Kind of strange day hunting today.. (incl. pics)

[only1harry]

Well I 'll try and keep it short because the wife wants me to go out and pick up pizza in a few min.  Luckily I type very fast :)

There was nothing exciting really about these 2 squirrels I got today about 26-27yds out.  It was around 2:30-3pm and I knew most squirrels come around my back yard or through my property in the afternoon about this time looking for a snack so I set up shop at the usual bedroom window upstairs facing the woods in my back yard.   The only thing is I have no scope on the Diana 350 .22 yet and was using factory iron sights, which is ok.. I have gotten 1/2 dozen squirrels this way since I took the broken scope off a couple of months ago until I tame the 350 a little more by putting 1,000-1500 more pellets through it.  

About a 10min. here comes the first one from across the street and straight to my back yard stopping and sniffing.  He found something and started eating it.  I got him in the chest with a Crow Magnum 18gr as he was at the base of a tree in my back yard munching.  Straight line from my window.  No biggie, have made the same shot before several times.  He dropped and expired in 2secs.  I waited to see if any more would show up looking for him or calling him because I noticed the last couple of times another one came quickly after I would shoot one.  Within 2 min. I turn around and out of nowhere there is his buddy on a tree a few feet away trying to wake him up.  I had a CP loaded this time and waited until he was on the ground a few inches away from the dead one.  I aimed a little lower because CP's POI is usually a little higher than Crow Magnum or Kodiak, but I must 've aimed too low and got him in the gut.  No biggie, he expired in about 405secs after he crawled for <1ft and stopped moving.  He was just breathing fast for a couple of secs and then perfectly still.  I had to account for some error being that I shot them without a scope and I was pretty happy even though it wasn't a perfect shot.  

I went and checked them out, positioned them together and ran to the store to get a camera.  I 'm in the car driving and at the end of my property about 50yds from where the squirrels were, is a very LARGE crow all by itself.  This crow was on steroids.  Extremely big and fat.  I thought.. you stay there and I 'll be back to take care of you later.  About 3-4 min. later on my way to Walmart the thought occured to me that the crow might find the squirrels and start eating them.  I turn around and drive home.  About 10min. max have elapsed.  I arrive at my driveway to see 7-8 crows on top of both my squirrels eating them!  I 'm PO'd.  I run inside and grab the 350.  Load a CP and put a few more in my pocket.  My wife had just arrived too and couldn't shoot from the window.  I run to the back yard and all the crows fly away except for the monster one.  The rest seemed like youngsters or not full-grown compared to this one.  As I was ready to pull the trigger at about 21-22yds the crow flys up to a branch about 15ft up.  I aim free hand again and shoot the CP.  The crow drops straight to the ground flapping one of its wings but was stationary.  I was like no way, I got 3 of them in 15min!  Not a bad day.  Not so fast..  The crow all of a sudden rolls over, gets up and starts running!  I started chasing it while reloading but she wouldnt' stay still and she was fast.  Dragging one wing on the ground spread out, she ran back towards the front of the house all the way accross the street to the neighbor's lawn!  She stopped there and started her "craaahh" sounds and looking at me, like she knew I couldn't shoot her there.  About 15-20 secs later she hopped to the back of the house and disappeared.  Dang these crows are tough!  Oh well, I 'll be putting a scope on the 350 soon and once it's sighted in, I don't think another crow will walk away from me.  That's the 2nd crow I hit and lost this Fall, all because of poor shot placement.  I go back and see that one squirrel was only about 1/2 of him left.  They had done a # on him.  The other one was bitten and his belly opened up a little but not too bad.  I watched from inside the house for another 15min. but there was no crow in sight.  Now it's getting late and I 'm losing light.  I drive to Walmart and pick up a Canon digital camera because my wife has hidden our camera so I can't take my prey's pictures anymore.  I return aound 4:45 and it's almost dark.  I walk up to the squirrels to check them out and there is a cat running away with one of them in her mouth!  Luckily it's the one that was bitten badly by the crows.  I couldn't believe it.  I setup the camera fast and take a couple of pics.  The remaining squirrel had gotten hard and wet on one side being that I left it on the snow, so I only took pics of one side.  

Now I don't know this camera well yet and took the pics with high res. in a hurry plus it was getting dark out so I used the flash.  The pics came out to be over 1MB.  I used the only photo editing program I have which is a demo so that I can shrink the pics but there are $ signs all over it because I didn't pay to get it registered.  Are there any shareware phote editing software I can use?  I 'm new to posting jpegs on the web so please bear with me.  I 'm sure I 'll have it all figured out by the next time my lady Diana decides to dispatch a critter or 2 (or 3).  Now lets see if I can post these pics here.  One of them shows where both squirrels were and the bloody mess on the snow the crows made.

[only1harry]

That looks pretty bad!  I 'm so sorry!  I really need a nice photo editing program.  What is the maxium size we are allow to post.  I got these down from 1.3MB to 80K.  If I set the camera to low resolution next time I take the pics they should come out smaller right?  

Well what really sucks is I shot 3 animals, and I only have pis of 1 of them :(

[only1harry]

Ok I went back out and took another pic with the gun.  I had forgotten to do that (duh) being that I 'm new at this pic posting thing. I 'm a newbie with the camera but I 'm sure I 'll learn from you experts  :-)  I 'm also doing all this behind the wife's back so it's hard to get everything right when I have to worry about her finding out.  

This time I set the camera for night mode and went down to the smallest res 640x480.  The file is still 120KB so not sure if I can attach one that big.  You can notice a mount on the 350.  It's the old RWS 1-piece mount.  That is because all the screws got stripped when I kept tightening it so things wouldn't move.  I just have not gotten around to buying a vice or something to try and get those screws loose.  I 'm sure I 'll get to it once the new scope and BKL 260 D7 mount arrive.  I can still see the sights so it's no big deal.

[longislandhunter]

Hey Harry,

Enjoyed the pics and story very much.  Great shooting !!  Rifle looks great laying there next to her kill......  

Sounds like you've certainly done some damage to the local tree rat population...  Good work.

Jeff

[only1harry]

Thanks Jeff.  I 've actually terminated 11 of the tree rats total with and w/o scope.  

You were right.  There were still some more to shoot after I posted my last double squirrel kill a couple of weeks ago.  This is the 2nd time I 've gotten 2 of them in a row within minutes.  I have to slow down and allow for some re-production and wild life conservation :)  I know there are a couple of them left but they 're further up the street.  I can see them crossing the road 100+yds out.  I hope they move into the dead ones' nests and come closer to take over their territory  :)  Too bad I didn't know about this forum or didn't think of the camera when I was shooting a groundhog/day but now they 're all gone.  Those would have been some great pics.  Maybe some young one will move in when spring comes.

The squirrel & rifle are on a small 30-40deg. hill in my back yard.  That was were both squirrels fell and also the crow from the tree.  You can probably tell from the different blood spots there were several animals bleeding in that area :)  
It's funny how the butt stock and the lower part of the gun look so big in the last pic.  The forearm and barrel of the 350 are actually much longer than they look in the pic.  The rifle looks funny and the dimensions are misreprested unfortunately.  Oh well, I 'm still learning..

[longislandhunter]

I have a 350 .22 with a Leapers 4x16x50 sitting on top and it's a tack driving  tree rat killing machine if I do my part.    I love the gun.....

Jeff

[Gene_SC]

Hey guys, save some tree rats for beeding or you will not have any next season.. lol

Gene

[shadow]

Great story Harry hehe, the thing's we do to get the varment  then set up for a pic. You go to get your cam and the OTHER! varment's are getting your's.:) Fine shootin Harry and the end result, great story and you got the pic's, nice gal next to her harvest too. };) Ed

[only1harry]

You have a 350 too Jeff?  Now I don't fee so special :)  Is there any gun you don't have?  I know you got a Diana Panther 34 the other day but it looks like you have more than 2 ladies in the house  :)    

I love the 350 now that it's broken in.  Wasn't too happy with it at first.  A lot of recoil and some vibrations the first few hundred shots, and it broke my mount (the gimbals on the C-mount rings) and the scope early on (~150 shots).  But now after 1,000 pellets through it, it's like a different gun!  She smoothed out a lot. I barely feel the gun kicking my shoulder in when I fire it now.  Before I had to stop after 50 pellets and massage my shoulder.  She is a goddess now! (Diana, get it?)  I was contemplating selling it and getting a 460, but I really like the gun now.  It's smoother and more accurate, still a little hold sensitive, but I got her all firgured out now, and know exactly how she likes to shoot whether I hold her tight or just rest her on my palm (I hope noone is getting excited over this, heheh).  

I 'm still kind of hesitant to put a good scope on her, so I ordered a cheapie Tasco Golden Antler 3-9x32 ($43 w/free ship) just in case she still likes to break scopes but I have a feeling she 'll behave.  She 's a lot more gentle now.  I 've read positive things about it and Tasco advertises it as a tough scope for Magnum springers..   The scope came in late today - UPS.  Looks like a lot of scope for the money.  Optics seem pretty clear and I zoomed in to 9X on the neighbor's Christmas tree in his living room across the street (~45yds) and the A/O adjustment worked perfectly and cleared everything right up.  I can't wait to run into some crows again.  I 'm going to try to use that squirrel as bait tomorrow :)   I 'm putting those crosshairs on their eye next time - something I couldn't do with the iron sights and my relatively poor sight.  No more hopping away from me..  That's it, game over!  :)

[longislandhunter]

Yeah Harry, just like yours my 350 is a sweet shooter for sure.  I use it mostly for woodchucks and squirrels, but every once in a while I bring her out to drop starlings at the duck farm.  I think the Golden Antler is gonna work out nice for ya on your 350, should be able to handle the recoil.  I have a couple of em and have never had a problem.  

As for having more than 2 shooters in the house,,,,,, yeah, I definitely have more than 2 but there's still alot of shooters out there that aren't in my gun safe,,,,,, at least not yet anyway  but I'm working on that  :)

Jeff

[Gene_SC]

Hey Guys, what attracks Crows. I see them in the grass accross the street about 100 yards but they never seem to come over to my back yard..:) Do they sense I am waiting for them to show up so I can shoot them?...:) Anyway Harry, great story and pics. Glad to see another hunter on board the GTA and shooting with a fine air rifle as well..:)

Gene

[longislandhunter]

Hey Gene,

A little known fact is that crows have some of the best eye sight in the bird world and as you know are very wary,, so maybe they do see ya.   If you want to attract crows simply put an owl decoy out in plain sight within shooting range and wait.  Won't take em long to see it and they will come in mass,,,, they hate crows !!   A few calls on a crow call can speed up the process.  Once they arrive you can keep shooting them as long as they don't spot you.    

Jeff

[Gene_SC]

Thanks Jeff. So just get one of them Owl plastic decoys and put him on a stick in the yard? Plus a Crow call.? And that is it?...:) If so I will be buying a plastic Crow decoy online somewhere real soon..:)

Thanks Jeff..

Gene

[longislandhunter]

That's all there is to it buddy  :)  

The owl decoys that have the free turning head work even better than the plain ones since they're more life like, but the regular plain ones work well also.  I've don't quite a bit of shooting over such decoys over the years, with shotguns, and the system works well.....

They will keep attacking the decoy even as you are killing their buddies,,,, just don't let them see you.  If they see you it's all over,,,, they'll head for the hills.  

Just make sure the pole you mount the owl on is high enough for them to see it and perhaps close enough to a tree or other structure that they crows can land on while they taunt the owl.  That will give you the stationary shots you'll need .   ;)

Jeff

[only1harry]

Very smart and cautious bird, that's for sure.  They do have excellent eye sight and I think they watched me kill those 2 squirrels from a distance and flew in after I took off to get the camera.  

Well I left the squirrel in the back yard for bait under a tree.  Got up early this morning (well around 7:45 is early for me on a holiday wknd) and there were 2 crows on top of it!  As soon as I put the blind up, they flew away!  They saw that from 25+yds away no problem.  

I then switched rooms and opened the bathroom window, put my trusty pillow on the window sill and sat on the toilet bowl waiting for them hiding behind the wall.  They came back 15min. later but as soon as I peaked to look outside they took off again!  I then left the bathroom and closed the door.  20min. later I see them on the branches over the carcass from deep in the bedroom window (didn't go near the window).  I open the bathroom door and I soon as I made the first step inside they took off again.  They have excellent eye sight.  

Not sure what to do now.  I guess yesterday they had tasted a lot of blood and one of them didn't want to leave right away, but I think they all observed me shooting that one crow and now are scared of me more than ever.  I 've always had trouble getting close to them.  I have a Willow tree about 45yds away on the side of the house, and when everytime I open the window to take a shot at them they immediately leave the area.   My property runs 101yds along the road.  I have only been able to take a shot at a crow about 3-4 times in 5ys.  I 'm going to try Jeff's recommendation of the fake owl but it's very hard to keep myself out of sight.  Maybe we need to get one of those camouflage hunting tents like they use for deer or on the Outdoor Channel?  :)  They whole neighborhood is going to think I 'm nuts.  My wife already does, so why not them?  :)