Second time out in 2013 for the A-Team.  Had a two hour drive this day for our destination, needless to say we had to get up early for the ride, but what a surprise when I got up.  Fog as thick as I can remember.  We took our time and made the trip but when we got there we still could not hunt, it was 8:00 before we could try.  The fog did not lift until 10:30.  We made a few stands close to roads where we could bearly see.  The birds were totally silent coming in with absolutely no wind, they were on us before you could raise your gun.  They would only give us one pass before leaving unlike sunny conditions where we can get as many as 3-4 come backs.  I guess they do not like the fog either, because they can not see the ground?  We did manage to kill 39 this way before 10:30.  When the fog did lift and we were able to see more clearly we found a large flock of birds feeding late morning in a peanut field.  There were two different flocks actually, a smaller group of rain crows and a large group of commons.  After receiving permission were were able to get a perfect hide and set up for what turned out to be a long but profitable afternoon.  We knew the first wave coming in would be a mob and it was, we probably took out 20 in the first 15 minutes.  Then things settled down and the rain crows flew the coup and we zeroed in on the commons that continued to come to the field to feed.  We stayed in this one spot from 11:00 until 3:30 taking turns shooting two a piece then rotating.  With no wind and overcast skies, it made for another perfect setup.  We ended up taking 81 from this stand with a total for the day of 120.

some nice bags of birds there Gary, and enjoyed the reading the write ups, wish i could get amongst the crows as its been a poor last few weeks for me, plenty of crows but just will not comit to any decoys, tried flappers, bouncers, etc just do not want to know, am resigned to wait till we get some spring drillings to go in till i get some good shooting on the crows, good thing is the game season over here finish in a couple of weeks and they will start chopping the maize cover crops up, so the woodpigeons will be hope fully flocking in to them and you can get some decent sized bags of birds then, i noticed the rooks are now garding there old nests and are one of the first birds to lay eggs in the spring here in the uk, so look forward to the next few months shooting.

OMG! Hunt #4 was out of this world.  Saturday morning we wake up to ice and North and West of us had 1/2" of snow on top of their ice.  It was to dangerous for one of our members to drive for the hunt so we were going with a threesome.  On Thursday we called a farmer friend that allows us to hunt his farms every year about 2.5 hours North of where I live.  He said the crows had just showed up on his peanut fields in good numbers and we were welcome to come.  He had a little twist this year and caught me by surprise.  He ask, "Do you mind if I come? and Oh, by the way my best friend wants to come?  On one hand it is always great to expose a new person to crow hunting but on the other hand if you are a die hard like we are you could very well show someone a little to much about the sport and lose your hunting spot.  Time will tell on this one....  We had a little longer drive due to icey roads but arrived at 8:30 where we met up with the farmer and his friend.  Because both of them were green horns we decided to let each one stand beside one of us so we could tell them how to hide and when to shoot.  I took the farmer and my buddies took the friend. We set up about 30 yards apart with the e-caller some twenty yards behind us.  He took us to a large 300 acre field covered with snow and lots of crows.  Because of the longer than normal drive the birds had beaten us their but good number were still coming in to feed.  With the frozen ground covered with snow and ice we knew they would be there all day.  They called for temps to reach the 40's but we never saw anthing over 28F.  We had to drive right through the middle of the field to get to good cover to set up.  That cost us another 30 minutes of hunting time because we had to let the birds calm back down and return to their feeding pattern.  After getting everyone settled in and in position the games begun.  For starters we let the newbies shoot first and we would back them up.  They shot really well for newbies.  This was one of those hunts that just does not come our way very often.  That is, a field hunt where we can set up on a feeding situation and stay all day.  As you know we are known for our RUN AND GUN tactic.  We started calling with mouth calls only for the first 30 minutes trying to get some curious floaters for our new shooters and it worked well.  Then we mixed it up with the e-caller to pull the main flock from the field for an all out see how many we can kill in 20 minutes.  Here they came and we did our job.  From then on we would hear a bird or birds and call and I think every one of them responded textbook style.  Around 12:00 the farmers friend said he had to leave so that left more shooting to the others.  From 9:00 until 4:00 we stood in the same place. Thats right, stood.  Did not think we would be there that long so we did not bring buckets or stools?(leg cramps for sure that night) We had to leave at 4:00 because one of our threesome had a birthday party for his daughter, so that brought an end to a great day.  At about 3:15 we had killed 181 and I said to the others, when we reach the 200 mark we will leave.  At about 3:50 we had our 200 birds down so we called it quits.  Had we stayed another hour we could have gotten the return flight back to the roost.  No telling what our number would have been.  But 200 is a great number.  Needless to say, that area is on our radar for hunt #5.