Marauder On Crows Member John Klosenski I
t all started when I stopped by a local farm where I usually shoot
a few pigeons and starlings with the air gun in the off-season. Duck season had just closed, deer
season was over and the only thing worth hunting was coyotes, or the odd pigeon or two at the neighboring farms. I often take my lab over to the farms to give her some exercise retrieving pigeons that I shoot off the tops of the silos with my air gun. The owner of the farm, Rick, saw
me one morning and said, “I may have something you might be interested in. I have been having problems with crows pecking holes in the plastic on the ground silos and water is getting in, causing the hay to rot. I called the state but they didn’t get back to me yet.” Well, I told him that I was an ADC
(Animal Damage Control) agent for the state, and I would contact the local warden to see what could be done. A call to the warden got me a depredation permit (as crow season was closed), and we were good to go. Usually I hunt crows like most
people … with a call, decoys and a shot- gun. This time I decided to try using the Marauder, as there was a large number of birds next to the house and barn. They didn’t seem to mind people walking around as the farmhands were always out and about and they pretty much had free range of the place. I fi gured with the low noise I could probably get a couple before the rest got wise to my shooting. I got my rifl e, which I also had
equipped with my camera, since I like to record the action. Earlier this summer I had been at the farm shooting pigeons with a crew from Crosman, trying out the new Marauder pistol, so the farmer was familiar with my equipment. In this case, I would be using two Marauder rifl es, 22 and 25 caliber. I parked the truck and slipped
around back by the silo. There was a number of crows in the edge of the cut cornfi eld. A quick check of the distance with my Bushnell laser rangefinder told me that the fi rst one was 47 yards. I zoomed the camera in, hit the record
Abby, the black lab, retrieves a crow downed by the author using a Crosman Marauder air rifl e.
The Crosman Marauder air rifl e scored on these crows at 70 yards.
button and pulled the trigger. I could hear the “smack” as the pellet struck home. The crow fl ew about 20 yards, then dropped dead in the field. The rest of his “buddies” started calling and circling and another two landed a little farther out. I ranged to the closest one, which was 70 yards. At three mil dots
down on my scope, and with no wind blowing, I held right on and fi red again. This time the bird fl opped over and got up skittering on the ground. The rest of the birds now fl ew over to some trees about 120 yards away. I got my black lab Abby out of the truck and sent her for the cripple.
www.varminthunter.org Page 139
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