SwampCollie

I was there in Stuttgart when Jim Ronquest blew that routine in the first sound bite I posted up. And yes, it is a blast. Stuttgart is to duck hunters what Mecca is to Muslims. I wasn't competing though. The World's Duck (buzz term) is not open to general competition. You have to qualify at a state or regional contest. For the 2007 year, I placed fourth in the state... the winner of that contest went to Stuttgart. Its sort of like the US Open is in golf, or NASCAR racing.. yes, anyone can participate, but you have to win your way there, or be a returning world champion.

No and yes. Its not hard to do, it just takes the right call. Not all calls will produce a real contest quality high ball. If you are a going to seriously compete, you are going to need to have a contest call made for you. They run from about $125 "up". I've seen them sell for as much as $180, but who knows you could probably spend more if you tried to. Mainstreet calls are MUCH louder than hunting calls are. Its not a requirement though, ironically I won fourth in the state this past year.... blowing a Timber style call. This might not make a lot of sense to you now, but any contest caller who reeds this will think I was off my meds or something.


That's the same website I referenced in my first post on this thread. The mainpage is called callingducks.com. They have a master data base, free online instruction..... its about as good as it gets short of having your own personal mentor (which I highly recommend... I have a three time state champ, Chesapeake Bay Regional Champ, four time world's qualifier mentoring me.... and just in the two months we've been in the garage calling.... I've improved a ton).

Here is the link to the main database, it can be tricky to find from the mainpage:

http://www.callingducks.com/calling_clip_search.aspx


Thats the best way to be. My fiancee and I hunt together. She's a bigtime waterfowl hunter, and was even before I met her (that kinda sealed the deal though, she asked me for my phone number to take her hunting and the morning we were supposed to go she overslept...I'll never let her forget it either!) But we have done a pile of hunting together. Some of the prostaffers I call and hunt with have tried like heck to get Rebecca into contest calling. She tells me she has been practicing, but she is too shy even to call in front of me. I don't know what the deal is.... the girl has been a tournament director for Billfishing tournaments in the Bahamas... yet won't blow a duck call infront of her husband to be....

I have seen grown men come to pieces on the contest stage. The first contest I ever did I was probably as scared/nervous as I have ever been. I think I would of rather put on a tu-tu and blown the national anthem through a kazoo. A friend of mine convinced me to do compete at a NWTF banquet that previous spring. All he said was... "Look man, nobody anywhere can say sh*t to you, except the other thirty or so guys in the bullpen with you. Remember that everybody else who didn't have the guts to get on stage, you already beat by default." He was right. Mike (my friend) took second in the state goose contest in 2007. He calls for John Taylor, the owner of Bay Country Calls and the 1998 World Goose Calling Champion.

Thanks for the compliment. All I can do is say what my grandpa said about knowing things:

"Judgement comes from experience..... experience comes from poor judgement."



I do like comp calling, but I think you'll find that its still all about one thing..... and that nothing will get the blood going like a group of 25 honkers whistling over your head to circle around down-wind. Rebecca (fiancee) had never been goose hunting before, but she'd been duck hunting for several years when we met. I finally took her goose hunting with some friends of ours in September. I think she would tell you she still likes dove hunting more (which was another thing I introduced her too), but field hunting for geese is a close second for her.

Gungirlcaller

I get what you mean about the mainstreet calling, you have to basically work your way up. lol They need to have like a hunter town where theres hunters there and thats about it and have tons of events. That would be insane! lol Idk what the timber style call is but if it wasnt so good and you placed like that, then i think its timeyou break out the better calls and hit that 1rst place! lol Its amazing how much i dnt know cause im just starting out nvr had a dad or father figure to take me out n teach me about any of this and my mom was always workin. But now im learning so much just from talking to my bf, talking to YOU and reading these forums lol Im scared im not gna remember everything my memory isnt the best i guess i better start piggin out on chocolate or sumthin. lol And that webcite im in love with lol I had been searching google constantly looking for something like it. I homepaged it! lol and i like this huntingnet TEN times more than my myspace lol... thats funny i bet you give her crap about it all the time! lol Iam not really a morning person at all im constantly late to schoollol But whenit comes to hunting there like an adrenaline rush that kicks in right when i wake up!BtwCongrats about getting married, how long you been together? me n matt been together 10 mths..About Rebecca calling thing,.. I GOT HER BACK! Girls are just diff lol when matt asks me to call i get so nervous and im scared that if i do im gna forget to breathe or sunthin lol but if he doesnt ask me, and i just start doin it on my own it doesnt bother me. Theres just one thing that drives me crazy bout everything though, is that neither of us has a car yet he lives ten miles away and when hes constantly out hunting and stuff, I feel So neglected and sad! cuz none of my friends hunt, i just have him and my moms bf to hunt with and hes not a big hunter. and i cant go hunting unless im with someone 18 or older. cuz i didnt get my hunters safety liscense. so he always goes with his friends and im at home. bored. sad. waiting for him. wanting to go hunting. eating a gallon of ice cream or eating a pan of brownies lol i made that last part up But it gets me sad n i dnt think he cares! Man you know some people n high places Yea What you said about the nervous thing is true, im gna need alot of practice! so that call dnt slip out of my hand when my hands are sweating!! lol I like that saying. I nvr heard that before. im gona write that down . Man it looks like you guys did pretty good that one in the bottom right hand corner looks BIG! I got a goose wing hangin up on my wall, that just popped into my head lol You guys look like a really good couple. My bf field hunts over, water hunting for gesse. He loves hunting duck too. O btw wat call is rebecca practicing??

SwampCollie

HNI is a great resource. By and large its a very friendly, open, safe and informitive place. We get our fair share of loose cannons, but the mods tend to keep them eaten down to ground level. As for callingducks.com... I cannot say enough great things about it. You have to navigate around it a it to find everything it has to offer. I think that goose talk is probably the best resource available for goose hunters/callers period. I use it frequently to work on certain notes that have been giving me trouble, or to try and perfect my techniques.

Rebecca would give you a big AMEN there! She used to get madder than a wet hen at me about putting too much pressure on her. If you click on the link to my field journal in my signature line at the bottom... read the article I wrote up about 'trying to hard'. Thats exactly what the whole article was about... a boyfriend putting too much pressure on his lady, and making her flip out.... You can obviously relate! Rebecca and I have been together for about 16 months, and we had talked about it before, but we just recently got engaged. The wedding is going to be sometime in late 08 or early 09, which is a long time to be engaged, but work is getting ready to change for me, so I want to have a steady salary and have settled into the new place (90 miles away from where I am now) before we take that step. She agrees.



That sucks. My first car was an old beat up station wagon with fake wood panneling. Got like 30 miles to the gallon, plenty of cargo space, you could put four canoes on top of it and two dogs in the back of it. My Dad and I split the cost of the car, I think I paid him like $600. It ran well... and it got you there, comfortably and cheap... perhaps not in style, but thats in the eye of the beholder. You had to be cool to drive a Woodchuck

I got lucky to have a Dad that always made it a priority to take me hunting and fishing. I can't remember the first fish I ever caught, I was too young. I had just always caught fish, always followed Dad and our English Setter bird hunting, always been around guns and known how to handle them responsibly. Always been able to run boats, drive... I guess I almost take it for granted. My dad taught me how to be safe, and a bit about bird hunting and wingshooting, but other than that, he didn't actually teach me a whole lot. What he did was give me the opportunity to learn on my own, make my own mistakes. You asked how I knew so much... well thats how... I had a Dad to show me the start of the path and meet me at the end, but I had to find my own way there. In hindsight, I'm a lot better off for it than kids who just got told what to do, but never WHY to do it, or WHY it worked.

We got on a really hot field that the birds just wanted into bad. There were some bigger than others, but none exceedingly large. Rebecca would tell you that the smallest goose in that bunch was the one she was the most proud of. She was shooting a 20 gauge with hevi-shot, and brought down one at about 35 yards. That was her very first goose, and she had seen me shoot one a few minutes earlier, and it needed to be finished off so I rung its neck. Rebecca was screaming she was so excited! She went streaking out to her bird and tackled it (we got that on video) and then she tried to ring its neck and it looked like an old lady trying to stir laundry in an old washbin. She didn't do a good enough job! But it appeared the bird was dead. So, since we were in a green peanut field, we were just laying down between the rows, and pulled green pine branches over us, which worked extremely well. The first goose I had shot, had become my pillow... so my neck wouldn't get sore from leaning forward. I had another one behind me that I'd just shot and Rebecca came and put her goose next to mine. A few minutes later, I heard a flapping sound behind me. More geese were working in, and the small bird Rebecca had shot had come back to life and was standing up. When the other geese flew past, it started honking and squaking, and actually scared the other group off. Rebecca sat up to say something, and that goose went into kamikaze mode! It hissed and flared out its wings and charged her making a God awful noise! I have never laughed so hard in my entire life. I thought I'd wet myself I laughed so hard... everyone did! Except Rebecca of course.... who I then showed how her how to properly finish off a goose by stepping on the head, while holding the feet and lifting up until you hear that nice POP! Which kills it almost instantly. I'd have given $50 to have that on video. It was hilarious.

I've got her a Fred Zink PC-1 and a Sean Mann Eastern Shoreman goose call. Her duck call currently is a Buck Gardner, and she has a double nasty and a single reed... can't recall the model of it though.

Gungirlcaller

I read your article about pushing too hard and it was REALLY good! lol I can relate to her cause when you care about someone you WANT to do good and when the standard keeps raising it gets harder and harder, because you dont want to fail especially in front of the one you love!! so sometimes when theres a lot of pressure, you get so nervous that you cant even do it, and sometimes us girls will just play the shy and embarassed role instead of completely messin up in front of you lol
Yep it sure does suck lol but every penny i get ive penny saving up for a car (except the dvds i bought lol) and literary every penny lol, my family has nvr really had money, we dont have it as bad as other people but everything goes to the needs nothing to the wants. But i cant wait to get my vehicle watever it is i dont care if it makes the loudest noise in town!!! lol
yea waiting til your all settled down would be the wisest choice! you dont want to have to worry about all that when your at your wedding!!! But it sounds like you guys are doing really well and i think everything will work out great!
lmao!! poor becca! lolI kno how that is im am frkn accident prone like crazy!! It woulda scared me half to death! I think i woulda probably, most likely, had to run to a bush cuz man i woulda wet myself after that!! lol That goose had to be one soft pillow!

This goose call i got is an echo thats all i know! lol i bought a turkey call yesterday at walmart, and that thing is fun to walk around and blow on, especially cuz people dnt kno that ur even blowin on anything lol When i was in the hunting section at walmart yesterday, me and this old guy got into conversation and he was telling me his life story bout hunting it was interesting, and i was looking at guns, to get my hopes on one after i get my vehicle. I had a goodtimelol

Adirondack Hunter

well lets see here, to make a comback call say to-all where the to should be high pitched and and the all should be lower pitch, that call works really good, ive had geese circle me 4 or 5 times even after i shot at em. to make a honk just say whit to make the other call like a honk in which i forgot its name say who-whit, feeding calls are dadadadadadadadada and sometimes i add a honk after them.

SwampCollie

I use Echo duck calls both for hunting and competition. They are very very good calls. I've never used any of their goose calls, and only recently found out they'd started making them.

As an aside, a couple weeks after I wrote that article, we were back at the hunt club and Rebecca did finally kill that groundhog.... I got it on video too... which was practice for deer season... but she took a new job, and we didn't get to deer hunt together very much. Such is life sometimes.