Old Territory Revisited, Jan. 14, 2012

Gary · Dances With Crows

Old Territory Revisited, Jan. 14, 2012

Splash One · Elusive Crow

There was only two of you and you killed 7 birds from one group? That's pretty damn impressive...a quad and a triple is no easy feat.

Gary... I totally agree with calling even if nothing is happening... I mess around with the crows in town a lot and I have seen them aknowlege my call (by turning and looking in my direction) but continue doing what ever it was I observed them doing... playing, feeding, graveling, and drinking 40 weight from a parking lot puddle... of course since these are neighbourhood, and city crows I don't mind "blowing them out" so I call, and call, and call at them... I tell ya I have seen more of them sit and finish what they are currently doing then take flight and come over to me... it's almost as if they are saying, "yeah, yeah...I hear you... hold your horses"....

I have sort of witnessed this in the field as well... for example.. I have driven past small groups of crows... jumped out of my car a couple hundred yards down the road and called at them... in some instances the crows did not respond to my calls for what seemed like a half hour.... but they eventually did...and they died.

VelCrow · Baby Crow

Funny thing...I was practicing my calling in my house for about 45 minutes or so. I then decided to walk out by the porch window (2nd story) and right there in a tree 20 feet away were two crows staring at me almost like theyre waiting for me to release one of their buddies. They were pretty much eye level and even though they saw me with my call out on the porch just doing some relaxed caws, they circled around twice or so..landed back in a tree next to the original one and started cawing at me. Nice friendly caws. Then they took flight and circled right over on top of me another three times! I could have threw a frying pan and hit one. All of a sudden they booked it towards town though. I wonder what they were thinking.

Gary · Dances With Crows

VeCrow, Try this next time. Walk outside with your gun, not to shoot but just to let them see it and see how long they hang around. I bet you will see a difference. They are curious to a point but fast learners.

VelCrow · Baby Crow

Ill make sure of that next time

Splash One · Elusive Crow

Gary wrote:
VeCrow, Try this next time. Walk outside with your gun, not to shoot but just to let them see it and see how long they hang around. I bet you will see a difference. They are curious to a point but fast learners.

Yup, a crow can tell the difference between a farmer and a hunter... they can also learn your car and associate it with danger.

Ive experienced this first hand... when I come into "their" area they become very skidish and hard to hunt.. I have to sneak into my hunting area and park quiet a ways away from my stand because after a few hunts in the same area, the crows know the "death mobile". They don't leave the area when they see my truck, they just stay on the other side of the field and wont give me the time of day...

When I hunt one of the funner farms I have permission to hunt on, I drive my truck into 5 foot tall reeds and just bury that sucker... I got so many scratches and chips this year it was crazy... but thats what I have to do to RE-hunt that farm.

Adapting to a crows behavior and intelligence is part of the fun for me... it can almost become a "build a better mouse trap" type game of sorts.... which fits me perfectly because I am a tinkerer and like creating and trying new "out of the box" things.

VelCrow · Baby Crow

When hunting coyotes up here we have to do the same thing...but to the point you have to lay plastic inside the truck so no scents get in your clothes, cover everything with baking soda, spray cover scents on your boots before the walking to the area, etc. Such a pain but all worth it in the end when you know you've outsmarted an animal at its own game

Gary · Dances With Crows

I have never hunted for yotes, but I assume they are like crows. Fool them once, maybe twice and you are out? I have killed a few deer hunting but not calling. That is on my bucket list!

Splash One · Elusive Crow

Gary wrote:
I have never hunted for yotes, but I assume they are like crows. Fool them once, maybe twice and you are out? I have killed a few deer hunting but not calling. That is on my bucket list!

Gary they are crazy smart and they don't even have to see or hear you to get run off... There are so many things that can go wrong and keep you from seeing your target.

I've gone yote hunting a hand full of times and have called a few in with a mouth call, but I never got them to gun range... out in the California desert you can see for miles.

Splash One · Elusive Crow

VelCrow wrote:
When hunting coyotes up here we have to do the same thing...but to the point you have to lay plastic inside the truck so no scents get in your clothes, cover everything with baking soda, spray cover scents on your boots before the walking to the area, etc. Such a pain but all worth it in the end when you know you've outsmarted an animal at its own game

An old friend of mine showed me a neat trick for scent control. A few of the areas we hunted had wild growing white sage, so what I did was grabbed a few handfuls of sage and threw it into a pillow case.. then kept my camo in the pillow case when I wasn't hunting... great natural cover scent... I would imagine pine needles would work the same...but might get sticky.

VelCrow · Baby Crow

Ive always used the baking soda thing to get the clothes completely scent-free..then took a shower with baking soda, everything baking soda. Then when I'm out there I spray either skunk, rabbit, or fox urine around and on my boots before heading into where I'm hunting. Called in a few dogs..shot one. First one I ever called it was 3-4 feet behind me watching me...didn't even know I was there until I turned around and nearly had a heart attack. I heard squirrels and stuff breaking twigs all morning so instead of moving and giving away my position i just sat on the edge of a treeline and watched the other treelines. All of a sudden there was a another snap of a twig...i ignored it for a few seconds but realized it sounded kind of different...then looked over my shoulder and there was a coyote standing over me watching my back. I say it was standing over me because right at the treeline is a lip a couple feet high..and behind me on top of a lip was a big flat rock another foot high or so. It was on top of the rock...never heard the thing come in...it was dead silent. It was thick, maine woods and the ground had a couple inches of sticks and leaves on it...no way in the world a mouse could get away without making noise. But that coyote came in like a ninja. Took off before I could even think about picking up my shotgun. I was so mad but it was a great experience. Still mad because all I did was educate that dog.

Besides being like a ninja, the dogs are very smart. Not smart like crows where they could recognize faces and use tools, but "street" smart. Ifr you drop a dead deer right smack dab in the middle of their routine trails "their turf" and watch it for bait..all you're gonna see is that dead deer. Coyotes will know they didn't kill it, and will be afraid of it and leave. If there is a pack with an alpha male..they will only feed on it at night..and something as simple as a light smell of a diesel truck..a shiny light 300 yards away, or even for no reason..they will spook and never return to the bait at least until they find the enemy who killed the deer, and kill it. In the dead of winter theyre not gonna waste precious energy on fighting with other dogs over a deer when they could be hunting small game to keep themselves satisfied is the basic point.

Just one of the many many things that make coyotes so hard to hunt. It is nice though when you see one just sitting there in the middle of the day. They are still dogs..they still play and like to soak up the sun. They just make sure they are a good distance away from anything or anyone when they do it. In the winter they don't like to waste their energy since theyre on the edge of starvation. Every dog is different because every dog has a different education. If one has been shot at from long rage before, you won't see him just sitting there in a field when a person shows up...thats why some take off for "no reason". Leaves it to the hunter to have to take every possible precaution.