"My Best Crow Hunt in 28 Years"
by
 Bob Aronsohn (Crow Busters Staff Advisor)

I just got finished with a crow hunt that will long be remembered. The first day all I did was scout from sun up to sunset the first day.

At the start of the first day of shooting I had my deks out, blind all ready to go and Fox Pro at the ready. OK, my counter is ready, have my shells where I want them for very easy access, the 12 gauge Beretta is loaded up and all I have to do is be ready to get set. The wind was NW at 10 to 20 mph. This was a morning flyway shoot and the birds started to move by 8:30 a.m. By 11:00 a.m. I had 361 birds down and was packing up, had the shotgun in its case when here come some more! I unzipped the gun case and hand called in a few more bringing the total to 375 by 11:30 a.m.

On day two or hunt two the wind was in the SW 10 to 20 mph. I was ready to roll by 7:15 a.m. The crows started to move by 7:30 a.m. and it was nonstop until almost noon time. I shot up until 1:30 p.m. in that spot and rolled 568 crows. I picked up and moved to another location for an afternoon flyway shoot. I had everything ready by 3:00 p.m. and the crows started to move by 4:00 p.m. By 5:30 p.m. I shot an additional 143 crows which brought the daily total to 711 crows for the day. I used 895 12 gauge hulls for the whole day of shooting.

The next day I just scouted, mainly to try and heal up a little from the day before. I saw the largest flyway I've seen in many years and followed it all the way to their feeding grounds that morning. Oh boy oh boy did I ever have a good feeling about this one if I got the right wind for this spot! I started shooting at 7:20 a.m. the next morning and it was nonstop until 11:00 a.m. I had 500 odd crows down by 11:00 a.m. when things started to slack off and then I was getting the crows that were trading around from one field to the next. I was 9 miles away from the roost and the crows were feeding between 9 to 10 miles from the roost. The rancher came by at noon and wanted me to come to the house for lunch, I said thanks, but not today, "Ill join you for dinner if that’s ok by you?" He said "see you when you get done"

So I had a very relaxed afternoon shooting the onzies and twozies coming in every few minutes. By 3:00 p.m. the crows started to pick up, just a few at a time, and work their way closer to the roost. I keep a blind bag with 400 rounds in it in the blind at the start of every hunt. I also stash an extra 250 12 gauge rounds in the toolies near the blind in case I run out. Well I haven't used that backup bag in over 5 years mainly because I was either with Jerry Byroade or Dick Kilbane. I used all the ammo in the backup bag on the 711 bird day and thought I was in heaven! Well today I was all out of ammo by 3:00 p.m. so I had to run for the pickup to get more ammo, now mind you I had already shot up 650 rounds already! I run the truck back to the blind, now the birds are flying and I'm trying to hubba hubba as fast as I can to crawl back into the bed of the truck and drag out 500 more rounds of ammo. I stacked two flats on top of one another and put them on top of a 5 gallon bucket in the blind and then I was outa there like a shot! Drove the truck off at mach one and parked it, then ran back to the blind to get set. Well the one Beretta that I had not cleaned in 3 days was starting to jam once in a while so I took the other Beretta auto out of its case and blew solvent through the first gun to blow all the crud out of it. I used the backup gun for about 20 minutes and figured the number one gun had dried out by now. So I pick it up to pop a crow and there was enough solvent in the trigger guard area that just about blinded me when I touched off the shot! Here I am fumbling around in the blind with one good eye (my left one) trying to find my water bottle to wash out my right eye because it was sure burning!

I'm saying to myself, I don't have time for this, come on right eye let’s get with the program here! I used the backup gun again until the first little lull, then grabbed the number one gun and held it away from my face and popped off four fast shots to blow all the damn solvent out of it, then loaded it back up and it was fine for the remainder of the afternoon. By the end of the day 5:00 p.m. I had 834 crows down and I shot every shell I had which was 1,150 rounds for the day.

I stood down the next day and just scouted again, mainly to give my body a rest! On the following day I shot 152 crows in the morning with 8 boxes of ammo from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. then moved to another location and shot an additional 121 crows from 4:30 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. wind SW 10 to 15 mph. I used 6 boxes of 12 gauge trap loads on the afternoon flyway shoot.

These 46 empty boxes of 12 gauge trap loads piled up inside the blind are the result of an 834 bird day!

So in four days of actual shooting I shot 2,193 crows with an average of 548 crows per day! That’s the best I ever had it in all the years of hunting them.

At the start of this article I said it was the best hunt in 28 years, well on December 15th, 1982 Boyd Robeson & I killed 859 crows in one spot all day long. At the end of the day my old pal Boyd said "Bob, it will be a very long time before we get another one like this one" well it took 28 years so he was right on the money like he usually was!

Bob Aronsohn