Live on tape...

[Rick]

Was digging through my important junk drawer and came across Zink's "Mallards Gone Wild" CD of live birds calling, https://zinkcalls.com/products/CD_mallardsgw, which would be a whole lot handier than the usual "go to the park or refuge" advice for learning duck sounds and cadences. Zink also has a similar "Canadas Gone WIld" CD.

A couple youtube videos that are similar, though not as extensive, are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFl_d8B0kck and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uCvzUDL5H0&list=PLF70CDE7E16B548A6 .

And if you really want to learn the breadth of a species' vocalizations, go to http://www.xeno-canto.org/ and search their super-sized collection. (I've used it a lot for specks, but just took a listen to some of their mallard files for the first time and was surprised to keep bumping into my "secret" weapon.)

[rebelp74]

Good stuff Rick, thanks for sharing!

[Redbeard]

Good stuff Rick, thanks for sharing!

x2

[Flightstopper]

Good info for sure.

[Deltaman]

Agreed! I bought the Fred Zink "Mallards gone Wild" a few years ago, and it is as good as it gets, with live birds and human calling. One mention he made really rang true, and that is when a group of Mallards is circling the decoys, and you notice one of them (almost always a drake), looking at the blocks as it passes over, with a little calling encouragement, will break out of the pack and drop on in ahead of the pack. We always used a short 3-note call at this time, and because of the repeated results, called it a "sit-down" call. After hearing Fred Zink talk about it, don't know that it was so much the 3-note call as it was the timing of the call. The rest of the group will almost always follow the lone bird's lead after another pass. We would always designate one person to shoot the lone bird on the rise as the rest of us would concentrate on the landing flock over the dekes. It was amazing how many times that lone bird would get away in the cornfusion

[aunt betty]

That sit-down call is called the lonely hen where I'm from. It's a good one to know.

[KyMike]

I would dare to guess that if most people called like the website sound files you would get run out of most blinds. 15-30 note strings of what I was taught was an alarm quack. Well they sounded pretty content to me. Very interesting.

I have had the Zink cd in my truck CD player for the last 3 years. It's a good reminder that most call sound files are related to calling contest sounds and not hunting sounds.

[AKPirate]

I have a pet drake and hen mallard, feed them a little corn but keep it just out of their reach of their tether. They call up a storm.

[Rick]

I would dare to guess that if most people called like the website sound files you would get run out of most blinds. 15-30 note strings of what I was taught was an alarm quack. Well they sounded pretty content to me. Very interesting.

Shhh! Those long single quack strings aren't the alarm most folks think, just something ducks sometimes do - and an exaggeration of them is my "secret" weapon for local mallards and mottleds that know exactly what's happening at the blind. I wait until they're headed our general direction before starting, then literally don't skip a beat until calling the shot. Skip a note or two to tell folks to be ready, and it's over, you'll lose them. But maintain the beat and much more often than not the birds will keep coming, as if mesmerized by it, and "forget" where they're at until it's too late. If they start to bend off near the end, just get louder and more insistent, but keep up the beat. And take the shot they give you on that pass, 'cause they ain't coming back.

[Rick]

I have a pet drake and hen mallard, feed them a little corn but keep it just out of their reach of their tether. They call up a storm.

When I'm bringing on pups I keep a couple English callers with my pigeons to teach the pups water searching for crips, and I've not brought home anything but greenheads since the first hen drove me bonkers.

[rebelp74]

Rick, I'm loving that site. Seriously thanks for sharing!

[Bootlipkiller]

I would dare to guess that if most people called like the website sound files you would get run out of most blinds. 15-30 note strings of what I was taught was an alarm quack. Well they sounded pretty content to me. Very interesting.

Shhh! Those long single quack strings aren't the alarm most folks think, just something ducks sometimes do - and an exaggeration of them is my "secret" weapon for local mallards and mottleds that know exactly what's happening at the blind. I wait until they're headed our general direction before starting, then literally don't skip a beat until calling the shot. Skip a note or two to tell folks to be ready, and it's over, you'll lose them. But maintain the beat and much more often than not the birds will keep coming, as if mesmerized by it, and "forget" where they're at until it's too late. If they start to bend off near the end, just get louder and more insistent, but keep up the beat. And take the shot they give you on that pass, 'cause they ain't coming back.

It brings them right over the lids!

[assateague]

I would dare to guess that if most people called like the website sound files you would get run out of most blinds. 15-30 note strings of what I was taught was an alarm quack. Well they sounded pretty content to me. Very interesting.

Shhh! Those long single quack strings aren't the alarm most folks think, just something ducks sometimes do - and an exaggeration of them is my "secret" weapon for local mallards and mottleds that know exactly what's happening at the blind. I wait until they're headed our general direction before starting, then literally don't skip a beat until calling the shot. Skip a note or two to tell folks to be ready, and it's over, you'll lose them. But maintain the beat and much more often than not the birds will keep coming, as if mesmerized by it, and "forget" where they're at until it's too late. If they start to bend off near the end, just get louder and more insistent, but keep up the beat. And take the shot they give you on that pass, 'cause they ain't coming back.

Skybuster.

[Bootlipkiller]

I would dare to guess that if most people called like the website sound files you would get run out of most blinds. 15-30 note strings of what I was taught was an alarm quack. Well they sounded pretty content to me. Very interesting.

Shhh! Those long single quack strings aren't the alarm most folks think, just something ducks sometimes do - and an exaggeration of them is my "secret" weapon for local mallards and mottleds that know exactly what's happening at the blind. I wait until they're headed our general direction before starting, then literally don't skip a beat until calling the shot. Skip a note or two to tell folks to be ready, and it's over, you'll lose them. But maintain the beat and much more often than not the birds will keep coming, as if mesmerized by it, and "forget" where they're at until it's too late. If they start to bend off near the end, just get louder and more insistent, but keep up the beat. And take the shot they give you on that pass, 'cause they ain't coming back.

Skybuster.

[KyMike]

I would dare to guess that if most people called like the website sound files you would get run out of most blinds. 15-30 note strings of what I was taught was an alarm quack. Well they sounded pretty content to me. Very interesting.

Shhh! Those long single quack strings aren't the alarm most folks think, just something ducks sometimes do - and an exaggeration of them is my "secret" weapon for local mallards and mottleds that know exactly what's happening at the blind. I wait until they're headed our general direction before starting, then literally don't skip a beat until calling the shot. Skip a note or two to tell folks to be ready, and it's over, you'll lose them. But maintain the beat and much more often than not the birds will keep coming, as if mesmerized by it, and "forget" where they're at until it's too late. If they start to bend off near the end, just get louder and more insistent, but keep up the beat. And take the shot they give you on that pass, 'cause they ain't coming back.

The Pied Duck Piper! Well I'll have to add this to my bag of tricks. Thanks for the info.

[AKPirate]

Cheaters

[Rick]

Rick, I'm loving that site. Seriously thanks for sharing!

You're welcome. Until I found xeno-canto, I made it a rule to leave my speck calls in the drawer during the months there were no birds down here to keep me honest and from falling into human calling habits. We've had at least six state champion speck callers on staff at the camp, and one of the ways I've managed to compete with folks who can run calls like those guys in the next field has been by being a contrarian in my calling, which includes avoiding tones and cadences I suspect pressured birds come to associate more with guns than safety. Using the x-c recordings is a way I can practice with the real deal as a backdrop to keep me from slipping into whatever the current State stage rage hunters have pounded into my head is. (Whatever the big kids are doing spreads like wild fire through the hunting community in our high pressure, speck crazy area and is soon coming from nearly every blind.)

[Rick]

It brings them right over the lids!

At least until they've been burned by it a time or three. Learned it wasn't an alarm call by watching or listening to them do it in the field, but I've seldom heard it used in what I felt was association with birds in the air, much less seen a bird drawn to live birds doing it. One late afternoon while deer hunting, I saw such single quacking break out from several mottled ducks (our resident "black duck" or "Summer mallard") scattered around a marsh that kept it up for several minutes before starting to peel out to feed, but I've hunted that same spot at the same time a great deal without witnessing such calling before the mottleds went to feed again. Nor have I heard it association with birds about to leave other places, whether to feed or whatever.

So I think its tractor beam affect another example of useful involuntary reflex, rather than some otherwise meaningful communication.

[Rick]

Skybuster.

Skybusters need not apply. Ain't gonna do diddly if they're not already broken down and hugging the marsh or field.

[Rick]

The Pied Duck Piper! Well I'll have to add this to my bag of tricks. Thanks for the info.

Just know it won't work if you don't believe it will and waver, instead of bearing down. I use the most demanding call on the string and order them to keep coming. Once showed it to a good friend who used to guide with us and even talked him through it while he worked one to the gun. Later, he told me wouldn't work at his dad's place, a wonderful no-pressure 1,600 acre marsh. Was my pleasure to show him otherwise on a pair we let catch us there but I pulled right back. Gotta believe and bear down without a waver.

[assateague]

[KyMike]

A couple of the sound files sounded like 2 ducks doing it in response to each other like a goose double cluck. Do you ever do this with 2 callers or always just one?

[aunt betty]

Rick's made a great point about being random and a little different than everyone else on the block.
My calls sound different than most. Deeper and louder. (I used to laugh at the guys who used calls like I do now)
I call differently too.
Slow where each quack is separate. No running them together.

[Rick]

A couple of the sound files sounded like 2 ducks doing it in response to each other like a goose double cluck. Do you ever do this with 2 callers or always just one?

I believe it's essentially being mesmerized, for lack of a better word, by the steady beat that does the good and, while I've not tried two guys single quacking, I know from too frequent sad experience that someone "helping" with greetings, feed calls or whistling has invariably broken the spell and killed our chances. Same thing has happened when I've tried sweetening the pot flicking a spinner or Mallard Machine on and off: breaks their apparent focus on the beat and we're done.

Again, I'm not trying to communicate anything, just trying to use something similar to what the birds do in a way that garners a favorable involuntary response.

[assateague]

Kidding aside, I've often done the same thing with Canadas. Just a steady series of clucks, non-stop. Works like a charm.

[Rick]

Same, same with specks, albeit not with clucks, because I can't breath without missing a beat while maintaining their clucks for a long period, but with a steady rhythmic series of three note yelps I can maintain indefinitely. Can't say I'm as confident of pulling it off with specks as ducks, which may just be one of those "self-fulfilling prophecy" deals.

[KyMike]

Technique questions:

1. Since you are wanting them to come straight in are you waiting till they are down wind to start? I'm sure turning to set up in the wind could break that trance.

2. Are you breaking them with this call or something else then going to it once you have their attention?

[Rick]

I see that I made the point that I wait until birds are already headed my way before continuous single quacking or steady goose beat to try catching them up in the beat but should have added that I'm speaking of broken down birds, whether for another spot or having done so for me an not liked something about us. Don't believe they're thinking about landing at all, just caught up in the beat and apt to forget they're screwing up, so wind direction has no bearing. Would limit the tactic tremendously if it did.

[KyMike]

Got it. Thanks again.

[Rick]

And another t'ing... When I suggested the xeno-canto resourse, I was too lazy to also point out the back door route I've been using to get around a subscription fee (or some such) for access to Cornell College's Macaulay Library sound files. Turns out that barrier to free access is no longer in effect, and access is now as simple as clicking http://macaulaylibrary.org/. It's generally not as extensive as xeno-canto but offers some good files.