can tell the difference between a rifle and a shotgun your carring.
They can couint up to 3. They often would have 4 or 5 people walk out to a blind and 4 would walk back. The crows would come near enough because they thought everybody left.
I haven't hunted crows enough to verify those old guys.
I have killed a few. When I got out of thev service I brought with me a Reminngtom 788 in 22-250.
One day after chores we came up from the barn that was at the at the lower farm. We lived in the house at the upper farm. About 225 yards up the hill. My BIL had spread manure on the feild about 200 yards from the barn.
When we got up to the house we saw a crow feeding on that strip of manure.
I had shot the 22-250 a fair amount out to a couple hundred yards and had a good idea of how it shot at those distances.
I knew that crow feeding on the fresh manure was out abouit 425 to 450 yards. I was using Hornady 55 gr bullets. i knew the velocity and where it was shooting shorter ranges. Using the ballistic tables in my Hornady manual, I looked up what I needed to know to hit that crow. With sand bags on the hood of the truck I figured I had to hold just shy of a foot over the crow for that distance.
Looking at the crow at a broadside view on the 9x of that Bushnell scope I knew the crow was about a foot long from head to tail and used that to judge how high I had to be. No wind to adjust for, luckily, at the shorter ranges I was shooting at wind wasn't much of an issue so I didn't really understand much about wind effecting the bullet.
I held one crow length over the crow and put the bullet right through it's shoulders.
The people watching were pretty amaed with the shot. So was I. I wanted to jump for joy after the shot, but I just remained calm like I did it all the time.
It's one shot I'll always remember.
Leo

[Gee_Wizz01]

I am retired, crowding 70 and have a bad back, I can no longer crawl across the cow pasture to sneak up on varmints. I make up for my handicaps with better technology. These days I hunt crows from my back porch with my 220 Swift, a tripod rifle rest, laser rangefinder, ballistics ap on my phone, an Alpha Dogg game call and a glass of ice tea. When I see or hear the crows I fire up the game call with the crow commotion and wait for them to land in the pines. Last week I used my old Marlin 39A, so the crows were staying about 100 yards out. The first crow was sitting in a pine tree at 130 yards. I nailed him with my first shot and he just collapsed and fell to ground. I was surprised that the 55 grain Hornady spire point didn't cause an explosion of feathers. The rest of the crows left for about 10 minutes and then a couple returned and lit in another pine at 150 yards. I fired again and the crow fell out of the tree. His buddy flew out to another tree at 185 yards and commenced to create a commotion. I got him with another shot and he quickly hit the ground. Things got quiet for a while and finally another crow landed in a pine tree at 260 yards. I was ready for the challenge, I checked the ballistics app and dialed in my scope and fired and missed. The bullet hit the branch he was sitting on and ricocheted just like in the movies. After that the crows left area, my wife told me that this rifle was too loud to shoot off the back porch and to knock it off. I thought to myself '3 ot of 4, bad for an old codger'. Hopefully they'll back next week. Life is good out here on the farm.

Gary

[Texas by God]

Found one 164 paces from the driveway in the pecan bottom. The 17HMR works perfectly.

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I dont understand why that some days pics are clear and some days they are not.....oh well, sorry about that.

[jsizemore]

Forgive me if Im wrong, but if I kill all the golfers, wont they lock me up and throw away the key?

I bet he wrote "gopher" and spell check putted in.

[missionary5155]

Fuzzy pictures is from some crow sitting on a receiver and reading the posts.

[Jim22]

When I was a kid the the county paid a bounty on crows and golfers. I got a few but not many crows, lots of golfers. Crows are a large contributing factor to the near extinction of pheasants in this state.

Boy, I sure am glad I gave up golf.

[Mr_Sheesh]

I hear that in some jurisdictions you can get a bounty on folks who just golfed once