Calling all Ducks & Geese

Goose calling is a skill, that to many, seems difficult to master. Actually, becoming a competent caller is quite simple. It only requires you to do two things: learn the basics of calling and practice.

Although listening to real geese is a great way to learn the sounds they make, it is not always practical. You need to buy a CD or tape and practice. If you buy a new call it will take most 2-3weeks broke the call in. Most of the goose hunting here in Arizona is none on the National Wildlife Refuge ( Cibola & Havasu )

Let's get started. Your first step is to choose a goose call. Two of the most popular choices on the market today are; flute calls, and short reed calls. Both are very versatile and effective. Typically, the short reed call has a sharper more piercing sound and the flute call has a mellower and fuller sound. Evaluate your hunting situations and choose the call or calls that will work best for you.

Cluck

Murmur

Moan

Hail Call

Greeting Call

Intermediate Greeting Call

Comeback Call

Lay down Call

Basic Goose Calls

Cluck
A cluck is the foundation of all sounds produced on a goose call. By lengthening, shortening, or using the first or second note, you can make every note in a gooses vocabulary, including the murmur and the moan.

A cluck can be broken down into two parts or rather notes consisting of a low first note (grrr) and and a higher pitched second note (it). By lengthening or shortening either of the two parts you will produce different honks or clucking sounds.

Murmur
Using just one portion of the cluck will produce the feed murmur. The first part of a cluck, used in succession, will produce the murmur or feed call as it is also referred to. Try using reference words like grrr, grrr, grrr in succession and you will produce the murmur call.

Moan
Slightly modifying the second portion of the cluck will produce the moan. In a moan you are dropping the first portion of the cluck and modifying the second portion so the sound doesn't break over, but rather drags out. Instead of saying (it) on the second portion of the cluck, you say (ihhhh)), (awww), or (whooo).

Hail Call
The hail call is used to get the attention of geese that are off in the distance. The hail call is a cluck that has a short front-end and a drawn out second note (herAWWWWNK) with the emphasis on making the call snap or break over sharply. Although this is a sound that may sound unrealistic at close range, the call serves it's purpose by attracting the geese.

Greeting Call
The greeting call is used once you get the attention of the geese and they start responding to your calling. This is the time to start to call faster and more excited as they get closer and closer. With the greeting call you will mix in clucks, double clucks, and some longer greeting style clucks

Basic Duck Calls

Feeder Call

The feeder call is used to imitate ducks on the ground or in the water that are feeding. There are two types of feeder calls. The first example is used in the field, while the second example is more commonly used in duck calling competitions.

The first and simplest to learn is the single mallard feeder call. It is accomplished by simply saying one of the following words into the call: "Tick", "Dig", "Dug", or "Doot". Increase or decrease the speed at which you say these words into the call to create different cadences.

The second and more difficult feeder call to learn is the "Rolling" feeder call. A "Rolling" feeder call sounds like multiple ducks producing a single mallard feeder call. You produce the "Rolling" feeder call by adding "It" to the single word you used previously and saying it rapidly into the call like: "Dug It", "Dug It", "Dug It", "Dug It".

Hen Mallard Quack

The quack is the foundation of all of the other duck calling sequences you'll use, with the exception of the feeder call. You will either lengthen or shorten the quack to produce the sounds you desire. To produce the quack of a hen mallard say the words "hoot", "hut", or "quit" into the call.

The beginning of the quack should be emphasized and the ending very distinct. Use your tounge against the roof of your mouth to start and end the quack quickly. Do not rely on your throat to start and end your notes.

Once you have truely mastered the quack of the hen mallard you will be ready to move on.

Greeting Call

The greeting call is one of the more common calls you'll hear hen mallards make. This call is generally used once you have the birds attention and they are coming your way. Saying the words "Huuuut, Huuuut, Huuut, Huut, Hut" into the call will reproduce the hen mallard greeting call.

Comeback Call

The comeback call is used to get ducks back to your spread after they've worked it and are starting to leave.

A comeback call needs to show emotion. You're losing the ducks and you want them back. The comeback call is an excited and sometimes loud series of quick quacks that get shorter and shorter. It is much like the greeting call, but faster.

Highball or Hail Call

This is a call that a real hen mallard never makes. The sole purpose of using a highball/hail call is to attract attention to distant ducks. Your goal is to sound like a group of ducks in the distance.

This call should only be used to get the attention of distant birds and should be stopped as soon as the birds are heading your way.

By Andra Bryan Stefanoni
Special to The Capital-Journal

A retrieving dog may be a duck hunter's best friend, but a duck call would have to run a close second. Hanging from a lanyard around your neck, it's reliable, it's noisy, and it's absolutely necessary in your quest to bag the next flock of greenheads.

But the way that duck call became a call and made it to your lanyard in the first place is about as arduous a journey as the one it takes for bananas to find their way out of the tropical rainforest on a dugout canoe and across the ocean to a local grocery store.

A duck call begins with raw materials -- be it a block of wood or acrylic or polycarbonate.

At Rich-N-Tone Duck Calls in Stuttgart, Ark. -- the "Rice and Duck Calling Capital of the World" -- a 25-foot wall in the back of the facility is lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of raw material, including a walrus tusk and a piece of Corian, both items folks dropped off just to see if calls could be made out of them.

Each block of wood, no matter what the species, measures 2x2x18 inches but that's where the similarity stops. The type of wood used in a call is what makes each one unique, according to Davy Hunt, RNT accounts manager.

"For example, cedar makes a wonderful call, but it won't last," Hunt explained, rattling off the names of woods commonly used in calls. "Cocobolo is about the best; there is also bois d'arc, bocote, diamond wood -- and of course now we make acrylic calls, too, which are great because they don't shrink or swell."

A duck call is made of two components, each manufactured separately: the barrel and the insert.

Depending on the manufacturer and how big the operation is, the raw material used to make the barrel and the insert begins its journey by either being hand-turned on a manual lathe or being turned in a CNC (computer numerical control) lathe. A CNC machine can turn 20 inserts at a time, maximizing efficiency and ensuring precision, Hunt explained.

From there, the barrels and inserts are put together to form calls and are taken to lathes and individually smoothed. Each wood call must be sealed, a tedious labor-intensive and smelly process but one that is vital to the performance of the call, according to Rusty Bulloch, RNT customer service representative and the one who "does the most dipping."

"We have to do that for moisture," he explained. "We can't just turn them and let them set."

Expansion and shrinkage are a hunter's two worst enemies when it comes to wood calls, because just like with musical instruments it negatively impacts the sound a call makes, Bulloch said.

A band is hammered on each call, and the tuning process begins. Each of the 10,000+ calls sold each year by RNT is tuned by either President John Stephens, a two-time winner of the Worlds Championship Duck Calling Contest, or RNT Founder Butch Richenback, also a world champion caller.

The tuning process takes an experienced ear and hand -- swiping an insert just once across sandpaper will remove the width of a human hair, or about .003 of an inch. Removing much more than that will ruin the call and mean the call ends up in the trash can, Stephens said.

Adding a pencil eraser-sized piece of cork and about an inch-long reed to each insert is what produces the sound, and trimming that reed and fitting it with the cork is a tedious process that Stephens and Richenback both dedicate quite a bit of time to getting just right.

Calls run the gamut of prices, but duck call vendors at the recent Grand Slam Waterfowl Weekend in Leawood agreed on one thing: pick a call that is comfortable for you and your skill level, not because your hunting buddy has it or it's one you've seen one on a video.

And, as Hunt emphasizes, you "get what you pay for." Many of today's lower priced calls are made of plastic or inexpensive wood. These calls are more apt to change sound or tone after only using them a few times, especially in wet conditions.

Other web sites on Calling

DCAN Library of Duck Calling Sounds

Waterfowl.net

Making Your Own Decoys

Decoy  In order to determine the dimensions of the various decoys, the following length measurements should be used in making the patterns.

Canada Goose 19" White Fronted goose is 15" Show goose is 15"

Gadwall 11" Golden eye 10" Mallard 12" Pintail 11" Redhead 10" Scaup 11"

Decoys Molds the best is at Black Lab Decoy products