Couple more

[hudson]

Green hedge gadus and a vox mortem.the whole gang together #98[attachment=-1]uploadfromtaptalk1395274763019.jpg[/attachment][attachment=-1]uploadfromtaptalk1395274777428.jpg[/attachment]

[Rick]

Well, I guess it's a start.

[The Duck Hammer]

Very nice. Gadus's call is awesome.

[hudson]

Well, I guess it's a start.

ya rebels got my ccc throwback and I'm waiting on some rm golddiggers and another mondo and can't forget about this little guy[attachment=-1]uploadfromtaptalk1395276464238.jpg[/attachment]

[hudson]

Very nice. Gadus's call is awesome.

i think I've got a decent collection started and I'm eye balling Kellys micarta cut down too

[rebelp74]

How does Kelly's run?

[hudson]

How does Kelly's run?

it doesn't take much air but I havnt blown it much but will tomorrow. has a more mellow tone to it but still has that boss hen rasp like a cutdown should.gonna be killa on them calmer days.imma try and make a video tomorrow with it and the bm br cut.my vox takes the most out of all of em.it seems even more than yours did

[The Duck Hammer]

How does Kelly's run?

it doesn't take much air but I havnt blown it much but will tomorrow. has a more mellow tone to it but still has that boss hen rasp like a cutdown should.gonna be killa on them calmer days.imma try and make a video tomorrow with it and the bm br cut.my vox takes the most out of all of em.it seems even more than yours did

Out of curiosity, is the toneboard still anodized on the slope?

[hudson]

[attachment=-1]uploadfromtaptalk1395291189552.jpg[/attachment][attachment=-1]uploadfromtaptalk1395291203933.jpg[/attachment]

[The Duck Hammer]

Of the three I got only one has been filed on and it takes different air pressure. Was wondering if that was the case with yours.

[rebelp74]

Of the three I got only one has been filed on and it takes different air pressure. Was wondering if that was the case with yours.

Didn't Tyler Rogers cut yours?

[The Duck Hammer]

Of the three I got only one has been filed on and it takes different air pressure. Was wondering if that was the case with yours.

Didn't Tyler Rogers cut yours?

I believe so. It was Tyler's to begin with and its the only one I've seen or heard of that has been worked on.

[hudson]

Of the three I got only one has been filed on and it takes different air pressure. Was wondering if that was the case with yours.

No bryce said it was like new never hunted only blew in shop.tryed to get the other one on ebay but they out bid me.its up to 155 last I looked.i got lucky with this one and still want at least one more

[hudson]

Won't have to worry bout it gettin cold cuz that thing was gettin pretty warm when I was blown it

[The Duck Hammer]

Won't have to worry bout it gettin cold cuz that thing was gettin pretty warm when I was blown it

Yep its pretty cool. Amazing how fast they conduct heat and hold it.

[hudson]

Won't have to worry bout it gettin cold cuz that thing was gettin pretty warm when I was blown it

Yep its pretty cool. Amazing how fast they conduct heat and hold it.

huh just got a offer on another vox with box and extra mouth piece in mint condition for 120.guess I'm buying another haha

[rebelp74]

Won't have to worry bout it gettin cold cuz that thing was gettin pretty warm when I was blown it

Yep its pretty cool. Amazing how fast they conduct heat and hold it.

huh just got a offer on another vox with box and extra mouth piece in mint condition for 120.guess I'm buying another haha

if it's from a green one from a dude named Travis, do it he's good people.

[Woody]

Holy hell, you must have spent 2Gs in calls in the last week.

[Rick]

...has that boss hen rasp...

Thread-jacking being the oldest of traditions here on WFF, I'm going to do just that and ask if anyone really knows that the deep, coarse rasp/rattle most consider "an old boss hen" sound is, in fact, that? Or are the coarsest calls we hear from ducks not the result of too many Marlboros and too much whiskey for too many years but young birds still getting their voices together, and the higher, cleaner tones often called "young hen" really that of older birds?

Can anyone make a case one way or the other? I can, but it's somewhat tenuous.

[Woody]

...has that boss hen rasp...

Thread-jacking being the oldest of traditions here on WFF, I'm going to do just that and ask if anyone really knows that the deep, coarse rasp/rattle most consider "an old boss hen" sound is, in fact, that? Or are the coarsest calls we hear from ducks not the result of too many Marlboros and too much whiskey for too many years but young birds still getting their voices together, and the higher, cleaner tones often called "young hen" really that of older birds?

Can anyone make a case one way or the other? I can, but it's somewhat tenuous.

I haven't paid it much thought, but I bet I could pick out which is the boss hen in a flock. Not by tone, but by time.

Every morning just before sunlight all ducks start to get pretty vocal and just before they take off to go find food it seems they all shut up except what I am guessing is the boss hen. I have noticed this many times, but I have never paid attention to how raspy it was.

[Rick]

Maybe just the hungriest.

[aunt betty]

I've sat and watched the reverse of what you guys described.
The mallard meca I go to in NEARK, the ducks rest during the day and feed at night. They return the next morning.
They are vocal just before sunset. It gets quiet all except one raspy old hen and she's calling when to go.
Boss hen is an excellent way to put it and yes, she's loud and raspy, rattly. (Throwback!)

I know a field in SEMO that they go to. OMG you should see the numbers.
Friends have a lease very near it and the same thing happens in the morning.

There are so many ducks that they can't all take off at once and they take off from the exterior of the mass. I call it "unpeeling the onion".

[Rick]

I've sat and watched the reverse of what you guys described.

Not "you guys". I lived for several years with a marsh across the dead end parish road in front of my place and a rice field abutting my back yard, and still spend a whoooole lot of time out among 'em, just watching and listening and only noticed a similar phenomenon once. Was deer hunting in the marsh late one afternoon when one mottled duck ("Summer mallard") hen started a long single quack series, then others around the marsh picked up the beat and joined her for a good long time. Eventually, they went quiet and started peeling out to the nearby rice to feed, and I thought for a little while I might have translated something. But that was probably fifteen years and thousands and thousands of ducks watched pulling out of their own volition without repeating that or anything I've felt a common "lets go" signal prior to flight. (Not uncommon to hear "alarm" calls once they're airborne, despite no discernible source of alarm and even when they're just going a short distance.) Appears to me that they don't give a rat's ass whether other birds come with them, but if some take off, others think they know something worthwhile.

Maybe I only think I pay attention, but the closest thing I've heard to "boss" sounds is loud, sharp, short "feeds" that are plainly telling another duck or ducks to back off.

[rebelp74]

I've sat and watched the reverse of what you guys described.

Not "you guys". I lived for several years with a marsh across the dead end parish road in front of my place and a rice field abutting my back yard, and still spend a whoooole lot of time out among 'em, just watching and listening and only noticed a similar phenomenon once. Was deer hunting in the marsh late one afternoon when one mottled duck ("Summer mallard") hen started a long single quack series, then others around the marsh picked up the beat and joined her for a good long time. Eventually, they went quiet and started peeling out to the rice to feed, and I thought for a little while I might have translated something. But that was probably fifteen years and thousands and thousands of ducks watched pulling out of their own volition without repeating that or anything I've felt a common "lets go" signal prior to flight. (Not uncommon to hear "alarm" calls once they're airborne, despite no discernible source of alarm and even when they're just going a short distance.)

Maybe I only think I pay attention, but the closest thing I've heard to "boss" sounds is loud, sharp, short "feeds" that are plainly telling another duck or ducks to back off.

What i associate that loud boss hen with, which may not be an old hen at all, is the loud dirty raunchy rattly hail type call I hear in the woods. Never hunted much rice, most mallards I get are in flooded pecan and oak bottoms.

[Rick]

Woods, rice, marsh, they holler like that everywhere, sometimes to anything and everything that flies by, sometimes under barren skies. Think it just sounds extra coarse in the woods because of the acoustics.

But here's what's set me to questioning common perception. I spend A LOT of time just watching and listening to waterfowl with particular focus on specks when they're here, but I long assumed the coarse, deep down in a barrel, rattling yelps of some were old birds and the clean, high pitched yelps of others were young ones. I now know for fact, however, that bare chested, probably first year specks do a lot of the gravely squawking I associated with old, perhaps "boss" birds and find myself wondering if they just haven't gotten their yelp refined yet, and if that isn't also the case with clanky sounding ducks?

[assateague]

If you've ever heard young roosters learning how to crow, they're definitely more raspy than older roosters, who've got it down pat. By a factor of about a million.

[rebelp74]

Woods, rice, marsh, they holler like that everywhere, sometimes to anything and everything that flies by, sometimes under barren skies. Think it just sounds extra coarse in the woods because of the acoustics.

But here's what's set me to questioning common perception. I spend A LOT of time just watching and listening to waterfowl with particular focus on specks when they're here, but I long assumed the deep down in a barrel, rattling yelps of some were old birds and the clean, high pitched yelps of others were young ones. I now know for fact, however, that bare chested, probably first year specks do a lot of the gravely squawking I associated with old, perhaps "boss" birds and find myself wondering if they just haven't gotten their yelp refined yet, and if that isn't also the case with clanky sounding ducks?

Makes sense. I will say that the more rattly deep sounds I hear, are more clear notes in terms of cadence(for lack of a better term). They seem more to be more refined than some of the others that I hear. That said I've heard plenty that sound refined that aren't deep guttural type sounds. More of a clean crisp note. Not to mention that I've had much better luck calling in birds with typical j-frames over cutdowns. Even had far better luck with much quieter 1/4" bores in the woods than with cutdowns, not sure if it's call shy birds, what the birds like, me on the call, or that from that experience(only a season with cutdowns which didn't produce as I'd hoped but did produce will try more before hanging it up) the confidence that I have in more familiar calls, being the soft calls, I typically hunt in timber.

[Goldfish]

I'll preface this with we don't get many specks thru MN, but I thought the myth about how much "tar" is on their belly relates to their age is just that, a myth.

[Rick]

I've long had better success with crisp, clean relatively high stuff than what most consider "boss hen" tones, whether I'm making them or a hunting partner. Might only be confidence born of coincidence bolstered by seeing what I expect to through the filter of that bias, dunno. Do know I really, really wanted a cutdown's "bark" to be a valuable tool, if not a silver bullet, for breaking birds that managed to resist my current charms, but I couldn't make that the case. Bought and practiced with three types, carried what I felt the best for three years, experimenting with it extensively pre and post season, as well as between splits, and pulled it off the string at duck's close this year. I'm done with that, unless somebody shows me something I've yet to see out of one.

[rebelp74]

I've long had better success with crisp, clean relatively high stuff than what most consider "boss hen" tones, whether I'm making them or a hunting partner. Might only be confidence born of coincidence bolstered by seeing what I expect to through the filter of that bias, dunno. Do know I really, really wanted a cutdown's "bark" to be a valuable tool, if not a silver bullet, for breaking birds that managed to resist my current charms, but I couldn't make that the case. Bought and practiced with three types, carried what I felt the best for three years, experimenting with it extensively pre and post season, as well as between splits, and pulled it off the string at duck's close this year. I'm done with that, unless somebody shows me something I've yet to see out of one.

Same hope and results here. I plan on giving at least one more season and depending on how it goes decides on more common use or not. They didn't respond often but when they did, they responded dramatically.