Throbbin Rods wrote: Keep the call in your vehicle and call every day.
And don't try to make just the specific sounds you are trying to make, but learn the feel and how to do things outside the range of what you will be doing in the field. You want control of the call. When it breaks, how it breaks, ... Fast, slow, ... High pitch, low pitch, ... You want to learn what the call does and why and be able to control that at your will. It's a fairly complex musical instrument that involves understanding how you hold it to your lips, how you put air into it, how you control the back pressure with your hands, ... There are a lot of variables you want under your control to get the sounds you want when you want them. All this needs to become muscle memory so when the geese are there you just think I want higher, deeper, shorter, faster, ... and you just do it without thinking about how you are doing it.
And once you get to be mediocre, reading the birds and knowing what to do in different situations will become more important than improved sound. Is the goose looking for friendly company or willing to fight for some food? Does he need coaxing and reassurance or just a little clucking to keep him on the line you want or do you need to scream at him because he is going to land short if you don't? And many other variations with most seemingly immune to whatever you do, but if you can pick up something from them and give them what they want to hear
trap333 wrote:Are shorter calls easier to blow than a flute type?
There are guys on here that really know how to call. From a meat hunter that has never blown a flute type. I believe the flute type are easier to start out with and get a goosey sound out of. However, my short call, while it takes more practice to even produce anything goosey from it, can produce a much broader range of sounds so I can mimic a lonely goose, pissed off geese, one single goose, a flock of excited geese, ... Maybe it's just the operators of the flute calls, but that is how it seems to me.