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At its tactical core, calling ducks is about momentum: creating it, breaking it, maintaining it and, sometimes, just not getting in its way. So I take my calling cues by paying attention to the birds' momentum.

If the location and decoys are doing my job for me, and the birds want to come to the guns, I'll let 'em. Calling only enough to keep them coming if they waver and/or to put them "right there". Not getting in the way of birds that want to work was little doubt the inspiration for the old saw about calling only to tail feathers and wing tips.

By the same token, if the birds haven't shown me their intent, I'll call just enough to get our hat in the ring. And if they jump for it, chances are they can be finessed the rest of the way by tickling them "on the corners". Again letting the birds' momentum do most of the work.

But if birds blow off a simple greeting and drive on toward parts unknown, I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain by hitting them hard with the call. Here again, if they're quick to turn to it, they'll probably do most of the work from there on in.

And if they don't turn to, I really amp it up, watching for any little wink or blink of a wing suggesting the jackhammer will work if I can just crank it up a little louder and longer. When I can't get anything to flirt, I'm only out some wind. But when something will wink or blink, and I don't run out of wind, our chances of getting shooting out of it are excellent.

Wasn't always so, however, because when I'd worked that hard to break something off a flock or turn the bunch, I worried about over calling and backed off as they headed to us - only to lose them when I did. Took me a lot more such losses than I'm happy admitting to realize that even when I turned the whole flock and not just a bird or two from it, the real momentum was still headed toward whatever was drawing them away in the first place and might well stay that way. Many such birds are either coaxed all the way to the guns or lost, presumably to their prior destination.

If there's a "rule" to such things, it may be that the harder birds are to turn in the first place, the more likely the need to call to their faces until you call the shot. "Tails and tips" be damned.

Very often, too, we'll see that birds within hailing range appear deaf, because they're zeroed in on another nearby spot, and our best efforts aren't turning them. We can't break the momentum toward that location within their view, like we could toward a distant, perhaps less tangible, goal.

But it's often the case that we can then use their own momentum against such birds by letting those apparently locked on such a spot go to it, break down for it, and then, when their circling heads them our general direction, calling to their faces to keep them headed our way, perhaps thinking there might be a better deal just a little farther on. Or just caught up in the call.

Again, though, don't let up as they approach or pass a good shot hoping for a better one, because they've already shown that what they really want is over yonder.

And that's more than enough of that for a while. Lots and lots of other tactical stuff, including gosh knows how many under the label "most important thing" or "secrets" that probably aren't. But I think a fellow who really pays attention to momentum and calls accordingly has a far better foundation to build on than most.

Rick wrote:Rex, you listen up, too.

Right up front, if all you can do is "get (your) call to have a ducky sound," the most constructive thing you're apt to do is make background muzak for the birds to listen to while they decide if they like your setup enough to toll regardless, or in spite of, whatever ducky sounds you venture to put forth. Learn to run a call well enough that you're absolutely certain you're not going to spook something by squawking, because without that certainty you'll never muster the guts to call in an assertive manner that does real good, instead of just not running stuff off. There's a ton of good, free instruction on youtube; make use of it, keep a call in your pocket and/or truck, and run the hell out of it until it's second nature.

When that's the case, you'll be able to make some use of things like this little primer I wrote for another board some time back:

At its tactical core, calling ducks is about momentum: creating it, breaking it, maintaining it and, sometimes, just not getting in its way. So I take my calling cues by paying attention to the birds' momentum.

If the location and decoys are doing my job for me, and the birds want to come to the guns, I'll let 'em. Calling only enough to keep them coming if they waver and/or to put them "right there". Not getting in the way of birds that want to work was little doubt the inspiration for the old saw about calling only to tail feathers and wing tips.

By the same token, if the birds haven't shown me their intent, I'll call just enough to get our hat in the ring. And if they jump for it, chances are they can be finessed the rest of the way by tickling them "on the corners". Again letting the birds' momentum do most of the work.

But if birds blow off a simple greeting and drive on toward parts unknown, I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain by hitting them hard with the call. Here again, if they're quick to turn to it, they'll probably do most of the work from there on in.

And if they don't turn to, I really amp it up, watching for any little wink or blink of a wing suggesting the jackhammer will work if I can just crank it up a little louder and longer. When I can't get anything to flirt, I'm only out some wind. But when something will wink or blink, and I don't run out of wind, our chances of getting shooting out of it are excellent.

Wasn't always so, however, because when I'd worked that hard to break something off a flock or turn the bunch, I worried about over calling and backed off as they headed to us - only to lose them when I did. Took me a lot more such losses than I'm happy admitting to realize that even when I turned the whole flock and not just a bird or two from it, the real momentum was still headed toward whatever was drawing them away in the first place and might well stay that way. Many such birds are either coaxed all the way to the guns or lost, presumably to their prior destination.

If there's a "rule" to such things, it may be that the harder birds are to turn in the first place, the more likely the need to call to their faces until you call the shot. "Tails and tips" be damned.

Very often, too, we'll see that birds within hailing range appear deaf, because they're zeroed in on another nearby spot, and our best efforts aren't turning them. We can't break the momentum toward that location within their view, like we could toward a distant, perhaps less tangible, goal.

But it's often the case that we can then use their own momentum against such birds by letting those apparently locked on such a spot go to it, break down for it, and then, when their circling heads them our general direction, calling to their faces to keep them headed our way, perhaps thinking there might be a better deal just a little farther on. Or just caught up in the call.

Again, though, don't let up as they approach or pass a good shot hoping for a better one, because they've already shown that what they really want is over yonder.

And that's more than enough of that for a while. Lots and lots of other tactical stuff, including gosh knows how many under the label "most important thing" or "secrets" that probably aren't. But I think a fellow who really pays attention to momentum and calls accordingly has a far better foundation to build on than most.

Rick wrote:
Wasn't always so, however, because when I'd worked that hard to break something off a flock or turn the bunch, I worried about over calling and backed off as they headed to us - only to lose them when I did. Took me a lot more such losses than I'm happy admitting to realize that even when I turned the whole flock and not just a bird or two from it, the real momentum was still headed toward whatever was drawing them away in the first place and might well stay that way. Many such birds are either coaxed all the way to the guns or lost, presumably to their prior destination.

ducks~n~bucks wrote:The really cool part was that was his first drake mallard.

Flightstopper wrote:

Rick wrote:
Wasn't always so, however, because when I'd worked that hard to break something off a flock or turn the bunch, I worried about over calling and backed off as they headed to us - only to lose them when I did. Took me a lot more such losses than I'm happy admitting to realize that even when I turned the whole flock and not just a bird or two from it, the real momentum was still headed toward whatever was drawing them away in the first place and might well stay that way. Many such birds are either coaxed all the way to the guns or lost, presumably to their prior destination.

This is something that is hard to make yourself do. But it started paying off more times than not this last season.

Rick wrote:And I thank you for the segue. Experience only counts if you're paying attention, which brings us to:

When I was in my first season of guiding full time, I carried a great father and son on their first hunts, the father of which was a haberdasher by trade with no real interest in hunting beyond loving a young son who wanted to try it. They took hunter safety and shooting lessons together and showed up as well prepared as new hunters could be. Unfortunately, their first morning my then boss paired them for goose hunting with what remains the worst father and son combination (a wealthy Alaskan taking his spoiled rotten son around the world for surviving through college). Long story made shorter, our morning began with me physically restraining the younger Alaskan from bringing his new AR-15 in the field and went downhill from there until I shut the hunt down when the elder Alaskan intentionally shot a glossy ibis after being repeatedly warned not to. We'd managed to shoot a pretty mess of specks and blues/snows in the interim, but crowd control issues made the hunt a candidate for the ugliest I've known, and the only thing between the Alaskans and what they sorely needed was my desire to keep that first guiding job.

That afternoon I took the good father and son on their first duck hunt, and who should happen to be hunting the pit on the other end of our flooded bean field but the spoiled young Alaskan, who'd told his father not to go, too, because he wanted to hunt one on one with a guide and shoot all the ducks himself. It was on.

I like to blew the stopper out of a DC Cutdown Reacher making certain Airhole's poor guide, "Fat Tommy," didn't have a prayer of getting him shooting. Never called so effectively in my then-young life, and pulled flight after flight away from them and across the flood to where the good father and I were letting his boy do the lion's share of the shooting. Airhole finally got so POed he stomped back to the camp to demand another spot, and I was feeling mighty smug for a while.

But it soon became apparent I'd lost my magic with just a few birds left on our limits. Tried every trick I knew, begged and pleaded and finally admitted aloud that I didn't know what the heck had happened. It was then that a fellow on his very first duck hunt taught me most important calling lesson I've received from a human, before or since. The father said, "I don't know the first thing about duck hunting, but it sure sounds like you quit telling the ducks what to do and started asking them."

Wow. Maintaining a "telling" calling attitude has been absolutely huge for me. And time and again my logs have documented days when I've forgotten that, become tentative and been frustrated by flocks I couldn't break, only to get my calling mojo back by remembering that fellow's observation and changing my and, in turn, my calling's attitude.

But the even bigger, overriding lesson is the importance of paying attention. My mentor may not have been able squeeze a quack from a call, but he had the presence of mind I lacked, and still too often do, to pay real attention to the calling and birds' reactions to it. If you young guys can make paying attention habitual, you'll be light years ahead of the crowd. And not just in calling. Something to that Zen stuff.

Feelin' Fowl wrote:All of this advice...for free!

Good stuff, guys!

rebelp74 wrote:...and to boot is modest about it.

Redbeard wrote:Good thread. Good advice Rick

assateague wrote:Lack of killing a pintail aside, between posts like this and threads about calls, I often feel like I don't even hunt ducks. Sometimes I wish I did hunt in a place where calling was necessary, and where I could "get into" duck calls more. But I don't, and I guess I should be thankful for that. Between buffies, brant, geese, blacks, and the occasional wigeon, I just don't have a need. I enjoy reading stuff like this, though, but I should be thankful that it's just that much less to worry about, I suppose. I'm content to hunt where and how I do, but sometimes I feel like I'm missing out.

Woody wrote:

assateague wrote:Lack of killing a pintail aside, between posts like this and threads about calls, I often feel like I don't even hunt ducks. Sometimes I wish I did hunt in a place where calling was necessary, and where I could "get into" duck calls more. But I don't, and I guess I should be thankful for that. Between buffies, brant, geese, blacks, and the occasional wigeon, I just don't have a need. I enjoy reading stuff like this, though, but I should be thankful that it's just that much less to worry about, I suppose. I'm content to hunt where and how I do, but sometimes I feel like I'm missing out.

Sounds like Assa is on the "X"

jarbo03 wrote:That part hasn't been argued, as said before, you're just letting the ducks decide if they like your decoy spread. Knowing how to read birds, and being able to hammer them hard with a call when needed, will put more birds in the bag.

rebelp74 wrote:

Woody wrote:

assateague wrote:Lack of killing a pintail aside, between posts like this and threads about calls, I often feel like I don't even hunt ducks. Sometimes I wish I did hunt in a place where calling was necessary, and where I could "get into" duck calls more. But I don't, and I guess I should be thankful for that. Between buffies, brant, geese, blacks, and the occasional wigeon, I just don't have a need. I enjoy reading stuff like this, though, but I should be thankful that it's just that much less to worry about, I suppose. I'm content to hunt where and how I do, but sometimes I feel like I'm missing out.

Sounds like Assa is on the "X"

Or that there aren't any mallards where he hunts, hence the point that mallard calls don't work. I know that in south east la and on the texas coast that all mallard calls do is scare birds. Reason being there are no mallards in the area, so the only place that sound is coming from is a person.

assateague wrote:

rebelp74 wrote:

Woody wrote:

assateague wrote:Lack of killing a pintail aside, between posts like this and threads about calls, I often feel like I don't even hunt ducks. Sometimes I wish I did hunt in a place where calling was necessary, and where I could "get into" duck calls more. But I don't, and I guess I should be thankful for that. Between buffies, brant, geese, blacks, and the occasional wigeon, I just don't have a need. I enjoy reading stuff like this, though, but I should be thankful that it's just that much less to worry about, I suppose. I'm content to hunt where and how I do, but sometimes I feel like I'm missing out.

Sounds like Assa is on the "X"

Or that there aren't any mallards where he hunts, hence the point that mallard calls don't work. I know that in south east la and on the texas coast that all mallard calls do is scare birds. Reason being there are no mallards in the area, so the only place that sound is coming from is a person.

This. I have a call, and occasionally blow it at black ducks. Occasionally they listen, but it's mostly just for my amusement. And a $4 whistle will never be as glamorous as a "real" duck call, no matter how hard Boot tries.

jarbo03 wrote:I like that I shoot mostly gadwall and mallards, mistly because of how vocal they are and like to communicate. Canada geese are the same way.

NuffDaddy wrote:

jarbo03 wrote:I like that I shoot mostly gadwall and mallards, mistly because of how vocal they are and like to communicate. Canada geese are the same way.

I got into some gadwall 2 times last season, and they are right up there with mallards. Tons of fun to work, and they seemed to be slightly dumber.