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Crow calls while deer hunting

SETX hunter

SETX hunter

Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2021
Messages
71
Awhile back I came across an article or video that discussed using turkey calls while deer hunting. Wish I could remember where... Anyways, the idea is a natural sound to avoid spooking deer or even calm them down after spooking. The article claimed effectiveness while still hunting, stalking, on stand, or sometimes even after getting soft busted. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Anyone ever try this with crow calls? There are little to no turkeys in my area, so I think I’m going to invest in a crow call this year. Curious if anyone else has experience to share.


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The point of the turkey call is to "trick" the deer into believing the sounds you are making moving through the woods are being made by turkeys. Crows don't move through the woods that way.
 
I've never heard a crow walking through the woods. Turkeys sound like a person walking through the woods.
 
Also, turkeys don't call to alert danger. Crows will call when danger is present. Don't believe me. Next time you are sitting on a field and a crow flies over wave your arms or let him see your blaze orange hat. He will find a close tree and start calling or circle and start calling. A crow call would be counter productive to being sneaky.
 
Yeah I guess a crow call is obviously not relevant while on the move. I still think it could have its place in very specific situations.

This past season I only had 1 encounter with a mature buck, and it really caught me off guard because it was the very last day of season. I spotted him at 40 yards only seconds before he spotted me. When he noticed me, he froze for several minutes trying to figure out what he was looking at. He eventually blew and bounded away another 40 yards, stopped and turned back. He kept watching for another minute and was obviously unsure of what I was. He definitely didn’t catch my scent where he was, it was purely visual. That moment has been replaying in my head ever since, and was the #1 motivator in my decision to switch to saddle hunting this year. There is no better cover than the trunk of a tree between me and him.

Anyways, that experience got me thinking how could I possibly settle that deer down, or convince him I was just another animal in the woods? I’ve watched crows caw at deer moving through, and no negative reaction from the deer. Yes crows alert the woods of a hunter, but they also alert at other animals moving including deer. My idea/goal here was to convince this buck that I’m just a crow in the tree, and hopefully he would resume his travel. Especially in the future if I’m behind the tree and he only sees a small part of me sticking out.

All that said, maybe it’s not worth carrying in the woods with such limited applications.


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My hope is that this becomes popular with the public land hunters near me. They can walk round blowing every call they got - pretending to be every animal they are not. I'll hide out in my honey hole quiet as a sleeping baby - with a firearm...

Just my opinion - I refrain from making any noise (to the best of my abilities). I do rattle and grunt, but very selectively - that's it.
 
At that point out were busted and the only thing you could have hoped is he was a pissed off buck that wanted to fight. You said the last day of season, so the rut was over. You are not coming back from that one. I would have let him walk out of site, found a comfortable spot, and then gotten very aggressive with snort whizzes and grunts.
 
Well again, I’m not talking about walking around the woods cawing like a crow. That’s why I described that specific scenario where you’re trying to recover from a deer picking you off visually. At that point it’s obviously too late to grunt, snort, wheeze, etc... he already saw something IN THE TREE. Don’t think he’s coming back to look for an angry deer 15+ feet up.


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I thought you bumped him on the ground. He busted you in a tree, call it a day if you can't grunt him back in. I've grunted in plenty of deer 15 20 feet up in a tree but once you're busted and it's an old deer, you're done. Instead of having a crow call in the stand you need to look back and figure out why he busted you and fix that part of the setup.
 
For sure, #1 on my list was figuring out why I was spotted. I was silhouetted worse than I realized. That’s the main reason I’m converting to saddle hunting. Another part of the fix is tree selection and hunting height.

Goal #1 is always don’t get busted in the first place. My idea of a bird call is only to help recover if (when) it happens again. Plenty of mature bucks are killed same day or day after being lightly spooked. Especially if only spooked by sound or sight. I’ve watched tons of skittish deer spook from other animals/birds. I’m sure it happens daily or at least weekly to most whitetails, and it doesn’t cause them to change travel patterns or leave an area altogether. The goal would be to make that hunter encounter seem as natural possible, in the hopes it doesn’t cause him to change tendencies. I would never expect any deer, let alone a mature one, to come charging back to investigate a crow.


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I was thinking about the drop a leaf scenario. Was it warmack who said drop a leaf shoot a deer? Carry leaves in your hand. If you think the deer spots you, drop a leaf. He said most times it relaxes them, and they go back to feeding. Maybe they think it's a squirrel going up and down the tree or a bird moving around. Just a thought.
I tried walking with a turkey call once. Didn't see any deer. Not sure if I blew them out long before I got there, or they just weren't there. Didn't see any fresh deer tracks. But doesn't mean anything.
 
We have all been there..... busted.... a good one staring you down, what would have been my best archery buck to date, a definite booner mind you, busted me, I will never forget it. My advice would be to definitely forget the crow call, and once the buck hopefully settles down and walks off blow a couple soft grunts, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, if he flags and bolts fast instead of walking off... listen and see if he stops, if he does then try a couple soft grunts, curiosity kills a lot of game.
 
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