Originally Posted by
Colorado Luckydog
I just feel very strongly about the subject and really wanted to make how I felt very clear. I speak from experience only and I know how my elk hunting changed for the better once I started using diaphrams. I hunted for several years with Hoochie Mama's, Carlton Squeeze calls, and a host of others. I never called in chit.
It sounds like your calling went from average Joe to very good. What if though there is yet another step up? I am by no stretch of the imagination saying I don't use a diaphram. I go through several a year, most of them practicing to and from work in my truck. I use the heck out of diaphrams. But over the years I have also learned other techniques using other types of calls though that opened doors I didn't know were there. There have been times I have had moderate success and decided to changr up and it's like a switch was flipped. Again my best analogy is to fishing lures. If you understand fishing you know what I'm saying.
Let's take for example the sqeeze calls you mentioned. Remember how I said they are effective if used correctly? If one walks around and squeezes a call all day it probably won't do much good even once elk are located. But imagine the excitement you can generate for a big bull if you have one in each hand and a diaphram call. Imagine using all three calls at the same time! You now sound like a herd rather than one animal. Believe me it will light a mountain up if used at the right time. It takes practice but by shifting the calls in different directions and sometimes covering your mouth, using different inflections and doing all 3 at a different kadence you can sound like many elk talking at the same time and sound very real.
How about a glunk when in tight timber to get a bull to committ to those last few steps? Let's face it nobody out there is doing that and can make you sound real to a bull.
Another example would be an external reed call. That call makes a sound (again when used correctly) that no diaphram can make. It's the real rapsy sound at the end of hot cow call. You can do it with a diaphram but trust me its just not the same. You get the right how cow call going with an external reed and the results can be awesome. External reeds are also much louder and can carry very far. This bull below I called in from over 1500 yards at 2pm on a 70 degree day when there was absolutely nothing happening. Sure we can say it was a fluke but I've repeated this many times since and I actually called in two elk from two different directions that day at the same time. The other was a cow. This bull was taken on a heavily hunted general unit and we never heard an elk make a sound at all up to that point. The hunt was in early October. Admittedly I was dinking around while eating lunch practicing some calls for an upcoming competition when this bull responded from nearly a mile away and came running. I thought it was another hunter messing with me at first. We were shocked to see him running uphill towards us out in the open then to see a cow doing the same thing coming from another direction I realized I had stumbled onto something and I have continued to work on this call along with many others since that time.