Become a Better Waterfowl Caller During the Off-Season

The months between the closing and opening days of the waterfowl season are the perfect time to brush up on your skills as a duck and goose caller. Here are four ways that you can improve your calling and put more waterfowl in the decoys this fall. 

Master the Single Quack

The single quack is the first call that most duck hunters learn, and because it serves as the building block for just about every other note that comes out of a call, this simple sound may be the most important call to master.

There are loads of videos online that offer good tips on how to produce the sound of a hen mallard. From there you can vary different elements of the sound, including volume, cadence, and pitch. Outside of calling real birds, the best way to know if you’re making progress is to ask a friend or other experienced caller to listen and provide some constructive criticism.

Try A Short-Reed Goose Call

The short-reed goose call has become a favorite tool for waterfowl hunters because of its versatility, but there are a few common stumbling blocks for beginners, including how to use hand position and air pressure to make that classic short-reed cluck. Each short-reed call is different, so mastering these important skills takes time and practice.

This off-season, gather as many different brands and styles of short-reed calls as you can. Experiment with how changing the position of both hands impacts the sound that you produce. Figuring out the right combination on different calls helps make you a more versatile caller. You’ll begin to understand how subtle changes can unlock new sounds, and that will help put more geese in your bag.

Learn the Feeding Chuckle

Let’s be honest, making the feeding chuckle on a duck call is just plain fun. Sure, the rolling chatter you hear in a duck-calling competition isn’t necessary in the duck blind, but knowing how to roll off a burst of ducky notes is a blast.

The key to learning how to blow a feeding chuckle is to start slow, like the tick-tock of a clock, using syllables like tick-it or tug-guh to produce the sound of duck chatter. It may take the entire off-season to master, but eventually, with enough practice, you’ll be able to speed up those sounds to the point that you can produce that classic feeding chuckle.

Use that rolling chatter with short, random notes (kak, kak-kak, kak-kak-kak), and you’ll have a combination that is both fun to hear and effective on ducks.

Don’t Forget the Whistle

Your lanyard might be full of different calls: single-reeds, double-reeds, and short-reeds of various makes and models. Somewhere amid the tangle of all that wood, plastic, and acrylic, you just might want to include a duck whistle too.

The simple duck whistle can be used to imitate the calls of pintails, wigeon, green-winged teal, drake mallards, and other ducks, and it is the perfect tool to use when ducks stop responding to greeting and comeback calls. Keep the whistle close at hand this off-season. In between your daily chores, baseball games, and other activities—maybe even on a summer family vacation—get familiar with the different sounds that the call can make. It’s a small investment of time that can pay big dividends in the field.