Changing callers

AWS

AWS

Custom Accessory Maker & Retired PM Staff
I hunt a lot of public lands and some very heavily called. I have found that sometimes using a different brand of caller can make a difference. When I get to a place folks tall me coyotes are hard to call I break out a different brand of caller than the Foxpro and it seems to work. If I hit an area that I can't seem to call in a coyote I'll pull out my Minaska, JS or hand call and it seems to make a difference, anyone else experience this.

Sometimes hear that someone just bought an off brand caller and it works so much better than the Foxpro they've been using and wonder if it could be the same thing I've experienced?
 
I believe you are right. A couple years ago I couldn't get anything to come in on my FoxPro. I spoke to my new neighbor a few months later and he told me that he had bought a FoxPro the fall before and had been out. He never could get anything to come in. After that I started using hand calls more along with an old icotec. I have pretty good success. I'll still use my FP some but mostly use hand calls. I have no doubt they remember call sounds and recognize the same kind of speaker or maybe just the frequency it puts off.
 
If the coyotes have heard all of Foxpro's sounds they are being hunted pretty hard in that area and they have been educated.

I am very lucky because I get to hunt some big ranches that nobody else is calling coyotes on. Sometimes on just my third or fourth time of calling on one of these ranches my success rate goes way down.

I don't believe it is because the coyotes know my Foxpro and it's sounds, I think the coyotes have seen me and my truck after I have made a calling stand or they watched me set up to make my calling stands.

There is no telling how many times when you do call in a coyote and shoot it that other coyotes that you didn't see, heard or watched you call in that coyote and shoot it and then watched you walk back to your vehicle.

I try to not use the same sounds over and over in my hunting areas. But even if I use a new sound or sounds each time I go through a area making stands the coyotes do not just run into my different sounds after 4 times of calling a area like they did the first or second time I called that area.

If coyotes have heard and seen or smelled other hunters calling, shooting or walking to and from their vehicles I don't think a different sound will get a educated coyote to come running into a different distress sound. If you are using coyote vocal sounds and those educated coyotes think your e-caller is a coyote or coyotes then you have a good chance of calling them in.
 
Originally Posted By: crapshootI think y'all are giving coyotes more credit than they deserve. Just my opinion and worth what y'all paid for it.


Possibly yes. However I don't use a lot of different calls, I just upload new sounds every year to my Foxpro, ya know, "sounds" no ones ever heard before.
 
If you live close to a highly populated area, often a dozen guys show up foxpro in hand expecting coyotes to get in the backseat.
I liken it to a favorite song on the radio, when I hear three seconds playing on the radio I turn it up!
Many times after turning a foxpro on coyotes start tattling immediately, well duh somebody from town has already been here.
Last year driving on a back road I knew some hunters were in the area when I heard electronic call sounds exactly like a friends Lucky Duck.
If I can recognize it instantly while driving by, I can believe any coyotes could have them pegged.
For years I have believed My pitiful sounding handcalls have worked so well for me because the coyotes feel sorry for me!
 
I believe coyotes have an outstanding sense of smell and hearing. These are animals that can hear a mouse moving under 2 feet of hard packed snow, or can hear our calls from many hundreds of yards away, and smell us from 500yds (I lasered one coming to my call, from downwind, and at 491yds, he turned and blew out of there).

Certainly coyotes can hear, and distinguish between, the unique sounds each caller makes, whether an e-caller or a hand caller. We can distinguish voices between people, why can't a coyote, which has even better hearing than us.

I use hand calls 98% of the time, and sometimes my old, wood barrel Weems call works the best, and sometimes my Sceery works the best. They are both Cottontail-in-Distress, and my calling sequence is the same, but one call can typically outperform the others on any given day. I just don't know what call on what day, until I try them.

By the way, have you ever seen a duck hunter with just one call on his lanyard?

As good a caller as the Foxpro is, when it's used by an inexperienced coyote hunter, one that doesn't know how, or where to set up properly, it can educate coyotes without a shot being fired, because the coyote smells the hunter.

Isn't it reasonable to think that the next time that coyote hears that sound from another Foxpro, that the coyote will be more cautious in the approach? And if that coyote has a 2nd experience of hearing the Foxpro and smelling a human, that coyote will be even more cautious, maybe to the point he won't come to that Fopxpro sound again?

Maybe 25 years ago, I bought the cheap Foxpro, brand new, with Turkey sounds loaded on it, for about half price. I bought the adapter to let me download other sounds onto the caller, and, at that time, Western Rivers offered free downloads of sounds.

For the next 2 seasons, I took that caller on every stand. I did not call a single coyote with it, but I did call in coyotes with my hand calls on the same stand. I suspect that some sound/noise got imbedded in the caller while downloading the sounds that coyotes could hear and I could not, even though they sounded great to me.
 
I run a wildlife technologies caller and have called in Marsh Hawks, deer, cattle and even a couple crows using mole squeak, cottontail distress and pup distress. Grandson called in a snow owl, ya a snow owl, which is rarely seen in the lower 48 but that puppy just sailed in and buzzed the caller at about 2 feet. Why he didn't strike it I have no idea, as he was using my Lynx fur trapper cap to cover the speaker. He called me and I went out and observed the owl - they have one huge wing span compared to their small body. Efficient killers from the air.

Grandson also had a Eagle or some other large raptor make a determined pass at his quad-copter - wing span was about 3 feet and was observed about a half mile off coming on. Nobody in that crew thought the raptor was a threat until he started closing fast from about 50 yards.
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He's a very good drone pilot and made the correct maneuver at the correct time to avoid the raptor but that bad boy made his own maneuver and had the drone dead to rights but banked off quickly probably realizing it wasn't what he thought it was. Lucky, as that drone was worth a little over $3K at the time - main cost was the on-board camera and software media. Wish I could have seen that or else had him have it all recorded with that fancy camera gear.

I'm convinced if a coyote lives for 18 months after birth, they are well educated in the ways of survival but may still be a little curious but at the same time cautious.

Daylight coyote hunting can be easy with yearlings - outside of that, in my opinion, it's the luck of the draw whether or not they are in the area and if they want to respond to the call or to wait for your "distressed rabbit" to just die and they will locate and eat it that night.

Using odd calls such as distressed/hurt bluejay, common crow, meadowlark, waterfowl etc just might work that day. Don't know if it's true but I've heard of goose hunters calling geese over decoys and had a fox run up to their calling blind/site - I think a goose could probably hold it's own against a fox?? Do whatever you can think of and if it works - don't tell anyone!!!
 
Quote: Do whatever you can think of and if it works - don't tell anyone!!!


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Lots of unanswered questions when it comes to the why's of calling. Why this call today and another next week.

For instance, I've been calling with hand calls and an FX5 randomly for years. Had many Cara Cara, Hawks (all brands), Kestrels, Owls, even a few buzzards obviously come to the call, circle, some swoop down close or sit on a limb and watch the call and/or decoy for a while, but, unlike many other hunters, never had one actually make contact with the decoy. (One Javelina actually stole my decoy on a quick drive by but spit it out before getting into the brush.)

Then, all in one day in 2018 all the owls south of San Antonio seemed united and on a mission against my decoy:

Quote: until yesterday……three different birds on three different stands!

For this first stand, we set up call and decoy about 30 yards into a rollerchop area. About 15 minutes in, this owl swooped in and hit the topper hard enough that I heard it. I had been looking off to one side, but managed to turn in time to watch him flying straight away, landing facing away and proceeded to try to eat the Foxpro Jack Daddy topper. He finally gave up on the (very tough) meal and walked over to inspect the call and decoy more closely.
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Details & pictures here: http://www.predatormastersforums.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3139216

Haven't had a single bird actually make contact before or since that day! Why? Beats me.

Regards,
hm
 
Guess i could elaborate on my statement a bit.

I believe coyotes can become condtioned to certain circumstances. Like coming to a call and getting shot at but missed or catching sent of a human. These may deter it from coming to a call so readily the next time.
While they do have fantastic hearing and can probably differentiate the difference between rabbit, rodent, bird, etc. distress, i doubt they can tell that the sound playing is foxpro hurtin jack instead of whatever jackrabbit sound some other call maker has. They may be able to differentiate between jack and cotton tail but i don't think their cognitive thinking is much more in depth than that.

But hey, i could be wrong. I haven't found a coyote yet that could speak English.
 
My dogs still haven't figured out the difference between our doorbell and one ringing on TV. They still run to the front door and bark for either.

- DAA
 
My last bird dog, a Brittany, would lay at my feet while I cleaned my shotgun from the recent hunt. I had the shotgun apart (a sxs), running the brush through the barrels, when I had to reach for something and the barrels pointed at the dog. He quickly got up and moved to my other side. I thought that odd, and did he really move because the barrels were pointed at him?

So, I continued to clean, and several minutes later, while watching him, I pointed the barrels at him again (shotgun was taken apart, remember, so relax), and he once again got up and went to the other side of me.

Is that cognitive thinking, or reasoning ability? I don't know, but I never, ever, did that to him again.

Either way, canines, coyotes in particular, are fascinating creatures.
 
how many sounds are available on ecalls these days? And we're thinking that the coyotes have apparently "learned em all" on any one brand of call.

If that's the case, coyotes hunters are dumber than the coyotes..LOL!!
 
That's interesting. I'd have to try it on a different day just to see if he did it again.

My MIL had a little rat terrier that hated to have you point your finger at her. She'd growl every time and if you were close enough she'd try to snap your finger....who knows??
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Regards,
hm
 
I don't think it has anything to do with the sounds. I'm not even close to a sound engineer, but think it might be in the base sounds, white noise or what ever you want to call it. I think it is something we/I don't understand.

Snowmanmo talked about a caller that he had that was just deadly but got shot and it took him a while to find one that worked as well.

If you hunt a lot of public land there are stands that just scream hunt here and more than likely if you hunt it you will find chair impressions, lost camo gloves, empty brass, even loaded brass that got dropped, I have.
 
I have found that predators seem to be pattern oriented. Their patterns shift from time to time. What may work for a few seasons can all of the sudden stop working. That's why I use the 3 strikes rule. Call 3 stands the same way...no takers...change something, but only one thing. Then call 3 more stands. Eventually when they come in you can zero in on a pattern. And when it shifts, you can get back onto it faster.
 
Originally Posted By: AWSI don't think it has anything to do with the sounds. I'm not even close to a sound engineer, but think it might be in the base sounds, white noise or what ever you want to call it. I think it is something we/I don't understand.



I believe this right here. Sound quality seems to matter. I tried using a big speaker with a radio shack amplifier hooked to a Wildfire for a while. It had some audible white noise, and it never called in a thing. It was loud enough, just not very good quality.

We don't hear everything dogs hear obviously. I have had better luck in the same areas since changing from a single speaker call to one with a horn and tweeter. I'm also pretty curious about the new ultra high frequency call Burnam Bros is supposedly coming out with.
 
Makes me scratch my head, how did i ever call predators with cassette recordings of myself blowing a mouth call played over a cheap RadioShack speaker.
 
I called fox with a battery operated phonograph we used for keggers and a record from Herter's, not many but it worked, handcalls were much more convenient.

During WW-II the girls in the communications in England could identify each telegraph operator just by their key strokes and could tell if one had been captured and someone else was sending a message(false info).
 
I'm not going to say sound quality doesn't matter. Because I simply don't know if it really does or not.

But my go to sound, the one I have the most confidence in, that I have used most of the time for, geeze, over 15 years now, is not a high quality sound. It has wind noise, background noise (a guy coughing) and distortion/clipping. It's not realistic, either, because while it's of real jack rabbits, it's of about six different rabbits with my editing to create loops and speed up and slow down and such. No caller company would try and sell it, it is just way too rough (Foxpro does have all the masters though and all of those individual rabbits are used in Foxpro sounds).

That sound has called in well over a thousand coyote for me though.

Yet, I'm not totally sure sound quality doesn't matter? And I'm not even all that convinced that particular sound is actually any better than a hundred others, it's just one I made that works well and I have confidence in. So I keep using it. I only go to something else when it's not working. But it seems like on days it's not working, they just aren't biting and nothing else really works any better either.

- DAA
 
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