Buying my first bird calls

J

Jailcee

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This year I got the opportunity to join in on duck and geese hunts and had a great time. Some days I was there with other people, other time I was the only one motivated to get out there for the morning flight. While I had use of a decent blind and decoys on water, I don't own any calls so quite often the birds would be near but not near enough (60 to 100 yards) for me to pull the trigger.
Since I was so happy with my Christmas present from my wife last year, a Cabelas gift card, I expect I might get one again this year. Besides, that gift card paid off in venison (another story). So to the point I think I'd like to invest in some duck and geese calls.
What can you recommend out of all the choices out there. I don't mind paying the price for good stuff but I ain't looking to spent money on snake oil. Which are good calls to "buy once cry once"? The birds I'm seeing and want to call in are mallards, wood ducks, ring necks, and canada geese.

Cheers!
 
I asked the same question awhile back and ended up buying a few Buck Gardner calls. I picked up a double nasty and a spitfire. I also have a Recall Design Archy that sounds awesome but it sticks every once in awhile.
I also have 2 Buck Gardner goose calls but I'm still learning how to use them correctly
 
I'm no expert but the Buck Gardner Double Nasty sounds good and has turned ducks around for me and the Haydel DR-85 if cheap and easy to use. As FLHTCUI mentions above an Olt is good too. I found a cool old example at a gun show.

Any pintail/widgeon whistle will do if you listen to widgeons a bit and imitate them. They are easier to suck in than mallards. A few decoys and some whistles and they come.

But I'm probably the world's worst caller. I find that a spinner and 8 to 12 decoys and me keeping quiet gets more ducks than squawking all the time.
 
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I would start out with something inexpensive as mentioned above. The Buck Gardner poly carb calls will suit your needs fine. Get an instructional dvd as well showing how to hold the calls properly and how to push air from your diaphragm up over your tongue into the call. Once you have some basics down if you feel you want to move into a higher end call such as acrylic then your best bet is go to Cabela’s or Bass Pro, find a store associate with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a clean rag and have them let you test a handful of the premium calls they keep in their display cases before you buy. There is really no such thing as buy once, cry once with duck and goose calls but learning on inexpensive calls before moving up and then testing the better material calls will eliminate alot of call change outs. After almost 40 waterfowl seasons I can say emphatically a duck call is not really a great help in Canada due to our season dates and migration times. The birds dont get really vocal until very late in the year. Geese on the other hand are chatterboxes and I would feel at a loss without my goose call on a hunt.
 
Have to agree with the buck garner goose/duck calls.


My first goose call was a BG short reed call, I practised a lot, many people asked me what call that is as it sounds great. I still use it sometimes instead of my 150-200$ acrylic custom calls
 
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