johnc wrote:So,no matter how fouled up I get trying to guess what "people" want,and I will get out of whack, I have something to refer back to for game time in November.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Know I won the only calling contest I ever entered (turkey up in the Mid Ohio Valley) - and apologized to the fellow who should have immediately after. He was incredibly life-like, but I was apparently what the judges wanted to hear that day. Then I moved down here, found everybody and his three cousins imitating Mervis' endless lou-lou-lou-lou-lou riffs in the field, and decided my best bet was to differ from what was apt to shoot at the birds by sticking about as close to what the specks, themselves, do as I could.
Of course, that's not the only way to trip them up, but it's worked well enough that, until I discovered online sources of live speck recordings, I never ran a speck call at all unless the birds were down here to keep me honest and from falling into human/hunter tones and cadences.
None of which is intended as a knock on you guys with the gumption and dedication to succeed on stage, or even that I don't believe I might have better luck breaking contrary birds by stepping farther outside my box than I'm currently capable of, just my simple, meat and potatoes way.
(All that from the same guy who'll be quick to tell you "just like a duck" is wildly overrated and has broken countless tall duck flights with every-duck-on-the-pond "come-backs" prefaced by ringing contest "hails".)