Seven ducks materialized over the tree line at the far end of the remote pond, winging down the far shoreline, inspecting our decoy spread. When they swung around for a closer pass, the sunlight gleamed off the green heads of mature male mallards and I lifted my call to offer a soft, inviting feeding chuckle. Before I could blow one note, a hunter in another blind not 100 yards away began to wail on his duck call. From the sounds I could only surmise someone was attempting to strangle a very large and irate parrot, and the small flock of decoying ducks kicked in their afterburners and lit out for the next county. If not for my own spotted history of calling errors as a novice, Polly wouldn’t have been the only one being strangled that day.

After purchasing my first duck call in my mid-teens, I practiced ardently attempting to imitate other hunters and live waterfowl I’d heard over the previous couple of seasons. Throughout the first couple of weeks in October that year, my shooting success was limited, but I blamed it on other factors. Then, one evening while gunning a small lake with a couple of friends and their dads, the awful truth was exposed.

After the third or fourth bunch of ducks shunned our fake flock and melodious calling, one of the men hollered over from the next blind and offered me $50 for my call. I yelled back that it had only cost me $8, and he retorted that the rest of the money was to buy my silence and future lessons. My feelings were hurt and I was angry, so much so that I refused to call to the next few batches of birds. Adding insult to injury, we got some shooting, and then I began to listen to the veteran’s quack and cluck and gabble, enticing wary waterfowl into shotgun range. Then and there I vowed to improve my calling technique and more importantly to recognize and avoid calling mistakes that frequently affect success.

Practice makes perfect

Some wise old waterfowler once wrote that the duck call might well be the most effective conservation tool in modern duck and goose hunting. Knowing when to call is every bit as important as knowing how to call, and in many cases less yields more and silence is golden. In a nutshell, understanding when to use specific sounds is every bit as important as knowing how to blow a call, and for novice and veteran sportsmen alike, this comes down to practice. An expert caller just like a professional musician never forgets the basics, but take a few months off and the resulting sounds aren’t as crisp, clear and proficient.

Practice outside, rather than inside the house or car, to achieve a more normal sound without echoes and reverberations off walls and ceilings. Learning to blow a call from a CD of a person calling or even one-on-one with another expert caller is an acceptable method to learn the basics, but for true realism go to the park, neighborhood pond or a wildlife refuge and listen to real waterfowl, then imitate those sounds. Don’t parody humans, natural inflection, tone and cadence can only be learned from real ducks and geese. Using a CD recording of live birds is an acceptable alternative.

There’s no substitute for real “in the blind” experience, so the caller can actually see how his sounds affect the approaching birds. Everyone makes mistakes; learn from them and move on to gain confidence. Regardless of how effective your calling becomes, don’t neglect practicing before and during every season each year.

The correct call

I have an Olt 800 goose call that has served me well for more than 25 years, and I thought it was top-notch until a hunting partner began blowing a short reed double-cluck style call last fall. I now own one of those short reed calls and the effectiveness of my calling, as well as my success ratio, have both improved. Don’t get into a rut with a certain sound or style of call. Whether it’s camo clothing, guns or a new goose call, modern technology is wonderful. Embrace it, don’t ignore it.

Listen to and blow a variety of calls before making a selection and remember that what sounds good to a mallard may not be perfect for widgeon, teal or wood duck. In fact, experienced duck and goose hunters may well carry half a dozen styles and models of calls, each with a varied tenor and tone effective on select species. Visiting a call maker’s shop or attending a sportsmen’s show are two excellent ways to hear and try multiple designs and intonations of flute, short-reed, double-reed and single-reed calls.

Don’t’ purchase a call just because a friend or guide uses it, and don’t think just because it’s the most expensive it must be the best. Do consider the advice of experts, but temper it with experimenting with at least a dozen calls before making a final selection. Don’t switch randomly from call to call every outing, find a couple of good ones, practice, perfect your sounds and use bird response and success rate to judge if you do have the correct call.

Call care

Once you’ve found the right set of duck and goose calls to assure effectiveness, don’t overlook cleaning and caring for them regularly. Manual mouth-blown calls are not very intricate nor do they have multiple moving parts, but ignore keeping them clean and dry and they may fail to operate. Worse yet, when that skein of big honkers is gliding closer and you attempt a low coaxing call to seal the deal, a poorly maintained call may issue the sound of a cat with his tail caught in the door!

Plastic calls may be soaked overnight in a dish of water and liquid dish soap to loosen any debris and then held backwards and flushed out under the faucet in the morning. Wooden calls should not be soaked, only held for short periods under warm running water and then quickly dried, to prevent the wood becoming waterlogged. Never use boiling water to clean or a hair dryer set on hot to clean and dry a call. Internal parts may be permanently damaged by such heat. Some calls come apart in two pieces, and if this is the case, a length of dental floss or piece of stiff paper can be used to clean between reeds and around the securing wedges. In the field, a dollar bill will work to free up the inner working of a call that’s catching or altering tone improperly.

Even the best of calls may alter in tone or experience changes in function over several seasons. This is why most call makers offer returning and even replacement of reeds, wedges, rings and other internal parts. Some will even refinish the exterior and polish the inner chamber if requested, for a small fee. A few companies even offer a do-it-yourself kit for returning and replacing parts, complete with exacting instructions to achieve certain levels of raspiness, ease of break between notes, and varied levels of pitch. Using no call at all is better than scaring away every bird in the zip code with sounds from an aged, fouled call. Guns, boats, motors and decoys are maintained regularly, duck and goose calls should be as well.

Less is more

Don’t confuse good calling with too much and too loud. In some cases the old “Silence is golden” adage will serve waterfowlers well. When initial calling has the birds working the decoys, let well enough alone. Only if they lose interest and begin to leave should you pick up the sound level and tempo again. A call is a hunting tool, just like decoys, camo clothing and a blind. Used correctly they all improve success; used poorly, any one can do more damage than good.

In addition to the mistakes of calling too frequently and too loudly, calling at the wrong times can also produce extremely adverse results. Even the best-sounding callers can send birds winging away by sounding off at inappropriate times. Being just a mediocre caller but knowing when to call leads to far more attractive results and better gunning.

Understanding when to call means learning and understanding the body language of ducks and geese. It’s fairly straightforward and just takes time and attentiveness when in the blind. As long as birds are circling the decoy spread, using steady wing beats and working lower, all is well, so stay completely silent or at most just issue a low greeting murmur or feeding chuckle. But if heads and necks begin to move a lot, wing beats falter or flight paths change, it’s time to blow several medium-loud greeting calls. Keep coaxing until they settle down. If they start to leave, hit them with a pleading come-back call.

Keep your call to your mouth all the while waterfowl are working and watch closely. If ducks begin to slide away and you’re not calling at once, it could be too late. Also be aware of the wind, calling when birds are downwind makes it easier for them to hear and offers them a perfect return path and landing lane into the wind over the decoys. Do not point your call and blow notes directly at approaching flocks or upward when birds are directly overhead. At these times, blow downward or use a hand to half muffle the sound as it spreads out just like a ventriloquist throwing his voice.

Final approach

During the entire calling ritual, convincing wary waterfowl to enter that last 25 yards into effective gun range is the most demanding work. Referred to as “finishing the birds,” seducing ducks and geese that last few yards requires finesse. For ducks it’s three- to five-note greeting calls, feeding chatter and short, crisp quacks, while for geese it’s grunts, low steady moans, and an occasional single, short honk. As the birds approach, increase the urgency and speed while lowering the volume.

Many veteran waterfowls have one call for attracting ducks and geese and working them, and then switch to a lower tone call with less amplification for the finishing touch. This is where hand work on the end of the call and breath control become crucial in providing realistic, cajoling, convincing sounds, and that takes us full circle back to my starting point – practice!

One last mistake that many hunters make is forgetting to take weather conditions into account. They get in a rut without realizing that rain, fog, snow and especially wind greatly affect the sound and range of calling. Ducks and geese also behave differently in these conditions and sportsmen must be accommodating to these changes by altering calling tactics. Keep trying different tones, speeds, volumes and sounds until birds begin to respond. It generally varies every outing, so it’s often a matter of trail and error.

Properly using a call is one of the most rewarding aspects of waterfowl hunting, in fact, great calling means easy shooting. Matching wits with wild, wary ducks and geese by making them believe your calling is another live bird may just be the greatest accomplishment in wing shooting. Avoid the several major mistakes I’ve mentioned and you’ll be on your way to being a believable caller and a better hunter.

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached via e-mail at bgravesoutdoors@ainop.com