Out of the box review & first quikie outing.

[trailtwister]

After having a small issue with my home built call which I finally sorted out I got the chance to hunt with a friend who had got a ICOtec GC 350. I really got hooked on that 300 yard non line of sight remote for the little time I was able to be out with my friend and the call.

I finally broke down and bought one for my self mostly because of that remote. It comes with 24 sounds all on a SD card, but you can buy more SD cards and add any calls of MP3 or Wav 16 bit format.

I received mine in the mail yesterday so the first review will be about the company I ordered it from. Avalanche brands, there are several companies who sell it for the same price, I do not recommend Avalanche brands. Other places advertise free shipping also my grip is it took them 4 days to package and label and mail out the caller. It had free tracking, I sent my order before 6:00 AM on the 9th tracking said was shipped on the 13th. took 7 days to receive the caller do to the shipping part.

the call came in good shape only needing to add 4 new AA battery's to the speaker part of the call. Open up the remote door and remove the plastic strip so the battery in the remote isn't making contact during shipping.

I had read reviews about the screws that hold those battery doors closed and people whining about having to use eye glass repair screw driver and the small screws.
First off the screw heads are big enough a normal multa tool Phillips screw driver will work fine.
Second they are not where you remove the screws and can drop them they are fixed in the door of the battery cover.

Once I had did the battery thing I made sure that the remote was synched to the speaker portion. and listened to a couple of sounds. I did open up the SD card compartment and looked at the SD card appeared to be a 512 MB card.
I had bought a 64GB card for additional sounds I want on this caller.

I do know the remote on my friends call was working over a hill from where we took our stand.

I am going up in a bit and try it in my woods, coyotes are again getting bold enough they have came up behind my pole barn and one was trotting down the ice last Saturday 34 yards from my front window.

More on this later.

    Al

[trailtwister]

Got dressed and walked out the back door to see a herd of deer on the south side of the yard. they are use to me and my pup walking every morning so they didn't do much more than look up when I said good morning mamas to them and walk buy.
Back behind the pole barn and over the hill to the creek followed it to a point I knew I could set up and see about 100 yards of creek both ways and the opposite hill side about 300 yards there of where I was going to set up. I set the call speaker part on a tree stump about 8 inches off the ground turning it on. Yes that is where the switch is, on the speaker part.

Cross the creek and climb the bank walk up the hill to a pair of huge oak trees I could snuggle in. Pull out the remote from my pocket and raise the antenna look at the cheat sheet that comes with the caller and see that A 6 is the cotton tail indistress sound. B 13 is a crow in distress sound the mode switch is on the side of the remote easy to work.
I let the rabbit squeal and whimper thru the calls normal cycle for about 15 minutes.
Just seconds after that rabbit starts crying I have 9 deer running down a old fence line about 110 yards away I mean running. I see movement to the east about 125 yards out in some high grass and brush so swing the Swift in that direction and it is 5 deer climbing the creek bank hill back there and act scared. Soon I have 3 deer running across the hill behind me also so the call did get the deer moving real good. Spent 20 minutes and only seen deer crows and a couple of downy wood peckers.

I go to put the remote in my pocket so I can gather up things and leave. Button was pushed by accident and I had a flock of geese going nuts touchy buttons and no way of turning them off.
Note to self use the lynard and hang from neck so I can slide it inside the coat and zip up.
I had the speaker unit 92 yards away and it worked good even with the remotes antenna down and inside my coat pocket.
Volume went up way higher than I would ever use calling coyotes, I think my dag heard it back at the house as she was all geeked up when I returned.

A good unit I feel and well worth the less than $130.00 price tag. I can not imagine spending $40.00 more for about the same caller with 200 calls.


   Al

[slagmaker]

How heavy is the call and remote? Ounce add up to pounds by the end of a hunt don't ya know.

[trailtwister]

This thing is smaller than my home built unit weight wise and demotions size. If you got tired of carrying this unit around You would not last long carrying a rifle, maybe a half hour.

  Al

[FinsnFur]

This thing is smaller than my home built unit weight wise and demotions size. If you got tired of carrying this unit around You would not last long carrying a rifle, maybe a half hour.

  Al

...maybe a half hour

[slagmaker]

I have an fx5 and was just wanting to compare weights.

[trailtwister]

I don't really know the weight will have to set in on the scale. It is lighter than my shooting sticks that are 3/4"x 3/4" x4'.

  Al

[Okanagan]

Good info.  Thanks.  I'm especially interested in the remote range and loudness, assuming the quality of the sounds is good, and I've heard that they are. 

[trailtwister]

Well sat it on the scales.
1.6 pounds, and “l” x “b” x “h” at 8 inches x 6 inches x 4 inches respectively.

Sound quality I feel is real good. I have only tested the remote to92 yards but it still will work with the antenna down (on the remote) and in my coat pocket.

  Al

[Okanagan]

Very appealing.  Can you add another speaker, like an external TOA via a patch cord?

So far, my old Minaska M1 still works well.  With it I often add a big external speaker and gell battery to power low raspy sounds in a big canyon for an hour or more.  By itself, it will go in a big coat pocket and we've called quite a few critters with just the small unit.  I use sounds that I have created with my voice or hand calls probably half of the time. 

Hmmm...

[trailtwister]

Yes there is a port for an external speaker.

   Al

[trailtwister]

My friend Eric calls Sunday afternoon and was wanting me to join him Monday morning on one of the farms we coyote hunt on.
I met him in the drive way to the silos we were told to use and not be in the way. He have hunted this farm several time before and is I think the 5th farmer to call us to get rid of the coyotes had gotten so bold they were coming into his feed lot during the day. We decided we would set up on a hill about 300 yards from the feed lot over looking a grassy swale. There is a fence line running north south on top of the hill and a corner where one goes east and west. It ranged out to 182 yards from the hill top to the edge of the grassy swale.
Eric says for me to walk my call down the east west fence line about 100 yards where I set it in a clump of bushes in a stone pile.
Go back up the hill join Eric who indicated I should set to his left about 3 feet away and watch the far north side of the swale. Start the call going with a Female coyote sounding a bit horny I think.
Was about to call it a set and pack up when a coyote peeks out of the grassy edge to quickly be joined by another and then 2 more. I toss a small stick at Eric so he looks and sees them. He indicated I should take the first two and he would take the last two. Well my220 swift spoke and the first coyote does a couple spins and collapses, I can not see the second coyote in my scope and I heard Eric's Cheetah bark the second time. I never did find that second coyote Eric said later it had spun and ran back into the grassy swale.
Eric had shot the last one then swung to the third one and got both. His 742 works real nice for collecting doubles.

All 3 were females about 40 to 45 pounds one was really old with broken teeth and badly stained. this warm weather has the hides looking awful and tom won't take them even if we skinned them and sew the holes up so we drag them off into the swale food for other critters. We walk back to the trucks and Eric asked what all sounds are on my new caller. When I tell him there are a couple of crow sounds one a crow owl confertation and a crow in distress he says we should try them since we had seen a couple crows fly over. We walk into another field that had been a corn field and set up in the fence line under some bushes with the call about 50 yards away.  Bet it wasn't 10 minutes and we had around 10 crows flying around making a racket looking for that owl and the other crows. By the time we shut the call off there were probably between 25 and 30 crows flying around. What would we have given for a shot gun.


  Al

[JohnP]

[trailtwister]

Send me a phone number and next time we go out I'll call to tell you where to meet and carry the crap we don't want to like the camera to take pictures of a bloody coyote.

  Al

[JohnP]

Because cameras are so heavy and cumbersome.

[trailtwister]

When the snow can be 2 feet deep and drifts deeper and your on skis or snow shoes you learn every unneeded once is just extra weight to drag along. We do not even use tripods. Carry the caller a water proof pad to lay prone on or sit on folded up rifle and one clip of ammo. a roll up sheet sled and about 10 foot of nylon cord to tie coyotes on and drag them with when we are going to sell them or the hides.
Some trecks are close to a half mile back thru that kind of snow.

This should hold ya over.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrBTzYJOcxWlX4AdeRXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Dead+Coyote&fr=yfp-t-694

  Al

[FinsnFur]

Because cameras are so heavy and cumbersome.

lmao

[trailtwister]

No more on this subject.
I know I haven't seen many coyote pictures posted by others and I also don't see or hear to many others even leaving the house to go hunt COYOTES.

  Al

[FinsnFur]

C'mon you cant just get us excited and then bail out. Remind us what a coyote looks like

[trailtwister]

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrBTzYJOcxWlX4AdeRXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Dead+Coyote&fr=yfp-t-694