Mouth Crow Calling 101 - Let’s break down crow calling in to three categories of callers. Novice, Rookie, and Experienced Crow Hunter. 

 

The Novice:  

 

There are many crow calls on the market today to choose from and all will make the sounds the beginner needs to make to start to understand the basics of crow calling. We first want to start in the proper way to hold the call to get the proper volume one requires for different situations. Hold the barrel of the call in a cupped position with either right hand or left, and with the other hand butt it up against the cupped hand and form a circle with your thumb and index finger allowing your last three fingers to be used as valves to control the air flow. This will allow you to throw the sound for maximum distance or pinch the sound for various pitches of sound once you learn how to control sounds with different volumes of air. Now we are ready to try and make a crow sound. After grasping the barrel of the call as described above place your mouth against the reed of the call and give a steady blow. You should be hearing a high pitch sound that simply sounds like “CAWWWWWWWWW”. Do not place your mouth too far over the reed, this will cause the call to stick from the saliva you are pushing through the reed. Try keeping your lips together and placing them against the reed restricting the amount of air flow going through the call. This will create a higher pitch from your call and keep the reed from sticking as bad. Different vocalization can be made by the hand over the end of the barrel of the call. Once you get comfortable with the basic sound of a crow you can play with hand movement in conjunction with air flow to create various sounds.  

 

 

THE ROOKIE: 

Now that we have the basics of how to hold and blow a call we want to try to sound like a real crow. I want to emphasize that there is no replacement for practice. You may get winded trying to blow a lot or your lips may get chapped from being pressed against the reed, but you have to get there somehow. It’s like learning to play a guitar, your fingers will get blisters and calluses on them but you finally got there and are rewarded with excellence; a good feeling for sure.  

There are a few basic crow sounds that we need to get down pat before entering the woods. The first and foremost is the one that you DO NOT WANT TO MAKE. That call is the alarm call made by a crow when he SEES OR HEARS danger. I highlighted sees or hears because one must be aware that a crow has the largest brain of any bird and is smarter than most humans you will meet. They can detect a sound in the woods that is not native to their surroundings and off they will go and you probably will not be able to call them back unless you know all the tricks that only a few expert crow hunters know and that comes from years and years of experience in the field. They can detect a chamber closing on your gun from 75 yards or a human voice that will carry in the wind. We will cover more of the do’s and do not’s in the experienced section. The call you DO NOT WANT to make is a three quick blast of “caw-caw-caw”. This sets off their alarm system and away they go. Sometimes you will have a crow setting in a tree out of range making this sound repeatedly. When this happens, you will need a small caliber rifle or go to your next spot. 

The calls we need to master for beginners are, these three basic calls are the foundation of learning to talk crow.



1.Getting their attention call: made by blowing four long blast of “caw-caw-caw-caw” and two short blasts immediately behind caw-caw. Repeating this over and over hopefully will arouse any crows within listening distance.



2.Come over here and see what I found: is made by short burst of “caw-aw, caw-aw”, again repeating maybe four burst at a time.



3.The rally call or gathering call: is made by four loud burst of “caaawww-caaawww-caaawww-caaawww”, you will notice that this call differs from the Getting their attention by longer drawn out ‘caws’ instead of short burst. Remember to use the method of holding your call to get the most of the air flow from you call as I described in the first section, two hands on the call will always give you maximum sound. 

*** There is one more basic call and I will discuss that in the next segment under experienced Crow Hunter, (The Fight call).

 



The Experienced Crow Hunter:



We have covered how to hold and blow the call to make the basic sounds of crow calling. We have covered the three basic calls one would need to know before entering the crow woods, and attempting to bag a few crows. At this point we are confident with our calling and ready to add the last piece of calling to the puzzle. With this last calling technique you can expand your horizons and be creative trying different sounds. In the previous section, “The Rookie”, I mentioned the “The Fight Call”. This call is the most aggressive of all calls and the one that will probably get you the most attention. Holding your call in the same manner as the other calling techniques you will need to practice making the sounds come from your diaphragm as a growling sound. Not simply blowing through the call but with much more aggression and growl. The fight is made up of two long growling “caaawww-caaawww” followed by several high pitches thrown in behind then a few low pitches. Keep repeating this in a series of five times and be ready to shoot. This is where your three fingers come in to play at the end of your call, with different pinches and pitches.



The only real advice I can pass along is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. There is much more to just walking in to the woods and blowing your caller and shooting crows. It takes much, much more to fool “Ole Man Crow”. Remember they are smarter than you and if you hunt with this mentality you will take the necessary precautions to prepare each stand as if it was the one you are going to kill 200+ birds in three hours on. Let’s go over some points that are vital to a successful hunt. 



One of the most valuable pieces of advice I can give to be successful is concealment. There are two types of concealment, one, your clothing, the other your canopy. You need to make sure you have camo or dark colors deployed from head to toe. This means a head net/hat facemask and gloves. Secondly, the canopy above you if you can create one will add to your hide even more. In the south we always try to get under a low hanging limb or bushy tree to add to the hide. These bandits have eye sight like a stealth bomber and you need to respect it. Think about it, a flock of birds come in and how many pairs of 10x50 binoculars are searching for what is making the racket? In a field situation we could simply build a blind as high/wide as needed for the situation.



The next point is the wind. I use this phrase a lot “the wind is your friend”. Not a 25mph wind but around a 10mph wind will dictate which direction the birds will come from. They most always want to attack against the wind so they will have better flight control on the escape. Also the wind allows the calls to be heard at a greater distance. You want to position yourself to use the wind as your friend. If you have choices for example in a four sided field you would want to set up so the birds will come from the field over the woods and your set up for shooting. This will allow the use of your decoys to do their job and help distract the incoming. The idea here is to dispatch the incoming and add to your decoy spread with the dead birds.



This brings us to another tool in the arsenal of a successful crow hunter. This would be the use of the e-caller. Most of us “ole timers” are hanging on to the mouth calls but I for one can admit that the use of the e-caller has enhanced the hunting. They come in all shapes and sizes now, with some great digital sounds. It is also a great tool for learning what sounds to make when leaning to call. I personally have 50+ crow sounds on my caller from five different legends. You want to place your e-caller at least 20 yards up wind from your stand. This will make the birds look ahead of your position for the sound and not hang up out of range. With the proper use of the e-caller in the proper situation and a good sound man like the A-Team has you can bring back a flock or a single after shooting at him by simply adjusting the volume. This can also be done with the mouth call as well after some practice. 



Knowing what call to make and when to make it, be it mouth or e-caller is the difference between “Novice, Rookie and Experienced Crow Hunter”.

-- Edited by Splash One on Wednesday 25th of January 2012 03:08:28 AM

wow

Awesome summary

Cannot wait to apply your techniques

And killembad

The "get out of Dodge" call should never be uised...it means what it says and this is the one call crows will frankly exit the county to escape...it sounds basically of three sharp calls....aggressive and fast...use it and the crows likely won't be back again that day!

Such a great article its Cannot wait to apply your techniques
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