Just wandering if anyone could give me some advice on what owl locator call to buy. I have one but it is not very loud and can not be heard over long distnaces.
I can' t speak to the volume of all of the brands out there but I have a Palmer Hoot Tube and I really like the way it sounds. I can say that it has produced enough volume to work for me. As for realism, I had a friend who actually used his to call in an owl to his house (it got him in trouble because it sat in a tree outside his window and kept his wife up most of the night). One other thing to think about is that if you get too loud with the call you can drown out a gobble and never even know that he responded.
I use the Palmer Hoot Tube also and love it. Though I don' t think it is too easy to learn, not hard mind ya' , but not the easiest.
Primos Camp Owl is the easiest I have used and also sounds great. It' s actually two owl calls in one. Camp owl & Power Owl. You can have nice soft calling to medium loud with the Camp barrel on the Power Owl, then if you want to reach out there and touch someone you just the Camp barrel off and use just the Power Owl. This call rolls very easy. Also Doug Camp makes the Camp Owl (original version) which is wooden and sounds great! Also very easy to use.
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I like my Knight & Hale Shock Gobble call. I also like the Palmers. I have a Primos Power Owl...It' s loud, just don' t care for it for some reason. LOL.
I just bought the palmer hoot tube, and now I' m wishin I' d gotten the camp-owl.
I guess I' m just not used to it yet. It takes more air than I anticipated also.
I have the primos hoot-flute(not a reed type) and it has always worked great for me. the palmer sounded great on tv, but it don' t sound so good when I blow it.