My Foxpro's first blood...

[Squirrelhunter91]

Well, our crow season here in NY opened up on Sept 1st, but we can only hunt them on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Being that Sept 1st was a Thursday, we had to wait until Friday. We called and called, but nothing happened on Friday until almost sunset. I had a bird coming in to the Dying Crow, but I got too excited and shot way to early with my 20 ga. That shut the birds up real quick.

So, this morning ( Saturday ), my dad and I decided to give it another shot. We got up real early, around 6:00 AM and we were in the woods around 6:30. I hung the caller in a tree in the middle of the field and we got set up about 25 yards away in the treeline. I started up the Crow Gathering and whaddya know? Here they come, just as expected. Over the northern horizon they came and we let them circle the caller once or twice before shooting. One got above me and my dad, but directly in the middle. He was waiting for me to shoot first before he fired away. My dad and I were about 15 yards apart from eachother. So this bird is directly inbetween and above us. I lean out & shoot and see feathers fall off the bird, but he keeps going. My dad shoot's & hits him and he got wobbly, then I shoot once more and that bird just folded up and went down in the high grass. Ughh.... We got so excited and caught up in the moment that we couldn't recover the bird from the high grass. We searched and searched after the other crows boogied on out of there, but we had no confirmed kill for pics.

So we then go to where the birds sounded like they went, and sure enough. That's where they were. My dad and I set up again and I hit the Crow Gathering once again, and here they come. They get right over us and boom, my gun roars, my dad's gun roars and down two birds go. The others scatter and get on out of there. My dad goes to get his, I go to get mine, but we then have a problem. Mine fell in high grass again and we can't find it!

I was extremely ticked by now and I just about lost it, but I kept my cool and all was good.

My dad recovered his and we used that as a decoy by laying it flat on it's belly with the wings spread out and the caller right next to it. But we then needed some breakfast and some more shells back at the cabin.

We eat breakfast, more shells and whatever...

Then we headed back to the same stand where we just shot two crows. Layed that sucker out with the caller and hit the dying crow. It took a few minutes of playing the sound on and off, but they came in again, this time I opted to shoot my dad's 12 ga. This was the first time I ever shot a 12 ga. The first shot I let off, I got the bird wobbly, but I was slow for a follow-up shot.

The next stand we made was at the top of the mountain again with the dead bird as a decoy and everything, dying crow sound.

We had a bird then come in behind us, real quiet. Not making any sound until it was in front of us, but we both missed.

We made one more unsucessful stand after that, and then a storm rolled in and shut the birds up.

But during that unsuccesful stand, I noticed a hawk circling the field. I then threw on a hawk/crow fight and that hawk came in looking for a fight. When it was directly over us, I switched to a rabbit distress and it nearly swiped the caller. It divebombed it, but didn't grab it. I called it quits after that...

At the top of the mountain, I took a pic of my dad with the crow and the Foxpro.