Anyone hunt crows? Do you eat them? Massachusetts has a season for them, but I have never even given it a thought.
I have to eat crow lots...
The old man does albeit with a shotgun. Strictly varmint type hunting. He does not eat them.
Since I only shoot what I can eat and crows will eat carrion, I don't shoot crows. Besides it is a lot more interesting to see what they do.
Here is some food for thought. Crows have been proven to not only remember the faces of attackers, they also remember the faces of those who mean no harm. Furthermore, the reaction to the face of a previous attacker is taught to their young and the memory is passed down. I don't have the link handy but feel free to Google it if you are interested. Crows and Ravens are very interesting birds.
Google: Crows and Facial Recognition Study
i used to hunt them and we brought home a couple and my dad was so mad! cause we ate them, said there not clean birds and eat scraps and garbage. they was not great. i gave rest to poor dog and he turned his nose up! :laughing:
I agree. Try as he might the old man never has been able to get me into crow hunting. Truth be told I rather like crows and ravens. I have always found them to a somewhat majestic bird cunning and clever worthy of my respect
never really gave it much thought. but I'll try anything once.....(hunting wise that is)
I don't know, crows look too much like ravens and ravens are a direct link to Allfather, I think I'll pass :)
here in France , we said : to cook a crow you got to had a spanner to the recipe , when the spanner is
melted , the crow is cooked ..
Jean-Vincent : spanner = wrench? That's one well done bird!!
Nineworlds9: Allfather = Odin the Norse God? ??? :confused:
QuoteOriginally posted by SKITCH:
Jean-Vincent : spanner = wrench? That's one well done bird!!
Nineworlds9: Allfather = Odin the Norse God? ??? :confused:
None other, Lord of the Wild Hunt ;)
Growing up I had a friend that had a pet crow. That thing was smart, could talk much like a parrot can. I remember the bird saying, "hello".
It escaped once for a week or so, and he thought it was gone for good, until there was a artical in the local newspaper about a crow playing with kids on the playground of the elementary school. He knew it was his and went and got it.
Tom
Please "Eat more Chicken"... leave us crows alone, please!
I am in the camp of followers who respect and admire these birds. But to be honest I respect and admire hogs, yotes, deer etc... I still hunt them though. They are a very tough bird to fool but the action is non-stop at times. If you miss a shot at one (shotgun) you might as well find a new spot to hunt because they will tell every other bird around and your hunt dries up.
As far as eating them, I have done it and they don't taste bad to me. Kind of livery like coot or dove or pigeon but I like the gameyness of wild game. Now with that said Ill eat the cold weather birds but the warmer weather birds worry me with West Nile virus and works, so ill pass then.
My Father in law had a pet crow that would steal anything he could pick up. They found his stash on the roof of the house.
I wrote this poem some years back while on a road trip.
QuoteTwo old crows sitting in the street
helping themselves to a road kill treat
Along came a car doing 85
now those two old crows are no longer alive
now they've become a part of the mess
mixed right in with all of the rest
before too long they'll be just a red spot
and no one will know if they were crows or not
The moral of the story is to kill your own meat
and don't eat meals in the middle of the street.
hahahaha! good stuff Ron! :thumbsup:
I've hunted the with electric callers and missed a pile of them. Will try again this winter. Bird is a bird to me but some just aren't for eating.
20 years ago I would hunt them with a friend. We would kill 100's in a morning, yes 100's. I have mellowed with age now I guess, I could not just kill for the sake of killing now, just to pile them up. It was fun at the time but so wasteful. Now if I kill it......I will eat it.
Awesome poem Ron, thanks.
Plant nurseries have owl decoys that around here are relatively inexpensive which you could mount on the long pole with a cross arm or hang from a tree branch near concealing cover. The cross arm or tree branches give the crow the opportunity to light which would be the better chance for you to score on one. Personally I won't waist my time trying to wing shoot one. E-call to get some ruckus going with a crow owl fight recording
I killed one once, felt bad about it right away.
They never let me get close enough to fling an arrow, but I don't try very hard either.
We also used decoys years ago......a dozen crow and then would put a stuffed animal on a pole, like a monkey or something like that. It would bring them in like crazy. As said above an Owl decoy would bring them in also.
A sock monkey. Now that is funny. I might have to try that just to see what they do.
They are a pretty viscious predator. I have watched them kill mallard ducklings as they followed the hen across an open space between ponds. They also fly into the storage buildings and eat baby swallows out of the nests. I used to kind of like them until I witnessed these things.
I shoot one when I can.
John
I swear they will talk turkey too, yelp back at you I mean. Maybe I'm crazy?
I have tried, with no success, to kill crows with a stick bow. They are a hard bird to hunt, no matter the weapon of choice. The wife has been wanting to mount one so I've tried more times than once to slip up on them in the yard with a bow and make a kill.
Crows are extremely intelligent. My aunt had one when I was a kid and it could talk better than any parrot I've ever heard. There was an episode of Nature a while back on PBS called A Murder Of Crows (fyi a flock of crows is called a murder). On that program, they not only showed that crows recognize different human faces, as already stated, they also have problem solving abilities. They can do 3 step processes in a "puzzle" to receive a reward. Their problem solving abilities and memories seem to be on par or maybe even above those of MOST primates. Amazing birds!
Oh I forgot to mention though....I wouldn't ever eat one. The threat of West Nile and other diseases that they carry would deter me from trying to eat them.
I shoot them around the property in the spring when they are after other birds babies. It only takes killing a few to keep them away for awhile.
I once saw a crow pushing baby pigeons out of a nest under a railroad overpass, they made a big splat when they hit the pavement and then the crow would go down and eat them.
There is a reason why they long ago named a bunch of crows a MURDER.
I have watched them land around a young rabbit...then others dive bomb it while the "circle" keeps it hemmed in... they peck at it till it's badly wounded, then they all pounce and eat it.
I don't dislike them for their natural predatory instincts, which they've honed well. But neither do I elevate them to a sacred status.
Hogs are just as smart, problem solve and been proven to remember and build on memories.
Makes them more of a challenge to match wits... and they really do raise havoc on spring planted crops, too.
To each his own!
Not all uncommon to have a raven mimic a call...a couple of years ago I was trying out a new Hoochie Mama cow elk call through the sunroof of my car while sitting beside the road...I started getting perfect replies to my call with not an elk in sight...I never did see a raven either but I am pretty sure that was what was answering me...the truth is if one could get a raven working for you with elk around it would help to make the elk feel more comfortable that the calls were coming from other elk...I have had a pet magpie and friends have had pet crows and I will still shoot either of them...especially those young magpies that ate all the tomatoes off my hanging tomato plant
DDave