Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Crow hunting

Can you shoot them where you live? Here, only when they are destroying your crops I think.

Idaho has a season

Yes. In season. Knew a couple of guys years ago who hunted them with a passion of a duck hunter.

GreggH

I really like a good electronic call in the deep woods, subsonic ammo with suppressor.

We have a split season here. I used to hunt them a lot when woodchuck hunting. This was a long range rifle game and a great way to get some long range practice. Done it with the calls and shotguns which can be fast paced and exciting for sure.

We have a season in Mass. It's closed April-July. I've hunted them with shotgun and rifle. Fun times either way.

We shoot them in the pecan groves with shotguns, decoys and owl. Must have camo head to toe, 46 is our best morning.

Idaho’s season runs 4 months with no bag limit. It was year round until the feds said they had to limit it to 140 days.

Season here too. Friend of mine was on a dairy farm until his father in law retired. Crows used to make a mess of silage bags . Electronic caller and a couple crow and owl decoys made a fun couple of hours. Shoot over decoys for a while until they got educated then snipe the others with Varmint rifles

I know where this is going before I even start but.....

Ever eatin' crow?

We all have at some point but I'm talking about the actual meat here

That.

It was year around here too. The Feds made a bag limit over a treaty with Mexico and “migratory birds.”

A season on crows is like a season on coyotes. You could make absolutely anything or any time legal to kill them and you'd never get rid of them.

Crows are smart critters.
I'd rather make buddies out of the ones that hang out here.
Now, big ol roosting sights,l and farmers fields are fair game.

Apparently enough people eat them to justify this page: www.crowbusters.com/recipes.html

We have a season. It is an agreement with some latin American country so they have seasons and limits on migratory waterfowl. I have an electronic caller and decoys. It is a fun hunt when they come in good.
Don't shoot at or let the first scout crow see you and don't miss on the first group that comes in. Once you get some on the ground especially a cripple they will come in angry and you can wear them out.
I wouldn't eat them. Seen too many eating roadkill. Buzzards will clean them up.

Been hunting them since I was a teen.
Bought my CZ 17hmr with them in mind. Now I use my suppressed CZ Style 22lr, Foxpro, decoys/owl. My old halloween battery powered wing flapping Bat on a string gave out, got to get a new one or two.

I have a 40gr. V-max, Varget load for my 26'' barrel 22-250, 4200+fps boy-howdy it scatters them real well from the 20 yard Bow ground blind. One landed on top of the 4x4 treated that held two bucket feeders, it leaned over checking the ground and I pulled the trigger. The bullet went through the body head to tail, scattered in a funnel shape for 20 feet. Ten minutes later got another one.
City crows with a quiet PCP air rifle ,,, they are used to vehicles, eye seen them shot at 20 feet, NUMEROUS TIMES, laf.

Guy I worked with in Kennesaw, Georgia 20 years ago brought a RWS fixed barrel springer air rifle to work to show me. The one with the floating action, 51?. He opened the window on our job-site trailer and popped a crow that went down right in front of the library. Crows went into a tizzy he popped a couple more, we were laughing, I told him to stop nope he shot another one.
I rode my company kawasaki mule down to another building then up towards where the crows had fallen. There was a crowd of kids and their mentors out there staring around, this was at a Devereux Treatment Network place for wayward children. Some boys were staring at a wounded one that couldn't fly other kids were standing over 3 dead ones pondering what was going on. A soul brother/mentor said,, i bet they et poison,, laf.
over.

You can pretty much eat anything made out of meat.
Just ask someone from "down-da-bayuo"!

Kansas crow season is Nov 10 to Mar 10
Missouri is Nov 1 to Mar 3

A few years ago my buddy up in Wisconsin wanted me to shoot some for him to practice his taxidermy skills on. I think they ended up in a friends bar or something.

Camo, electronic calls, a couple decoys made for a few fun stands.

Yep, it’s how we do it in the Missouri bootheel too. Took some bright red paint and splashed it on my owl decoys shoulder. Boy did that make them brave. Come right on down price is right style.

Texas has them protected except for ag. damage. I have a local 500 ac pecan orchard that allows me to hunt on. I use taxademied crows and a mouth call. Lots of fun. Also use large enough shot, lead #6 is my choice with IC choke before leaf fall and full after.

My best day has been 50+ birds shooting by myself. Crows are a very smart bird. Good camo and no movement until time to shoot is the answer.

Sneaky bastards.

They’ll fug up my garden if not careful.

Wait til the corn sprouts… then pull em up and eat the corn kernel….

That 5hey do.
Had a 3 point eat all of ours the crows and terrapins didn't get.
He's currently in my freezer.

Yes, "Doing or about to do damage". Kinda big window.
Short story...few years back our next door farmer, farm about a mile away, called and asked if my son and I would shoot a few that were raiding a field of corn that was just coming up. Said sure. Next morning we had the electronic call set up, and we were hidden with our shotguns. First birds that came in to the call were scouts, two of them...you don`t kill the scouts..they flew back to the flock..soon we had about thirty in the air over the call. We started shooting..six down..they flew off, but soon returned. ( If they don`t see you, they`ll come back) and they did, several times. When done, we had killed 15.

But crows are very smart, and that flock would not come to my call for the next 4 years...I had to resort to rifle.

Field came up, with a very large hole in the N.E. corner.

Never tried any cooked.

I’ve had to eat crow a few times when I let my mouth overload my ass😎

Wow….I was thinking about different Crows! My bad! 😁 memtb

We use to have a local game warden who was a great guy and would help you anyway he could, not like some of the pricks. I asked him how you could tell the difference between a raven and a crow?
He said “When it hits the ground it’s a crow”. We got along just fine. He knew who the outlaws were and wouldn’t fck with you.

I sure like watching them fall

The West Nile virus hit them very hard in this region. Used to see huge flocks, but now they seem little if any more common than ravens. I get both in my yard, though the crows are more likely to actually land on the ground and eat.

Watched a short battle between a crow and a squirrel last month. Pretty funny.

I read on GON, georgia outdoor news, some old school crow hunting tactics.

Guys would have an open lane maybe bush-hogged or path/road, they would run a mainline several feet off the ground, tie 15lb. fishing line across the road. Hang 6lb. fishing line hanging off of the main armed with a couple of treble hooks. < Multiple hanging treble hook lines ?18'' apart.
Put two of these set-ups 30 feet apart across the road, put an owl decoy and a few crows decoys between the lines. When crows flew down the lane to dive-bomb the owl the hanging treble hooks got them. You can imagine what a crow hanging mid air by its wings would do. Guy said the'd snare 5-6 crows sometimes, that would go nuts for a long time.

My cousins father in law David loved this ^^ idea. He said they put #1 coil-spring foot-hold traps on top of fence-post when calling. Put a small nail in the base of the trap so it doesn't move when a crow decides to land on it. 2-3 livies losing their minds really brings them in.

I was up in the Boone, NC area a few years back one Sunday morning. Riding around before breakfast looking for a few targets of opportunity. Was riding down a goat path and came up on a little pasture that had an old apple tree about 150 yards from the road. Big old hawk was sitting in it with about 30 crows sitting in branches all around and dive bombing him. Class 5 bird war.

Had an old TC Contender carbine in .22 Hornet then and started working on them. First one I shot was jumping just as I hit him and it took a wing off. He hit the ground screaming bloody hell which infuriated the other bastids even more. Shot another and started laughing because that hawk would watch the crow fall and hit the ground and then look at me as if to say "hurry up".

Got 17 in about 4 minutes before I ran out of cartridges. Old hawk was still sitting there when I eased off.

I like that idea. Treble hooks hanging off a barbed wire fence baited with venison catch all kind of things.

There is a season here, Jan.4, until Feb.28 this year. But, for me crows are a target of opportunity, as they are destructive to certain crops.

We catch coyotes that way, steel leaders

PA has a season. One of the few things we can hunt on Sundays.
Very smart birds. When I was a teenage I shot them with a rifle. I say camouflaged in a fence row and waited as they landed to pull up sprouting corn. Shoot one, don't move and wait fir them to return. If you cripple one you are done.
I used to shoot them while duck hunting. The buggers would swarm the cecoys. Shoot one and they leave.

wow that is really dumb and dangerous. you should leave the fire over that comment. lol

We used to hunt them here in Maryland. There is still a season on the books. It was a lot of fun but we had to move around a lot. The birds are smart and hunting different farm that are close together will not work. you need lots of space between hunting locals to be sucessful.

When they show up here in the spring in large flocks seems to be the best time. Early morning (daybreak) with a dozen decoys and call from a blind. The wounded birds seem to attact more when they are squawking and flopping around but the dead birds need to be laid right side up because a dead bird laying on it's back is a warning to any passers by. Sometimes an owl decoy works if set up properly with the crow decoys. Once the birds pair up hunting is more difficult and you have to move your setup around a lot more but when the young birds start flying the fun begins again. I love crow hunting !!