Silly question but... Ever use retrievers to fetch em? Not sure he will let me out of the house with camo, shells and a gun without those sad eyes...

No 'silly' questions on this Forum-- all good uns''
 

-- Never thought about that- a Black Lab, mine is named Khartoum, after black birds- if you can keep your dog still, with all the noise of the calls and the crows screamin', like in brother Pete Lester's great video-- but--like woodcock, my guess is- crows might be repulsive to the nose of a retriever-and also, if you get a few cripples on the ground and squawking and moving, I leave them be- ads realism to the set-up and also makes the crows even madder- and a maddened crow is what you want- when they are in that state, they throw caution to the wind--:bigbye:

good question about the dog...i bet it would work out.now if youve got a blue tick hound like mine it want work out... charlie

I wouldn't recommend it, as a crippled crow will go after a retrievers eyes, even while in the dogs mouth. It simply isn't worth getting your dog hurt over a crow.

My old female Lab Cinders never picked up a crow on land, she'd bark at them and push them around. She would water retrieve them, maybe the water took the stink off them. Can't remember her fighting a wounded crow, if she did she made quick work of them. She had an interesting albeit bad habit. If a crippled duck did not fight she would deliver it to my hand alive. If she delivered a dead one that felt kind of spongy ie broken back, it put up a struggle that didn't end well for the duck :)

Anything that saves our four-legged pals from harm
 

-- Right-O. At our pheasant hunt club this past Sat- at the coffee break discussion inside the warm clubhouse, also heard that sandhill cranes if wounded, will do that as well. Some of our members are going on Spring hunts in the Dakotas-Neb areas--

Parkers were well used that day, both for the Tower shoot, where over 80% (est'd) of the released birds were killed, including some "flurry released hens) and then the post lunch pickup shoot/hunt as well. My GHE 12, a 12 VHE with original single trigger and ventilated rib, a 12 DHE with DT and again, orginal ventilated rib, and a friend's son with his 20 Trojan- also in evidence were several English doubles, even a hammer 12 bore-Great day indeed!!:bigbye:

I learned how to "hunt" crows from this guy, Jerry Tomlin.
http://www.thecrowroost.com/
Full camo, blind, crow dekes, and a good electric call. Jerry does all of the calling with a set of mouth calls, which is infinitely more effective, if you know what you are doing.
I have found an ounce of 7 1/2's to be the ideal load.

I have found that using 7.5's will result in higher number of flying cripples vs. using #6. Any shot size works close but as the range extends the larger shot size is more effective. #6 is a much better choice of shot size for crows in low to moderate velocity hunting loads that are more friendly to old guns and old shoulders.

Maybee so-- but a smothering load of No. 9's
 

-- I bought a flat of 12 gauge AA skeet 1& 1/8 oz. No 9 shot for $50 from a friend who no longer shoots skeet- I would have preferred no. 8, but the price was right- two things to remember about crow shoots- (1) they are all feathers and wings and little body mass (2) if they flare on their incoming pass, shoot down at their feet-same as for flaring Canada geese- as they are dropping back and down-- I shot up all 250 of those skeet loads on barn pigeons and crows, using these shotguns: 12 PH 30" choked F&F, 12 GHE 28" choked Imp. Cyl. and Imp. Mod., 12 gauge Model 12 30" choked Full-all dropped both the flying poopsters and the "Black Ducks" like gangbusters-average range was 25 yards est'd.:whistle::whistle:

We are talking decoyed birds here. We live in a major crow flyway, on a hill above a pecan orchard. To say that I have shot a few crows would be a major understatement.
A crow's body is not that much bigger than a pigeon, and 8's kill pigeons quite well out to 50 yds. or so. (ask me how I know) No. 6 shot is just fine on crows, and will increase downrange energy significantly, but payload size, or choke constriction has to be increased to maintain pattern density.
btw, when you live in the country, and can shoot in your backyard, it's easy to experiment with guns/loads. One day a friend and I were doing some looong range experiments on crows. My friend was ranging the flock with a range finder, and I was shooting at them with an Ithaca Mag 10, with 2 ounces of #7 shot.
Conclusion: 10 ga. mags kick too much for me!
:banghead: