Originally Posted by Nomercy448

BJ: Not all FoxPro's are $400. Right now you can still pick up FoxPro Spitfires (discontinued, updated to Wildfire) for $150.

Personally, I'd feel like a d***head if I recommended any E-caller that runs less than $150-200, i.e. FoxPro Wildfire or Spitfire, Johnny Stewart Jury, or Primos Turbo Dogg. I do not recommend the Flextone calls, period. Recommending anything less than those 4 models would be a waste of your money if you followed my advice. These 4 don't compromise. That's the order I would recommend them in as well, by the way. WF, SF, Jury, TD.

For your handheld lights, colored lenses seem to help NOT spook animals, red, green, blue, or yellow, my preference in that order. It's not perfect, but it works. I actually like old incandescent lamps, out of habit, over LED's. IC lamps produce a brilliant center spot, with a dim halo. This lets you hover the dim halo and glow their eyes, then drop the center dot on them to shoot (bright dot can spook them regardless of color). The LED's ARE much more efficient for battery life, lighter, run cooler, and have a uniform brightness across the beam, but you lose the dim halo "technique". No biggie, but I do seem to spook more game with LED lamps, regardless of color.

One of my favored spot-lights is a Brinkman $50 at walmart. Has 3 white Cree LED's and 33 red LED's (MUCH dimmer). Hover with the red, glow their eyes, make the shot if possible, then hammer on the bright white to track and/or follow up.

It's hard sometimes to justify even $200 for an "entry level" E-caller. Grab up a few handcalls and you'll do fine. Very hard to mess up with a closed reed distress call, and they'll be perfectly productive for you. $50 will buy 2-4 calls that will bring in any dog in the country.

Handcalls are where it's at for calling predators. If you're an internet shopper, I can recommend a few custom makers that will produce a much higher quality call at about the same price as the factory calls you'll find at hunting shops.