Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and during my early years of hunting, crows meant nothing to me, just another one of Mother Nature's bird's that was a constant nuisance during Long Island field trips for quail and pheasant. Even when sitting in wooded areas for squirrels and deer, these raucous birds would find me and sound off in their boisterous tones. Even when I thought they were close enough to kill, their sense of danger and cleverness outwitted me. Thus, the education of and challenge between crows and myself began, which dates back to the early nineteen fifties. Each time out at first began with frustration, but a guidance, or self-taught training that had to be remembered because sure as heck, the crows did. To this day, I do not know, or have a registered count of crows that I, along with shooting partners through the years have downed. After hunting these birds from Texas to Massachusetts as well as studying them while visiting in Ireland, Scotland, England, Hawaii and even in Bermuda, along with letters from fellow crow shooters around the world, have found that "a crow is a crow, no matter where it lives".

Although many hunters consider crows to be "stupid birds", still these raucous critters have never been put on the endangered list and today; the populous is greater than ever. Crows have but three predators, owls, hawks and man. Yet, there are no signs of depletion in numbers. Crow hunting is not merely a shooting-sport. There is an education in proper crow language to learn; how to talk to the birds, camouflage, ground decoy setups, technique of applying decoys into trees, precise wing shooting, but most of all, an opening door to other hunting "NO TRESPASS" property known as "a crow foot in the door".

Through the years, I have guided duck and bird hunters, skeet and trap shooters that were dead on at their wing game. However, when taken crow shooting, they did a great deal of missing only because crows produce a different target pattern in flight and can make themselves smaller in size or larger to confuse the gunner. Furthermore, during these feather changes, their flight speed also increases, or other gyrations occur that are never expected. In this nature game one must learn from the unexpected.

Dick Mermon