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Song Dog Savvy
End of story, and I'm still shaking.
Has that ever happened to you? Chad Belding has had it happen. Not so much the accuracy trauma, but the adrenaline rush that comes with calling coyotes. The thirty-one-year-old knows it well. As a pro-staffer for Ohio-based Zink Calls, Belding is currently working with goose calling legend Fred Zink on both a new series of predator calls and an in-your-face coyote hunting documentary that chronicles the highs and lows of serious predator calling. From August '05 through May of 2006, he and his partners called 120 dogs to the gun.
"Now, we didn't kill all those, of course," said Belding, "but we got to experience that rush 120 times."
What's fascinating to me about Belding, and particularly in this age of electronic this and battery-powered that, is that all but two of his coyote encounters were made possible through the use of mouth-blown calls. Nothing digital, no sound cards or computer chips, no speakers and no MP3s. Just lungs, plastic and good old-fashioned air pressure.
Mouth calls, perhaps though antiquated here in the mechanized twenty-first century, still work--and work well. But calling coyotes with mouth calls requires more than simply buying Brand X, sitting down in a likely location and commencing with what I refer to as the blow-and-wait routine.
Complete camouflage should not be overlooked, regardless of how well you use a mouth call.
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"It's true. A lot of coyote hunting mistakes happen long before the first sound is ever made," said Belding. "The first one's simple: You have to be in an area where there's dogs. A lot of guys think they can just go in and start calling in areas where they might have seen coyotes in the past. But you have to consider the variables--hunting pressure, time of year, food sources.
"Prey animals, like rabbits, will actually migrate as their food sources come and go, and coyotes will migrate with them," explained Belding. "You've got to know these variables in order to put yourself in the right spot at the right time.
"Next is your walk-in. If you're driving a diesel, did you drive too far in and make too much noise? Were you quiet with your door? Were you too aggressive with your four-wheeler? It's all about stealth. Use the terrain, keep the sun at your back, watch where you step, and always keep in mind the wind direction," said Belding.
Now are we ready to sit down and blow a call? According to Belding, there's still some education needed.
"From what I've heard," said Belding, "most guys have a tendency to do three things wrong with a mouth call--with E-calls, too, but mouth calls in particular. They call too loud, they call too much and they call too long.
OPEN OR CLOSED CASE
Choose A Call Based On Your Confidence Level. |
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Coyote-calling expert Chad Belding prefers an open-reed mouth call, claiming the design's versatility allows him to recreate every sound he could possibly need. However, open-reed calls are not quick and easy to master; like short-reed goose calls, they require time, commitment and dedication if you are to become proficient. Practice is essential. First, don't fight the call, and don't try to over-think the process. Open-reed calls have but one moving part, the reed. However, the call's wide aural range comes from incorporating other elements such as air velocity, air volume, reed length (where you physically bite the reed), and hand position. Don't try to do everything at once. Instead, concentrate on one sound--a high-pitch cottontail squall, for instance. Work until you've achieved that sound, then practice until you're confident you can reproduce that sound every time you put the call to your lips. The first sound you make on-stand is the most important sound you'll make on that stand. I prefer closed-reed calls. I hang three on my lanyard, each one a little bit different than the next. One is a high-pitch call for close-in/low-volume work. The next is tuned medium, for work from 100 to 200 yards. The third is a low-pitch gravelly call, which I can truly stand on in terms of volume. I'm confident with all three, and I have all the range I'll ever need. The disadvantages, though, are several. For the most part, I "speak" only rabbit, though with volume control I can pull off a quiet mouse. To change pitch or to switch from rabbit to mouse, I have to change calls, which requires movement. Coyotes are quick to spot movement. Howling is also very difficult on a closed-reed call. Still, it's all about confidence. |
"It's important to understand the biology of the prey animal you're trying to mimic--let's say a rabbit--and what happens when they're injured or in distress.
"A rabbit's lung capacity is much smaller than ours, and they simply can't squeal as long nor as loud as a human can blow a call. They run out of air quicker," he explained, "and as they run out of air, their cries get sketchy, broken and panicked. And that's what you're trying to accurately reproduce in the field."
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