Predator Hunting from a ground blind

[sivart33]

http://www.western-rivers.com/downloads.html


sounds like they use real sounds too.

[billythekidrock]

Dekuma - remember the Audacity tutorial. It really is simple. I have found that most of the WR sounds are ok, and some are downright junk.

[Krusty]

Coyotes, don't care about sound quality...

But, they aren't selling $500 e-callers, now, are they?

Krusty 

[DeKuma]

Well, looked in to the pricing for all the stuff to make an e-caller given the instructions from PM.  All told came out to $58.  I then looked at the Cass Creek Big Horn at $40.  Opted for that.  Once hooked up to my iPod and the sound is playing, I can hear how bad some of them sound from a distance. (Neighboors love me right now)

Looks like I am going to have to go back to BTKR's Audacity Tutorial and clean them up.  Want head out in the morning, so will need to work on them for a while tonight.

I really wanted to drop the money on a FoxPro, but figured since I am just starting I should do everything the hard way instead.

[AWS]

You don't realy need  very many sound for actual hunting.  A foxpro 416 will cover just about every sound a caller would really need.  Howling sounds are realy overrated especially with all the beginners howling all over the place.  Sometimes I'll start a stand with a single howl but I find myself even dropping that as I started getting other hunters homing in on me.  I have a Minaska M-1 with a hundred sounds and have never used more than 10 or 12. I just bought a 416 off the sight here as a backup and it would be great as a main caller.  When I get into realy big country or am pushing wind I use a JS Preymaster 1st generation coupled to a JS Power-Pro, cheap but will blow down brush in front of the speaker.  I also use a JS Attractor with a Handcall that I throw in the back of my hunting coat while bird hunting.

AWS

[rainshadow1]

You've entered the vortex... there's no escape.... there's no bottom!

I started with a home made MP3 based at around $50, low volume,
then went to a $100 phantom, piece of junk,
then got tired of trying to be cheap and just went ahead and went to the top.... Wildlife Technologies.
Got a used one $450, hunted it for a year,
then got a brand new one $850.
Then a year later got 22 new sounds $250.
Also got a Minaska M1 Bandit for backup $449.

And I'm a hand call maker! So the e-calls are a sideline! (Do they have a 12 step program for predator calling?!?!)

Go ahead and get the ground blind, it'll be the cheapest predator calling toy you'll ever buy!!!

[DeKuma]

Well Steve, as soon as I get one of your calls and learn to use it, I might do the hand calls too!
The only reason i am being "cheap" right now is my wife and I are trying to become debt free, so every penney is scrutinized.  Sucks, I would rather be poor and happy!

Learning a lot from here and Predator Masters.  Not much on bear and cougar calling there though, but a wealth of coyote!
After seeing BTKR here and PM with his successes, and stories, makes me REALLY want to make it happen.  Would love to use the bow too!  (Think I will hold off on that and stick with the big gun!)

[Bofire]

 :)ahhh, geez Krusty I was hoping to get the "Krusty" Live at Wood stock" version
 As far as sound quality, like from an "electronic sense" I agree with Krusty. I have heard some 'god awful' sounds that worked. I love lip squeaks.
At the same time I think the confidence in your calling and call that you can make the "sound you want when you want" is absolutely critical.
Carl

[Krusty]

DeKuma,

While you might be able to hear how bad the sound quality is, I can assure you, all a coyote (that actually IS around to hear it) hears... is the dinner bell.

Before you spend a lot of effort cleaning up your sounds, try lowering the "gain" you get from connecting multiple amplifiers in series.
Use less than 40-50% volume on your driver (in your case an I-Pod), and just enough volume that you can barely hear it, from your bi-amp (in your case the Cass Creek unit).

I use my e-caller as a short to medium range attractant, and supplement that very low volume with occasional (quiet) hand calling.

My own success ratio went way up, when I stopped wailing on the hand  calls, or having my e-caller wailing.

Loudness is way way over-rated. 

I can leave home, with three cassette tapes and a few calls, and not use but one of the tapes, maybe two.

So, to me, a vast (on board) library, is just as over-rated. 

I've got one tape, that produces above all others, and it's a recording of a sound made with a man's lips.
My second best tape was a recording of a fox whistle (which is one of my most productive (very quiet) hand calls)... but it got sat on.

Notice I said tape... my home-built e-caller, playing tired old tapes, sounds like crap... and works great (when I hunt IN A GREAT PLACE).

*NOTE: Learning how not to stack the deck, against yourself, is the hardest part of predator hunting.
Calls nor calling, will re-stack it once dealt...

Rainshadow,

I must be vortex proof?

I don't see the justification of price, so even if it weren't for my personal decision not to financially support most of the e-caller manufacturers (because of the internet politics), I would be hard pressed to find enough value/pay-off in owning much more of a "gadget" than I do now.

Top that off, with a true love of using a hand call, and I'm all good with the "vortex"...

Carl,

You're hoping for what?

Oh geeze, confidence... you know I think that's a load of bull.

I've called several coyotes, when I was SURE I was doomed to fail (yet again).
I was NOT confident... how did I succeed without it?

I've got a theory... the biggest thing that changed, from when I was not successful to when I became more so... was location.

If I go back to where I found failure, loaded with confidence, I'd probably only find failure, again.
Coyotes there, are less callable...

Now a guy might get lucky, like we did at the Long Fence, and wander a few hundred yards off the well beaten path (road) and call a coyote, now and then.
But not with enough regularity to be worth much in the way of education.

If I want real success, I'll have to go and find it, in an area with lots of coyotes, that are less educated than I am.

Krusty 

[DeKuma]

Guess I will find out this weekend.............

Lots of coyotes on our property in Colville, but I am not making that drive this weekend.  Had them calling back and forth last week, but I could not call them in with just rabbit distress.

Looking more for bears this weekend, but if my 300 gets to bark at a coyote, I will not pass up the chance.

I appreciate all of the help and feedback thus far.  I will keep you posted.

[sivart33]

since we are on the subject of calling, wondering about rotations of calls(ditressed cotten tail) 30 sec on wait 5-7 min rinse repeate?  or any other rotation.  not really much info i have found but still looking as i am typing this.....so anyoen got a god rotation of silence and sounds?

[Bofire]

 :)It was a back handed compliment to the quality of your calls Krusty, and how you use them. Only the best were at woodstock!
(o course, I think I play em better than you!! )
Carl

[Krusty]

Carl,

I don't like being backhanded... not even in a complimentary way.

I'd rather "get it" straight up. 

If you were looking for me to "toot my own horn", you know me... and that ain't happening.

The calls I make, aren't any different from any of the calls I didn't make... they (*almost) all operate, mechanically, governed by the laws and principles of physics...
A reed oscilates, moving the air, which in turn moves one's ear drum... creating "sound".

(*Whistles, create sound, in a non-mechanical way... it's all fluid dynamics)

Nothing I can do, as a call maker or a caller, changes this, sound is still sound there's no magic added to it.
And, anyone can do what I do.

LOL You think... I'm down for a contest... winner takes all, my collection against yours?
(*A bluff/challenge like that, is the only place confidence in my ability to call will do any real good. )

Sivart,

Your's is a good question, and one with a vast array of right answers.

I'll tell you a couple of the main schools of thought, then my own use of calling.

Some people believe that one should call intermittently, "announcing" the opportunity, but trying not to give away their exact location.
They hope to have a predator approach more slowly, searching for the source.

The other end of that is those who call non-stop (that's the side I'm on).
With the theory I think best illustrates this being, that an animal uses it's senses picking the easiest first.
It's easy to hear, and to pinpoint prey with it.

It's harder to get busted just by making sounds... it's when animal are forced to switch to their other senses, that your chances of being found out increase dramatically.
Sight is one, still as a stone, full camo'ed, a coyote will "look at you".
Smell is even bigger, one whiff, and the game is over.

If you continuously call, you never force the animal to "switch".

By using an e-caller, in a remote position upwind of yourself, continuously calling at low volume, supplemented by slightly louder handcalling, you are giving every opportunity for approaching predators to continue using nothing but their ears.

This is one of the ways (I see) of NOT stacking the deck in the coyotes favor.

Using some form of motion, also remote to your location, will stack the deck your way even further... once they do "switch" they'll have something that isn't YOU, upon which to focus their sight, and they'll associate that sight, with the sound.

Krusty

[billythekidrock]

After seeing BTKR here and PM with his successes, and stories, makes me REALLY want to make it happen. 

Right on...btw, I got one today.

[sivart33]

ty krusty, smart guy.     that made more sense then most that i have read in most places