My Best Old-School Tips for Hunting...

This story, “Cowbell Crows,” appeared within the Sept. 1950 concern of Outside Life.

THE FIRST THING Ray Johnson introduced out after we began on our crow hunt was a worn and battered cowbell. I stared on the noisy contraption, for the one Ohio crow looking I’d carried out in Ray’s firm was of the stop-and-go selection: cease at a likely-looking little bit of timber, name in and kill as lots of the answering crows as doable, after which drift on down the highway for a repeat efficiency on the subsequent great spot. 

Ray gave the bell an additional jangle as he tossed it into the automotive. Then he stowed away his gun, shells, a few burlap sacks, and a few lengths of stout wire. All these have been customary objects of crow-hunting gear. However that cowbell was one thing else! 

“What’s the concept?” I demanded, shuddering on the brassy clamor that broke out anew as I hefted it.

Ray grinned. “The crows round listed below are mighty leery of males strolling by the comb, particularly now that the gamebird season is over. However they’re used to cattle, so that they loosen up after they hear a cowbell.” 

I choked on that one, and Ray took me up quick. 

“Wait till you see it in motion. If it doesn’t work, then you possibly can have your chuckle.” 

Ray drove till we neared the Indiana state line, turned off on a black-top highway, and went alongside the sting of a flat valley that held the grey flood of the Miami River. The vast, muddy flats seemed good, for it’s in simply such spots that crows congregate for a spot of squabbling, and a remaining snack, earlier than setting out on the final lap of flight towards their roost. I accepted the spot and mentioned so. 

“The very best a part of it’s that their roost is on the far fringe of that strip of timber, proper on the sting of the river,” Ray advised me. “You possibly can’t see the channel now, with all this flood water, however I’ll wager there are 25,000 crows utilizing that roost.” 

“High quality,” I agreed. “However how are you going to get there? And after you do, how will you construct a blind on that muddy footing? Crow taking pictures requires mighty fast turns.” 

“Oh, we’re not looking there immediately. These crows don’t wish to roost over water any greater than the crows within the corn-belt areas the place you’ve been looking—particularly with this chilly wind crossing the water. At present we’ll hunt them within the ridges. From there we’ll be capable of regulate them as they arrive in. Later, when the water goes down, we’ll arrange proper on the fringe of the roost.” 

That made sense to me. What may very well be nicer than having one crow-shooting session whereas keeping track of the positioning of a later one, and on the birds that have been to furnish the fireworks?

We unloaded on the foot of the ridge and Ray took the automotive on some 200 yards, right into a farmyard the place it will be much less conspicuous. We packed about 100 kilos of various gear up that steep slope and in about an hour had a grapevine-and-weed blind snugged into the lee of the ridge.

Mighty Pure Decoys 

It was none too quickly, for a pair of crows got here wheeling in whereas I used to be snicking masses into my pet Ithaca. We dropped to our knees, I minimize unfastened with the decision, and people two birds slanted down towards us as if tied to strings. Once they have been thirty yards away we rose of their faces, and each birds tumbled in a nice flurry of their very own feathers. 

“All with nary a cowbell,” I crowed. “Now I’ll present you one thing.” 

I tied that pair of crows with slipknots on the ends of a two-foot size of wire after which secured the tip of a spool of skinny black wire to certainly one of them. On the third throw I lodged them within the high of a twenty-foot elm. There the useless birds swung to the thrust of the breeze that leaked excessive of the ridge, essentially the most pure decoys we might discover. 

The following pair of crows got here in cautiously till I tugged on the black line resulting in our decoys, concurrently reducing unfastened with the decision. One of many carcasses jerked crazily, and people incomers might actually see, and listen to, that it was a good friend in hassle. Their suspicions allayed, they folded their wings and got here diving down. So all-out was their descent that we needed to leap up of their startled faces. If we hadn’t, they’d have dropped in so shut that our shotguns must be aimed with rifle accuracy to attain clear kills. Even so, it took three pictures earlier than we had the supplies for one more pair of decoys. We hung these in the identical tree as the primary pair. 

“Wouldn’t or not it’s higher if we scattered them?” Ray wished to know. 

“Not whereas we’re jerking one decoy to make it appear to be a chicken in hassle,” I answered. “Crows are such gangsters that when one thing is bothering certainly one of them the remainder all huddle round. So it’s unhealthy technique to put the opposite decoys too distant from the one which’s being jerked, as a result of then it appears to be like as in the event that they have been afraid of no matter is inflicting the difficulty.” 

For higher than an hour we had our enjoyable with incoming pairs and small household teams. After that the birds began arriving in bigger flocks, and that’s when Ray’s cowbell strutted its stuff. Whereas I referred to as, and intermittently gave the black string a tug, he labored the cowbell in a easy, rhythmic swing—giving it the lazy, measured cadence of a well-fed and contented bossy plodding dwelling from pasture. 

The flight line had been veering away from our half-dozen pairs of decoys, however now it turned again to cross over our blind and the noisy cowbell. Out of this flight we stored reducing pairs and threes; as soon as we caught a small flock good and every of us received a double. 

“I came upon the concept when a number of the native farmers requested me out for a moonlight shoot,” Ray advised me later. “There was snow on the bottom, and the moon was shiny sufficient so the crows might see us coming. However one farmer carried a cowbell. These birds thought we have been cattle and allow us to stroll proper into them.” 

“And the subsequent day the roost had moved elsewhere,” I commented dryly. “One session like that and your roost is burned out.”

“It positive was, and it cured me of night time taking pictures. I’d quite arrange a blind and get them in one of many flyways over these ridges, or on the leeward facet of the roost, as much as 1 / 4 of a mile away.” 

It was almost two weeks later that Ray referred to as me for a shoot within the river bottoms. The flood waters had receded into the Miami’s channel, and a chilly snap had frozen a strong crust on the silt deposited on the encompassing cornfields. 

“You should see the crows in that flat,” Ray advised me, his voice excessive. “They cowl these fields like a blanket. They’re feeding on the waste corn that was softened by that flood water. There’s a chilly snap predicted for tonight. That, with this rising wind, should carry them in early.” 

“That’s nice, however don’t carry the cowbell,” I warned. “We gained’t be flyway taking pictures this time. In addition to, crows are good sufficient to know that no smart cattle can be wandering round that delicate river backside. Simply have a ship able to take us throughout the channel to the roost. I’ll do the remainder.” 

“What do you take note of?” requested Ray. However I simply mumbled that I’d carry alongside the necessities, and hung up on him. 

A few hours later three of us have been out on the river backside: Ray Johnson, Ray Weesner, and I. One lone crow sat atop a cottonwood and watched us, from a wholesome 200 yards away. That’s, he watched us rigorously till I chambered a single shell and fired it. Then he lifted off his perch and winged lazily away to the far facet of the flat, half a mile away. 

“What did you waste that shell for?” Johnson demanded. 

“That chicken’s an outdated settler, and a sensible one. If we’d let him watch us go into the roost and construct our blinds, he’d gossip about it till half the crows would know all about us.” 

We piled our gear into the boat and pulled into the sluggish present, letting it carry us downstream some 200 yards to land within the lee of the roost. After we unloaded there, Johnson took the boat again upstream and pulled it ashore into the comb whereas Weesner and I prospected the roost intimately. 

Positive sufficient, it was spattered all over the place with the whitewashy “spit” that characterizes the birds’ nocturnal hangout. There have been, too, dozens of the pellets the birds forged up, a lot as an owl coughs up small balls of indigestible fur, feathers, and bones from its prey. Within the case of the crows, these pellets have been fashioned of the hulls of kernels of corn and weed seeds. Right here and there was one with a distinctly reddish tinge, indicating a meat weight loss plan. Most likely some traffic-killed gamebird or bunny that the birds had scavenged. 

By the point Johnson received again we had the blind website picked—in a low stand of willows instantly in entrance of a few fat-trunked river-bottom cottonwoods. Vegetation was scarce within the space, however I hacked off a two-inch-thick sapling and tied it chest-high between the willow shrubs. That gave us the entrance ridgepole for our blind. Whereas Johnson and Weesner scouted round for armloads of weeds and brush to lean towards this help, I minimize a pair of ten-foot willows and tied their butts to the ends of the primary sapling, with their tops pointing downwind at proper angles to it. This fashioned a shallow, three-sided field, some eight ft lengthy and 6 ft deep. 

Shoot Your Personal Decoys! 

Weathered burlap sacks greater than made up for the skinny partitions of the blind. Stretched taut between supporting saplings, they fashioned a strong display that wanted solely a crisscrossing of weeds and branches to make our hide-out all however invisible from anyplace however instantly overhead. And crows that seemed into the blind from that route ought to shortly be “good” crows, if our marksmanship was equal to the event. 

“Appears prefer it’ll be a troublesome job to get decoys into the tops of these cottonwoods,” mentioned Johnson, wanting on the eighty-foot timber. 

“All we want’s a few pairs midway up,” I assured him. “The remainder can be proper out in entrance.” 

“In that open, muddy stretch?” demanded Weesner. 

“Yep. I’ve received the proper medication for them right here,” I advised him, patting a bulging jacket pocket. “Down! Right here come crows!” 

And are available they did—half a dozen massive, burly fellows, bulging with the nice fare from neighboring farms, their feathers gleaming with well being. They got here straight at us with a carelessness bred of lengthy immunity from gunfire. Even after we rose as one man they hung stupidly above us, till the weapons spoke. Three birds spun down within the first blast, then two extra. The survivor wobbled a bit, then slanted steeply into the Miami, elevating a three-foot splash because it hit. 

“Get them in right here,” I mentioned. “We’d like them for decoys.” 

Utilizing a pencil-thick elm twig like an ice decide, I punctured the chest of every chicken, ran the twig contained in the unfastened pores and skin of the neck, and jabbed it sharply into the cranium. Withdrawing it, I changed it with a willow shoot. Then I reached into my jacket pocket and got here up with some skinny rubber bands. Two of those went round every chicken, holding the wings comfortable to the physique. 

“Stick these into the mud, to appear to be birds which might be feeding and resting,” I advised the 2 Rays. “Scatter ’em about thirty yards out, proper in entrance of the blind.” 

They hadn’t been again however a minute or two earlier than extra crows came to visit the excessive ridge to our left. Spying our decoys, they folded their wings, falling fifty and sixty yards at a time, till they have been lower than a dozen ft off the bottom. That’s after I hit them with a combating name. Their lazy wings leaped into a brand new tempo, and in a dozen strokes they have been inside straightforward vary. 4 stayed and have been set out with the opposite decoys to lure of their fellows. 

Weesner goggled on the means crows fell out of the sky to hitch the steadily rising unfold of lifelike birds we planted. Two evenly winged cripples, staked out on a brief size of black fishline, gave the unfold all of the animation it wanted. All of the decoys have been at the very least three ft aside, and the common spacing was nearer to 9. 

When birds got here in, we allow them to drop simply in need of the final swoop earlier than touchdown. Then we’d give the raucous yell of a crow in misery — simply as if some crow within the brush behind us had instantly encounter crowdom’s dread enemy, an ideal horned owl. These newcomers couldn’t pour on the coal quick sufficient of their effort to hitch within the gang assault! 

Learn Subsequent: Old-School Tips on How to Hunt Pheasants Alone 

It lacked solely an hour of twilight earlier than I yielded to Johnson’s urging that we grasp a few of our decoys within the cottonwoods behind us. By this time the birds have been extra considering going instantly into the roost than in swooping down on the muddy flats, so the useless birds introduced them extra squarely throughout our blind. 

Darkness discovered us fumbling round for crow carcasses — not for decoys any extra, however as a result of their heads are price two bits apiece in Ohio bounty. At that fee, the black rascals do a pleasant job of paying for the shotgun shells that finish their thieving careers.