After our month long archery season ended, my husband and I hadn’t gotten enough hunting in. Since I was the only one that got a deer, and he had to wait until late season to try and archery hunt again, we had to find something to fill our time. Our friend had just gotten a new coyote caller, and we thought we would give it a try. We had seen a few coyotes when we were archery hunting and thought the area would be good to try, who knows, maybe we would see that bear we had on our game camera. Anyway, we set out one cold foggy morning for the hunt. I was pretty pumped up because it had been a long time since I last went coyote hunting. IF you have never done it, I can’t begin to explain the rush you feel when one is running right at you. Sometimes you don’t even know if you can pull your gun up quick enough before they plow past you.
So, we set up on a ridge and called for about 45 minutes. I was truly disappointed when I didn’t see anything barreling at me. I tried to continue to be patient, but it is hard to be patient when nothing is showing its face, and it’s really cold out. We still didn’t see anything after and hour, so we decided to try a new area. We moved the caller out into a big meadow, while we hid in the tree line. I have to say the surroundings were gorgeous that morning, and the sunrise was even better. We were surrounded by firs and mountains dusted with snow. I could have asked for anything better except a few dead coyotes. We called in this new area for a bit, and had not luck there. We were starting to get a bit discouraged when we decided to try one last spot.
We set up the caller and we set ourselves on the side of a small ravine. We started the caller. My husband and I sat together and his friend was off in the distance with the remote for the caller. We heard yipping, and calls from the caller, but didn’t see any coyotes. My quest for a coyote was coming to an end, as I was starting to then get bored. Suddenly, we hear the sounds of crows coming from the caller. Our friend switched it on us, as he was getting bored too. My husband and I exchange puzzled glances and began to chuckle a bit. Soon, overhead we were swarming with crows. Thank goodness I bought my crow tag, because the slaughter was about to begin and it was the funniest thing I ever saw. They were dropping out of the sky left and right. I never saw so many crows. After they stopped coming in, we left and drove over to our game camera to check and see if the local bear had made an appearance on it. No such luck, but we sat ourselves on a log deck and thought we would make once last attempt at calling a coyote it before we called it a day.
The caller went on, and we sat patiently prepared for that one curious coyote to make its way toward us. We looked around and saw some deer come in to the fawn in distress. He doe was looking quite concerned as she made her way to the speaker. When she got there she looked a bit dismayed at the whole situation and took off. Again, we then heard the caller switch over to the crow call again. Much to our chagrin, more crows showed up and this time in flocks. We had about fifteen circling us and they were diving in. If you have ever seen the old Alfred Hitchcock movie The Bird, it was a seen right out of it. As we started shooting, they again were falling out of the sky, and more were still coming. I couldn’t believe how many were flying around us. We continued to shoot until finally the birds flew away. Most of them were lucky and got away, but for the few departed we picked them up and took them away. There is no bag limit in Oregon on crows and I think I we found a new sport. It was the funniest hunting experience I have had, but it was very fun at the same time. I was a bit disappointed in not seeing any coyotes that day, but we did see some elk and deer. That rounded off our morning hunt, and it was a good time to be had by all. It wasn’t quite as exhilarating as coyote hunting, but to see all those crows flying overhead was somewhat of a rush in of itself. Most importantly, I came away with some good pictures and memories.