Thanksgiving Crane

[Little Creek Calls]

I had the opportunity to hunt sandhill crane with my dad just before Thanksgiving. Had a great time and we were both able to get all of our birds. Made it back home Thanksgiving afternoon and had crane for dinner Thursday night. Had the normal Thanksgiving dinner on Friday with the family. The crane turned out better than expected, it really is the ribeye of the sky.

[Couzer]

Bad to the bone!!!! Nice job

[brademan76]

Very cool! I ran into a group of them on Sunday sitting in a freshly planted wheat filed. Wish I would've had a tag!

 

So how did the hunt work? Were you just sitting in a field where they had been feeding? Is where you are in the photo (seated next to the wheel of a pivot) actually where you hunted from? Decoys (silhoettes, full-bodies?), calling, etc? Details man!

[Big Browns]

That's Awesome!!!!!

[Little Creek Calls]

We sit the large pivots to hide our outline then we don't have to deal with ground blinds. We have full decoys and use calls to draw draw their attention to the decoys. We try to hunt cut corn fields the preferred food of choice for the cranes. It took us 2 years to figure it out (best setup of decoys and when to shoot) but we are pretty good at it now. This year the overall numbers of birds was way down from last year, I assume because the warm fall up north and they just haven't migrated in fully yet. I talked to farmers in all the different areas before the hunt and everyone said the same thing "the birds haven't showed up yet."

[brademan76]

Cool, thanks for elaborating a bit! Approximately how many decoys do you set?

 

Looks like you might get a PM from me if I ever draw the tag!

[MuggyMan]

I so want to hunt these birds. Is it difficult to get permission to hunt on the farms?

[yotebuster]

I just bought 18 deception decoys this year for using here in ND. Completely changed my crane hunting!! They decoy right in and finish in them. We hunted over them 4 times this fall and shot limits every time. I've tried every other decoy on the market with minimal success. I was prepared to have stuffers made but I'm so glad I didn't! I'll try to put up some pics later.

[CouesWhitetail]

Wow, congrats on your harvest! and thanks for the extra info.

[CatfishKev]

Thats awesome man. I always thought it was a draw for like one of them. I need to look back into it. I've many times worked over by sunsites / elfrida and saw them flying above in their poorly shaped V's and wondered about them.

[ASUOutdoorsman]

That's very cool, Congrats! Those things are huge!

[cjl2010]

That's awesome!!!!

[Slack40]

Awesome job! We've got them on our place back in Texas, father in law is out there this weekend scouting. Can't wait to knock a few down in 2 weeks.

[Swivelhead]

Congrats on your success. Got a few cranes in the freezer from last week. Curious, how did you cook your birds?

[Little Creek Calls]

Treat them like a nice beef steak only add a little oil or butter because they don't have any fat. Cook them hot and fast, Just don't over cook them and dry them out. You won't be disappointed.