Duck Hunting in the Summer
Jerry Tomlin’s Crow-Hunting Techniques
Editor’s
Note: Summertime duck hunting sounds illegal, and it
is. However, simply changing which bird is hunted will
leave all the other elements of duck hunting in place.
The hunters I told you about on day 1 shot crows over
water, not ducks. Before deciding there's not much involved
in hunting crows, consider that crows have a complex
communication system. Ornithologists have identified
50-different expressions crows make. For instance, the
sounds "caw-aw, caw-aw, caw-aw" assure the
flocks of safety. The "Kawk, kawk, kawk" sound
warns crows of danger. Scientists have found that crows,
like parrots, can learn to repeat words and long phrases.
Crows with their high intelligence and keen eyesight
are hard to fool when you hunt them.
Jerry Tomlin, of Milledgeville, Georgia, has developed
a unique style of crow hunting that harvests numbers
of birds. Tomlin also likes the decoy call-and-wait
strategy. But, he comments that often hunters overcall
to crows. "I depend more on my decoys than I do
my calling to bring in crows. I want to call just enough
to get the crows' attention and then have them come
into the decoys."
Tomlin has found crows travel certain flyways, similar
to doves and waterfowl, and have specific types of crops
on which they
prefer to feed. Although hunting crows in the summer
keeps your Lab tuned-up for waterfowling season, Tomlin
says. "Fall is another productive time to hunt
crows and continue training a Lab. Not only are resident
flocks of crows present, but also new crows are migrating
in to where I live from the North ahead of the cold
weather. Pecan orchards, which flourish in the South,
seem to be the favorite food of crows. Crows do millions
of dollars worth of damage each year to pecan orchards.
Landowners with pecan trees call me each season and
ask me to come in and take a bunch of their crows. Too,
often if you eliminate a farmer's
crow problems, he may open his lands to you for hunting
other species of birds and game."
Because of the crows' keen eyesight, when Tomlin sets
up, he wears full camouflage and has his blind fully
camouflaged. Tomlin bases his crow-calling strategies
on the proven characteristic of crows like to socialize.
"Aggressive calling will bring in numbers of crows
for a short time," Tomlin explains. "However,
just using feeding and socializing calls and crow decoys
calls in more crows to the same area for a longer time."
In 17 hunts one season, Tomlin and his buddies rid pecan
orchards and peanut fields of almost 900 crows by starting
to shoot at sunrise and hunting until about 11:00 a.m.
As Tomlin mentions, "Scouting is a key ingredient
to successful crow hunting. I spend a great deal of
time trying to pick a place where I can find 100 to
200 crows congregated."
Tomorrow: More Crow-Hunting Ways with Jerry Tomlin
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