SEMPRONIUS - Jeff Hall, Jeff Bouton, Kevin Shafer and Dan Lennox - all 18-year-old high school seniors - stayed up to midnight playing pool, throwing darts and listening to music. But shortly after 5 a.m., the foursome was on the road, bound for the Sempronius back country, ready to hunt crow despite the public squabble.

By daybreak, they were scanning the brightening skies for the black birds. They carried .12-gauge shotguns, but no decoys or calls like other crow hunters, and they trudged through knee-high snow to get to their spot.

At exactly 7 a.m., the sun was up and the hunt was on. Crows could be heard everywhere, but the wily birds weren't offering the foursome much to aim at. The crows were uniformly flying too high for shotguns, and the hunters opted not to shoot unless they had a good, clean shot.

"They're very smart," said Lennox, a Moravia High senior. "This crow shoot is a little more difficult than we thought it would be."

The teens, who have hunted deer and waterfowl together, participated in last year's crow shoot. They said crow hunting is not like deer hunting, when hunters must remain still and be as quiet as possible.

So, it isn't surprising that, by 7:34 a.m., the focus on crows began to wane and the first of the day's snowball fights erupted. With temperatures in the 30s, snow was wet and good for packing. The foursome spent part of the morning building forts in the snow.

At 8:16 a.m., Hall downed a crow. It would prove to be the team's only bird. "More than I expected, tell you the truth," said Shafer, a senior at Auburn High.

After that, the crows scattered and were gone. The woods were silent and the teens were hungry. By 9:10 a.m., they were enjoying breakfast at the Sempronius Diner.

Although they returned to the field after breakfast, for the most part the hunters snoozed and drank hot cocoa. By 11:30 a.m., they decided their hunt for the day was over.

They vowed to return Sunday for day two of the crow shoot.

Although their combined bag of one crow left them with no chance to claim the $1,000 prize, it mattered little to the hunters.

"It's a bonding experience," Lennox said. "We just don't want to go out and slaughter."

"We got to come out and hang out together," Shafer said. "Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have come out and walked around in the deep snow all day."