New Caller Tips

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New Caller Tips

Postby mikecatt13 » Sun Dec 14, 2014 9:54 pm

Will try to keep this kind of to the point to be as constructive as possible. Im not so much looking for one of the undoubtedly long list of good calls for a beginner but how about call style such as single or double reed etc?

I plan on purchasing DVDs (have read that bad grammar is a good one) and doing some watching on YouTube. Any specifics that have helped you guys over the years? Especially when talking about YouTube, don't want to end up picking up bad habit from someone with a random homemade video.

How about any big "secrets". For example, one of the first things I learned is using your diaphragm instead of blowing into the call but it took a little searching to find this. What are the tips, even seemingly obvious ones to those that are experienced, that could make the learning curve easier if possible?

Thanks in advance!
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby NuffDaddy » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:09 pm

Id say learn on a single reed. They are a bit trickier to learn, but give you more range of sounds than the doubles. And switching from a double to a single was a bit tricky for me.
Learn how to make a single quack. And how to make it sound good before you move on to anything else.
Timing is everything when it comes to calling ducks. A couple quacks when they are at the end of their swing are all it usually takes. At least for me.
There are some guys on here that are far better callers and more experienced than me that can offer some better advice. I'm sure they'll be on here sooner or later.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Steele22 » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:19 pm

What he said.. Knowing when or when not is the main thing. Get a cd and listen to it going down the road alone lol. Try to get the sound again like was said of just a quack first before moving on to a series. Personally I would start with a double reed, I still use an echo drt a lot myself. Can't do everything a single can but ducks don't do what most people do on them either.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Bad17 » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:19 pm

NuffDaddy wrote:Id say learn on a single reed. They are a bit trickier to learn, but give you more range of sounds than the doubles. And switching from a double to a single was a bit tricky for me.
Learn how to make a single quack. And how to make it sound good before you move on to anything else.
Timing is everything when it comes to calling ducks. A couple quacks when they are at the end of their swing are all it usually takes. At least for me.
There are some guys on here that are far better callers and more experienced than me that can offer some better advice. I'm sure they'll be on here sooner or later.


X2. Just don't over call. You will learn as you go. Practice practice practice.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby mikecatt13 » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:40 pm

As far as timing and what calls to blow at those times, short of hunting with an experienced caller and then good ole trial and error is there a way to get a jump start on the basic guidelines? Would such a simple thing as watching waterfowling DVDs be a good idea? I tend to learn fast and am fairly good at analyzing things so if I learn the different notes first would this work?

Thanks guys!
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby NuffDaddy » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:52 pm

mikecatt13 wrote:As far as timing and what calls to blow at those times, short of hunting with an experienced caller and then good ole trial and error is there a way to get a jump start on the basic guidelines? Would such a simple thing as watching waterfowling DVDs be a good idea? I tend to learn fast and am fairly good at analyzing things so if I learn the different notes first would this work?

Thanks guys!

It's all experience. But generally I try to call soft or not at all when the birds are working close. When they swing out I try and give them a 3-4note call right when I think they will be able to hook and land just right in the decoys. Do it too soon and they won't have time to setup and will make another pass. Wait too long and they might land short or loose interest.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Flightstopper » Mon Dec 15, 2014 12:51 am

For me this is always a video that has hit home with me and worked.



It will definitely take some practice to get on the call right and learning how to read the ducks and hit them when need be. The best methodology I've seen explained is with the Carlson's championship calls CD. Most people say to say words into the call but this explains what you are actually doing with that.

http://www.mcssl.com/store/carlson-cham ... ing-a-to-z
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Rick » Mon Dec 15, 2014 6:59 am

My hunters have killed tens of thousands of ducks over double reed calls, but having since taken the trouble to become proficient with singles, I prefer them for the greater range of tone they afford. Sure, there are doubles that sound "just like a duck," but that can still leave a lot of birds in the marsh that could have gone home with us. So when someone asks your question as the season is fast approaching, I generally suggest an easier to master, less apt to miscue double reed that will more quickly afford them the confidence to use the thing and work on the all important tactical side of their calling during that season. But I believe a fellow willing to work at call operation and preparing for a season that's still months away is better served in that long run by mastering a more versatile single reed from the onset, as most of us beginning on double pretty well had to learn call operation all over again when moving on to singles, because of the poor air presentation habits the governing effect of a second reed allowed us to develop.

As for the how of call operation, it comes as simply as using reference words or just saying the sounds you want out of the call into it for some, while others are better served by what appears a blend of anatomy and engineering text to the likes of me. Most folks are likely somewhere in the middle, but there's tons of instruction to experiment with out there.

Tactically, I'd strongly suggest not getting hung up on human patterns or "rules" and paying more attention to the birds than the experts. I've long enjoyed most of my distant bird hailing success with what most consider a "comeback," and there will be times when a "feed call" makes the most effective greeting for birds close enough to hear it. I believe it best not to think of the call as a translation device trying to say what you think a duck wants to hear and view it, instead, as a lever to influence the birds' momentum. Here's a piece I put together some years ago that explains that notion:

At its tactical core, calling ducks is about momentum: creating it, breaking it, maintaining it and, sometimes, just not getting in its way. So I take my calling cues by paying attention to the birds' momentum.

If the location and decoys are doing my job for me, and the birds want to come to the guns, I'll let 'em. Calling only enough to keep them coming if they waver and/or to put them "right there". Not getting in the way of birds that want to work was little doubt the inspiration for the old saw about calling only to tail feathers and wing tips.

By the same token, if the birds haven't shown me their intent, I'll call just enough to get our hat in the ring. And if they jump for it, chances are they can be finessed the rest of the way by tickling them "on the corners". Again letting the birds' momentum do most of the work.

But if birds blow off a simple greeting and drive on toward parts unknown, I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain by hitting them hard with the call. Here again, if they're quick to turn to it, they'll probably do most of the work from there on in.

And if they don't turn to, I really amp it up, watching for any little wink or blink of a wing suggesting the jackhammer will work if I can just crank it up a little louder and longer. When I can't get anything to flirt, I'm only out some wind. But when something will wink or blink, and I don't run out of wind, our chances of getting shooting out of it are excellent.

Wasn't always so, however, because when I'd worked that hard to break something off a flock or turn the bunch, I worried about over calling and backed off as they headed to us - only to lose them when I did. Took me a lot more such losses than I'm happy admitting to realize that even when I turned the whole flock and not just a bird or two from it, the real momentum was still headed toward whatever was drawing them away in the first place and might well stay that way. Many such birds are either coaxed all the way to the guns or lost, presumably to their prior destination.

If there's a "rule" to such things, it may be that the harder birds are to turn in the first place, the more likely the need to call to their faces until you call the shot. "Tails and tips" be damned.

Very often, too, we'll see that birds within hailing range appear deaf, because they're zeroed in on another nearby spot, and our best efforts aren't turning them. We can't break the momentum toward that location within their view, like we could toward a distant, perhaps less tangible, goal.

But it's often the case that we can then use their own momentum against such birds by letting those apparently locked on such a spot go to it, break down for it, and then, when their circling heads them our general direction, calling to their faces to keep them headed our way, perhaps thinking there might be a better deal just a little farther on. Or just caught up in the call.

Again, though, don't let up as they approach or pass a good shot hoping for a better one, because they've already shown that what they really want is over yonder.

And that's more than enough of that for a while. Lots and lots of other tactical stuff, including gosh knows how many under the label "most important thing" or "secrets" that probably aren't. But I think a fellow who really pays attention to momentum and calls accordingly has a far better foundation to build on than most.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Tomkat » Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:50 am

Go to the park and listen to the sounds real ducks make. Watch some very old Duck Commander hunting videos. They dont do anything fancy and kill lots of ducks. Best thing you can do is buy a drake whistle. That will kill ducks, you can master it quickly.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Woody » Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:57 am

Find where ducks want to be, hunt there. When you get home throw away your duck calls. They are worthless 95% of the time and really are duck hunter jewelry.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Goldfish » Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:19 pm

Woody wrote:Find where ducks want to be, hunt there. When you get home throw away your duck calls. They are worthless 95% of the time and really are duck hunter jewelry.

Sometimes, but my best hunts this year wouldn't have happened without them.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby team216 » Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:40 pm

Tomkat wrote:Go to the park and listen to the sounds real ducks make. Watch some very old Duck Commander hunting videos. They dont do anything fancy and kill lots of ducks. Best thing you can do is buy a drake whistle. That will kill ducks, you can master it quickly.


I second this, a whistle call is deadly in my opinion. Cause most of the ducks you see have already heard the hail call, the feed chuckle, the comeback call a million times on their migration. Simple calling and a whistle call. Deadly combo for weary ducks
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby simplepeddler » Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:41 pm

team216 wrote:
Tomkat wrote:Go to the park and listen to the sounds real ducks make. Watch some very old Duck Commander hunting videos. They dont do anything fancy and kill lots of ducks. Best thing you can do is buy a drake whistle. That will kill ducks, you can master it quickly.


I second this, a whistle call is deadly in my opinion. Cause most of the ducks you see have already heard the hail call, the feed chuckle, the comeback call a million times on their migration. Simple calling and a whistle call. Deadly combo for weary ducks


can't agree more........once the birds hit South Louisiana they are all quite experienced
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Rick » Tue Dec 16, 2014 7:04 am

I've a good friend who is extremely successful with just a whistle. Well, that, legal access and a Lafitte skiff with radar, an airboat and a pirogue he's not afraid to pole that get him to where the ducks want to be anyway.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Grease » Tue Dec 16, 2014 11:37 am

Is recommend recording yourself calling. I had a hard time understanding what I sounded like compared to the CDs and DVDs I was listening to. When I started to record myself making the different calls it helped me know how and what to change.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby jarbo03 » Wed Dec 17, 2014 12:08 am

Rick wrote:I've a good friend who is extremely successful with just a whistle. Well, that, legal access and a Lafitte skiff with radar, an airboat and a pirogue he's not afraid to pole that get him to where the ducks want to be anyway.


:D :D :D
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby jarbo03 » Wed Dec 17, 2014 12:17 am

Where you're located and what birds you will mostly be hunting will determine what you need to work on most. Learn the sounds each birds make and how to call them. To me, a whistle is a good way to reassure a bird that is already wanting to be where you are set up, except for a few of the whistling birds, like pintail or wigeon for example.. A whistle to them can be the difference maker. For the majority of your hunts where you are not on the X, a good single reed will be your best tool. An old Knight and Hale cassette tape is what clicked with me and showed me how to make the proper sounds adn use my diaphragm. I believe it said to blow through your call, the same way you would breathe on to a mirror to make it fog up. Once you get the basics, practice your ass off, all the time.
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Prairie Chicken: 4
Dove: 168
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Flyway Stalker » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:53 pm

I sort of struggle with promoting anything from Jeff Foiles and don't know if you can even find one anymore, but he made an inexpensive call ($30.00 or so) called the Straight Suzy that was very easy to blow and created a sound as good, if not sometimes better than some of my very expensive calls. I still have one that I use all the time to finish ducks, as do all 3 of my sons. My oldest son has used his to teach his 5 year old daughter to call.
As the others have said, learn to quack first and get the hang of the drake whistle, the rest of the calls will come later.
You can make a bunch of noise to get their attention, but once you have it you need to stop acting like your in a calling compitition, and learn to listen and repeat what the ducks are saying back to you. If they are checking you out, but aint talking, I would be quite or maybe just through an occasional very lite quack or feeding chuckle at them.
You can't allways be on the X, so your going to have to learn to make some sound and good decoy patterns.
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Re: New Caller Tips

Postby Deltaman » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:30 pm

Flyway Stalker wrote:I sort of struggle with promoting anything from Jeff Foiles and don't know if you can even find one anymore, but he made an inexpensive call ($30.00 or so) called the Straight Suzy that was very easy to blow and created a sound as good, if not sometimes better than some of my very expensive calls. I still have one that I use all the time to finish ducks, as do all 3 of my sons. My oldest son has used his to teach his 5 year old daughter to call.
As the others have said, learn to quack first and get the hang of the drake whistle, the rest of the calls will come later.
You can make a bunch of noise to get their attention, but once you have it you need to stop acting like your in a calling compitition, and learn to listen and repeat what the ducks are saying back to you. If they are checking you out, but aint talking, I would be quite or maybe just through an occasional very lite quack or feeding chuckle at them.
You can't allways be on the X, so your going to have to learn to make some sound and good decoy patterns.


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