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5 Steps To Successful Waterfowl Calling
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3/11/2010
Waterfowlers love to hear themselves call. The big question is, do ducks and geese feel the same way about it?
by Bill Buckley
1. Learn How To Blow Your Calls
Calling incessantly is the waterfowler’s No. 1 sin. While some situations absolutely demand aggressive calling — for instance, on public land where you’re competing with lots of hunters for the same flocks — your calls will be most effective the less you have to use them.Why? First, birds rarely chatter constantly when they’re on the ground or water. And when they do, they’re usually not honking or quacking for all they’re worth. Second, if you call aggressively the whole time a flock is working your decoys and the flock starts to break off, you’ve got nothing in reserve to excite the birds into returning.
Mastering your calls is the first step to becoming a proficient caller. The better you can blow each note, and the more notes and sequences you can learn, the more confident you’ll be using fewer of them. Inexperienced callers often overcompensate by blowing longer and louder than they should.
A duck or goose’s vocabulary might sound limited to us, but they never make a sound that doesn’t mean something to them. It’s up to you to learn those notes and know how to use tempo and inflection to emote meaning. In other words, don’t just make random sounds; think about what you want to say. All this can’t be mastered in a matter of days or weeks, so don’t wait until right before the season to start practicing.
