Crow hunting.

Seriously? Why not?

One of the latest, most relaxed wingshooting seasons in Ohio is crow season. You’ve got until mid-March to go for the intelligent black birds. There’s no bag limit, and the only restriction is that you can only hunt them Friday, Saturday and Sunday in season.

Plus, crow hunting can be a lot of fun, especially if you like elaborate decoy setups, a diverse calling vocabulary and going after a bird that isn’t being chased by every hunter in the field.

Crows, as you may know, are pretty smart. They have a rather sophisticated language, and their eyesight is phenomenal. That means crow hunting makes a decent warm-up for turkey; you have to be aware of what you’re saying with the call, and you’d better have your camo and concealment down.

I came into possession of a new 12-gauge over the holidays, and have to say I’m looking forward to turning it skyward in the coming weekends. I’ll report back on my success (or lack thereof – I take my fair share of scratch days, too) in the coming weeks. And if Mother Nature deems it good, I’ll hopefully have a report on the success (or not-quite-right results) of a few crow recipes I’ve found.

Yep; if you shoot it, you ought to use it as much as you can.

Happy calling, and happy hunting.

But if you’re here in the snow-choked Southwest corner of Ohio, why not start getting pumped up for spring fishing? Nothing beats cabin fever quite like something to get your imagination running, and an e-mail that dropped into my inbox today announced a contest that should do just that for any ambitious anglers out there.

The organization Boat US Angler announced the rules for its 2010 “Catch of the Month” contest. Not only do monthly winners get a small prize package, but they are entered to win a grand prize package that includes a replica mount of the winning catch by Mount This! Fish Company.

Kind of nifty, isn’t it?

So as the snow and nasty gloom continues to sock in this art of the Midwest, check out those links and start dreaming about warm water, sunny skies and something scaly on the other end of the line.

I’ve been watching the ODNR’s info sources for data on how the 2990-10 deer season has panned out. While there’s still no final word on the grand total of whitetails taken, there are some initial stats that have been published.

Photo by Matt Cunningham

Central and south-central Ohio counties led in the numbers of deer taken, with Tuscarawas County’s 1,300-plus deer leading the way. Overall, it was a good year for muzzleloader hunters, too; not only did smokepole shooters take more than 20,000 deer, but a nontypical bruiser taken in Highland County set a new state record. Read the release here, and gawk at the photo – that thing looks more like a scrawny elk than a whitetail!

As of mid-January, the state was on track to exceed the 2008-09 deer totals by about 17 percent. This tells me two things: one, the state’s wildlife managers are doing a good job keeping the whitetail herd robust and available for harvest. Two, hunters in Ohio are either more accurate, more persistent or are getting more new folks out in the woods. The mild winter probably helped, too.

Keep these number in mind, and congratulations to everyone who bagged their buck this season. For the rest of you, remember – there’s always next year, and it’s never too early to start planning for the start of the 2010-11 deer season.

Photo by Matt Cunningham

I planned to start off this week with a summary of the 2010 deer season: where, when and who bagged the big bucks, and which parts of Ohio are statistically the best places to look for next year’s bruiser. But while doing research, I came across this research report from the ODNR. This is the annual deer season report the ODNR produced for the 2008-09 season. A year old? sure. There is a gold mine of info in this thing.

Take a look through the document. It includes reports on a huge range of whitetail-related items, from antler girth to success percentages for various hunting implements (bow vs. gun vs. muzzleloader, etc) to stats on vehicle-deer accidents.

Perusing this information shows me a ton of potential deer data for next season. Beyond the obvious data on counties where the most deer were taken, there are reports on where the highest rates of deer damage complaints come from. Could that give you an idea for where to look when asking permission to hunt private land next season? Could it point you toward a new public land to hunt on (in that instance, it might be useful to scout land in lower-producing counties. Maybe they’re ranked lower due to less hunter pressure, rather than a lack of deer.)

It’s about time for the break from the year’s hard deer hunting. Take a few weeks and get familiar with the information in this useful document. Then evaluate what worked and what needed improvement this season, lay out your scouting plan and get ready to hit the woods this spring. Deer season is only a few weeks, but preparation for a successful deer season is a year-round effort.

So let’s face it; with the wet wintry mix hitting Southwest Ohio this weekend, it’s tempting to stay indoors unless you’re truly hardcore about your stand-sitting. To me, few things are less comfortable than trying to be a tree stump for half an hour in windy sleet and rain.

Yuck. It’s why I hunt rabbits this time of year – maybe when I have more of that patience and endurance that comes with age, I’ll be willing to sit stands in this kind of weather.

Photo by Matt Cunningham

If you’re looking for some extra motivation to sit a stand, or you got our deer already and just NEED to be out in the woods going after something bigger than a cottontail, I have one word for you:

Coyote.

OK, coyotes would seem to go against my standard hunting rule: “hunt it if you can eat it.” I’ve seen a couple of coyote recipes out there, but haven’t had the guts to try any yet. Maybe this year, if I get a weird hankering in the kitchen.

But coyotes are non-native to Ohio, and they’re all over the place. Suburban areas provide the perfect transitional cover for their prey species, and there are still too many indoorsy types who think their dog is eating the dog food left on the back porch. Hmmph.

Coyotes are open game all year, but this is the time of year when their pelts are at their thickest. If you want a pelt that has a little more warmth to it than deerskin, here’s your target.

Here’s a link to an interesting site I found while searching for coyote calling tips. They’re smart critters, and calling one in is a little bit like calling in a turkey – you can’t just blow on the call every five minutes and hope for the best.

So make the most out of this lousy weather. Try a few more days for that final deer, get the beagles out baying for rabbit, or take a shot – hopefully literally – at one of the more cunning uninvited guests in Ohio’s woods.

Just bundle up. I know I will.

This post follows up where we left off last week; talking about how to better your odds at bagging some late-season venison. That post talked about talking to people: landowners, farmers, people who spend their workday in their cars, etc.

For this post – and the followup tip – I’m going to suggest something almost opposite: go where the people aren’t.

Maybe there’s a corner of the land you’ve been hunting that’s a real pain to get to. Maybe it didn’t show sign, or looked totally deer-unfriendly, during your scouting last summer. If there are other hunters on the land, you can bet they haven’t visited this place in a while, if at all.

So why not check it out?

Deer are incredibly smart, in the sense that their eyesight, hearing and smell give them knowledge of the woods that we can’t match. Going into the woods after a deer is like having an elephant show up in your basement; wouldn’t you notice something tromping around in your home?

Deer respond to the stimuli (audio, visual and scent sign of hunters) by doing something logical: the smart (read: old and big) ones go where there is the least amount of human sign and hunker down.

So although it’s tempting to keep sitting the same stands day after fruitless day, break your own routine and try a few new stands in out-of-the-way places. Who knows what might walk by, totally unaware the big, smelly human in the forest has changed his or her pattern.