E-calls verses hand calls

[Bob D]

Alot of the members here have noted that they get more responses from using hand calls verses using the e-callers. I have had more come to the hand calls. I wonder why that happens ? it would seem that the e callers have the advantage in many ways over a hand call. Different sounds , being able to place the ecaller in the area you want to watch are but a few of the advantages of the e callers. What do you think is the difference and the reasons the hand calls seem to work better?

[studabaka]

I'm not smart enough to answer your question, but in the short while I have been calling I have clearly seen more takers with hand calls also.

[awh]

Same here. Don't know what I'm doing, but seem to have more come in with hand calls then the ol' el-cheap-o E-caller me & Cam made.
Funny thing is the first time me and Cam ever "called" was his first time deer hunting. He had froze out that morning and as I was getting everythhing gathered up to leave, he pulls a Wal-mart special out of his coat pocket. I asked what's that and when did you get it. He explained and asked if he could try it. I said go for it.
We were in some tree laps and I stopped and watched for him. He blew the thing two-three times and I caught movement out of the corner of my left eye. Coming in out of the thicket was a coyote. It stopped....Cam stopped....And both guns were leaned up against a tree behind us. Cam looked at me with the biggest grin I have ever saw on his face. And since then we have be hooked. I'll never admit it to him, But when he started blowing that call that morning I thought this was the dumbest thing/sound I had ever heard. (He still sounds better on them than me too... )

[FinsnFur]

I'll never admit it to him, But when he started blowing that call that morning I thought this was the dumbest thing/sound I had ever heard. (He still sounds better on them than me too... )

LOL  :roflmao: That's funny Danny

I think some of the reason behind the hand call success is the ability to produce a LIVE sound. I still like my FX3, but I'm not completely convinced that reproducing the sounds through even the highest of digitally mastered devices matches the real thing. 

[Bob D]

I think some of the reason behind the hand call success is the ability to produce a LIVE sound. I still like my FX3, but I'm not completely convinced that reproducing the sounds through even the highest of digitally mastered devices matches the real thing. 

Jim,
That is exactly my thinking on this . I wonder what the critter hears through the e callers that keeps them from coming in?  I know there are e callers that have better sounds than others.  I will not mention names of the call makers but I've hunted with a friend who has a different e caller than I have and he sure seems to call them in better than I can with mine? There is certainly a difference in the quality of the sounds and the quality of the speakers on the e callers. I can tell that much just by listening. The funny thing about this is that any caller will call them in sometimes and no e caller will call them in all the time?
Bob

[THO Game Calls]

I have an idea why hand calls are more effective sometimes than E callers are.

With your Hand Calls, you sneak into a spot, sit down, let it get quiet, and start to call.

Wth your E caller, you sneak into a spot, get the e caller out, sneak out to set it up, sneak back to where you were, and then start to call.

Humans just aint that sneaky.  Too much chance to make noise, leave scent, get seen...

Plus -

You know that when you are blowing the hand calls that the coyote is pinpointing YOU.  So you sit still and look with your eyes. 

We sometimes have a tendancy when using the E caller to get sloppy and look with our heads and shoulders because we think the coyote is distracted by the caller. 

Al
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com

[CCP]

 First off let me say Iam no expert and this is only my gathered experience from hunting where I hunt.

  For those that know me  you have heard me say many many times if Iam going out just to kill coyotes and no camera I will only use hand calls. From my experience hand calls beat E-callers hands down. The reason I use an E-caller a lot now is because we are filming and have to setup much different to get good footage. 1st year filming we used hand calls only lots of coyotes and kills but not much footage. Reason is coyotes exploded on scene close in our face looking dead at us. Sounds good but 2.5 seconds of film don't really look that great.

  By moving the sound away trying to funnel a coyote past is a big handicap to say the least. Less places to setup and have to setup more in more open areas. Second problem you are giving them a recorded sound this also handicaps you if they have ever heard an E-caller before and are educated to them.

I'am a firm believer that a speaker gives off a sound that animals can here. Some worse than others but they all do. Here is an example my fox pro has a plastic speaker and it seems to have a hollow sound so I plug in a metal speaker to get a clear sound. If I can tell the difference in the two I wonder how many things a coyote can pick up on.

The guys that jump right out and buy an E-caller thinking it will always call coyotes are fooling themselves. The ones that only use an E-caller to kill coyotes are cutting themselves way short on there numbers. I have seen to many times where a new hunter goes out and buys a new E-caller and calls in a few coyotes and they come running in. Then they start asking questions like my numbers have went way down what do I need to do? Short answer E-caller educated coyotes.

 

[FinsnFur]

You guys ever notice how CCP starts off every single post he makes in response to a technical question the same way? 

First off let me say Iam no expert and this is only my gathered experience from hunting where I hunt.

 

:roflmao: What are you try to say Rich?

[CCP]

You guys ever notice how CCP starts off every single post he makes in response to a technical question the same way?

It's just a habit after seeing how things are different in other areas of the country I can really only comment on the areas I have hunted.

I just re-read my post and it sounds as though Iam against E-callers. This is not so E-callers do have there place and can aid a hunter in many areas. It just is not a cure all for all coyote hunting and I think this is where a lot of hunters go a stray. One of the areas a E-caller works better than hand calls for us is in clear cuts and thick valley's here in the mountains. For the most part most of the hunters I know that have problems with the E-callers are the ones that use them every stand every weekend in the same areas.

Do I like hand calls best YES would I trade away my E-caller NO I think everyone should have both

[bigben]

all I know is that for fox in pa in the early season it is the shit.  I also think that too many people have the sound too loud on there e-calls and with a hand call they just can not get the voulume.  another thing that I think that happens is everybody and there brother uses dying rabbit sounds on a ecall and they get wise to it.  I have better sucess on fox with the bird sounds then anything. 

[possumal]

I am going to copy old CCP a little and say this is my opinion, not written in stone. I realize the thread is about comparing hand calls to ecallers, but that is a hard comparison if you aren't specific with the ecaller involved. I used strictly hand calls the first 4 years I hunted, but since then,  I have always used a combination of mouth calls and ecaller, and I am convinced that using sound editing software to make your own sequences is a big advantage. I plan most of my setups where I can place the ecaller on the way to my seat, cutting down on noise and scent problems considerably.  Probably a lot of people who see more coyotes using a hand call is because in general, they call them in closer to begin with.  Late in the season, when the coyotes have heard the "Dying rabbit blues" from too many people, the exact sounds of the good ecaller make the difference. One big problem with most ecaller operators is using too much volume and calling too much. In short, if you consistently call in more coyotes with the limited vocabulary of hand calls than with the variety and quality of a good ecaller, you ought to keep on doing that or learn to use the ecaller more efficiently.  When you go into an area where you messed up on a big, smart coyote a couple of weeks later, it is a big advantage to be able to give him something he hasn't had for dinner lately.  A lot of good coyote hunters believe in turning an ecaller on and letting it go full blast continuously. I totally disagree with that thinking. Most of them say it is to keep the coyote's attention on the sound. A coyote does not lose his attention when he responds unless a big fat rabbit or an equally appealing meal pops up in front of him.  In that scenario, he may or may not forget about the sound he has been responding to.  But the point is you want him to have to look for the sound source, and he will pinpoint it the closer he gets. I have watched them stop and listen, proceed to another stop and listen spot, etc.. When they respond from a long way off, they seldom come non stop.

[THO Game Calls]

I am convinced that using sound editing software to make your own sequences is a big advantage

I agree 100% and I have been saying that for years.  It was my biggest gripe with the old FoxPro's and Loudmouth callers with the 8 and 15 second sound loops.   

Everytime you have to look at that remote to change sounds you do two things - take your eyes off where the coyote should be coming from, and move.  Neither one is good.

I plan most of my setups where I can place the ecaller on the way to my seat

OK, this one confuses me.  I have heard it from other people and I just don't get it unless you set caller behind you.  Of course you have to understand that I hunt in wooded areas.  But it seems to me, that if you walk in and set the caller down and then keep walking to your stand, you have walked through the area you want the coyote to come from?  It's not clicking with me so if you could, explain how you make this work for you.   I know sometimes things are so simple that you can't see them, and for me this is one of them LOL.  Help me out here.  I don't even see how this would work cross wind  - I told you I was confused 

Probably a lot of people who see more coyotes using a hand call is because in general, they call them in closer to begin with

Boy aint that the truth.  Guy keeps looking at that remote, changing sounds, moving, instead of looking, yup - I agree with you on that one.   But here's a thought - set the e caller next to you and leave it alone with those prerecorded sound sequences.  Seems to work pretty well here. 

Late in the season, when the coyotes have heard the "Dying rabbit blues" from too many people, the exact sounds of the good ecaller make the difference.

I have to sort of disagree with this one.   Everyone blows a hand call differently, and there are a lot of hand calls out there.  BUt when it comes to E callers, everyone and their brother is playing the same old Dying Rabbit Blues from their FoxPro or Bandit.  It seems that a wise old coyote might have heard that sound more frequently than he has heard the hand calls?

The only advantage I can think of here is that the sounds on the e caller may be of actual animals, which the coyote might be more familure with and more at ease with.

Late in the season, I think you need to get in closer and challenge them wth something other than distress sounds.   They are more protective and defensive than they are hungry and I think they respond better to sounds other than distress sounds.   Just what I have seen where I hunt - The only thing that will sometimes work late season is when there is a ton of snow on the ground and you can get close to a deer yard and give them a fawn or doe distress call.  That will sometimes get them interested as they always seem to be hanging aorund the deer yards then anyway.

I agree with the volume thing too.  Especially in wooded areas.  Sometimes in rollong hills it tends to echo - and that is not natural.  Coyotes have great hearing.   If they are so far away that you have to blast your caller at max volume, why are you being so quiet sneaking into your stand?  We don't talk, we don't slam car doors, we try to walk quiet and then we use the volume control as an on off switch.   

I especially think this is true when using howls.  I think we scare a lot of the subordinate coyotes away if we use dominant make vocalizations and play them at max volume ala the Bill Martz theory of coyote calling.   It works on the big males and females if they are close enough to feel the need to respoind but it just makes the other ones leave the county.  At least that's been my experiance. 

I too have watched them come in, stop, look and then come in some more, stop look again, and on and on.   I think though two things are at play here.

One, they are being cautious because they have been called before, and two, they may be subordiantes who have had their butts whipped before too.  I think they can pinpoint the sound pretty close from a good distance, and when they come in looking and stopping, they are really looking for movement, either of the animal in distress, the animal eating the animal in distress, or the guy with the remote.  I think they already have a pretty good idea of where the sound is coming from, now they are just verifying that it is safe to approach.

I think the theory behind keeping the caller running is to focus the coyotes attention on the sound and keep him from stopping to use his other senses to look for movement. 

But I think that you will have equal success with hand calls and e callers if you can use a hand call effectively.  The e caller can do things for you that the hand calls can't. like make realistic sounds and focus attention away from your set up. but hand calls make you be more cautious and concentrate harder.   

Great post from both CCP and Al!

Al, if you could, explain that setting the caller up on your way in, especially with some info on terrain and wind and how you do it.  I am really wanting to figure this one out.

Thanks

Al
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com

[possumal]

THO: I always know the land I hunt like the back of my hand, one of the most important elements to successful coyote hunting. I try my best to think like a coyote, another important element.  Let's just say that the area I want to hunt is a hollow that runs north and south, and the wind is blowing out of the north. It would be a country mile to get to the south end and walk into the wind, so I choose to approach the area next hollow over or at least on the other side of the dividing ridge. I slip in using a saddle, hang my caller, and ease on up to my sit down spot, 90% of the time cleared by me in the off season.   Rather than call directly with the wind, I prefer crosswind.  I will be sitting higher than where the caller is located so my scent does not enter into it, and usually my spot will be on the side where the shade is and my scent is not being carried to where the coyotes are most apt to come from. Nothing works every time as we all know never say never with Wylie Coyote. I listen to my weather radio in the morning while having my coffee and I know which farms to go to or which end to come in from.  I am more concerned with not being seen or heard with my approach. Every coyote 400 yds out a hollow or up one of the feeder hollows is not going to smell you when you slip in like that, but it is easy for them to hear the sound when you are calling that direction.  If you do walk into the wind as your main goal, what is going to keep the coyotes that end up being bedded downwind from smelling you then.  I vote for not being seen or heard and having a good setup where I can see in all directions around the ecaller.  Heavy woods is a different game altogether.  Logging roads and other game trails would be my choice to set up on in those cases, especially where several such trails meet.  Hope that answers your question.

[THO Game Calls]

If you do walk into the wind as your main goal, what is going to keep the coyotes that end up being bedded downwind from smelling you then.

Knowing the area you hunt.   

Like you, I know the areas I hunt like the back of my hand.   

It's always been my exprience that a coyote might question his sight or his hearing, but never his nose.  I have seen too many coyotes cut a scent trail and turn tail and run to believe it any other way. 

It sounds like you use the terrain to funnel the coyotes to you as CCP does.  That's good if you have that kind of terrain to work with.  Here, it's big woods and not much to funnel them with.   A creek crossing, semi dry swamp or two, but for the most part, you need to know the lay of the land and hunt into the wind or stay home LOL.

As for logging roads or trails, there is too much human activity in the day time for them to do anything but cut straight accross them.  Even at dawn, you have mountain bilers, snow machines and who knows what else on the trails.   We follow the creek bottoms and game trails and go in deep where the yuppies fear to tread.

AL
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com

[CCP]

These are the kinds of threads I love a lot of good things can come out of this. It is already showing how in the different areas it calls for different tactics. Al (THO) has big woods and not a lot of funnels to pull them down so as I see it his coyotes can come from any direction at any time. I picture a big woods scenario  where you call as you go deeper in the woods so wind in the face would seem like the best way to go. Starting from the edge. I can relate to this hunting the national forest in FL. I had to call as I went with the wind in my face because the next road entry was 30,000 ac away.

Now in my case here and it may work some in Al's (THO) case. I will a lot of times set the caller up wind from me. Reason I do this is most of our coyotes here try to get down wind. This puts me right where they are going. A good visual case in point is the video clip on youtube 14yard coyote. It shows the coyote going past us from down wind of the caller. That e-caller was along way from where we were. This is where scouting pays off knowing where the coyotes travel and setting up in there safe zones.

[THO Game Calls]

A lot of the land we hunt here is Run and Gun.  It's flat, maybe some rolling hills and very densly wooded.  Natural terrain breaks are swamps, swales and creek bottoms.  There are no ridge lines, saddles or other long running features in most areas.  A mountain will be 1000 feet or less above sea level.  The wind blows out of the notrh west or west almost all the time.   

Most of the major trails are inudndated by either mountain bikers or other recreational users every day of the year.  It's not safe number one to hunt the logging roads, and the coyotes don't travel them exceept at night.  Most of the sign found on these trails and roads is nothing more than tracks cuttng directly across them as the coyotes head from one piece of cover to the next.  If we tried to slip in and set a caller down and then go to a stand, we would be cutting our calling areas in half at least, and probably more so.

The trick here is to do what you said CCP - start at the edges and work slowly in with the wind.  You don't worry about the coyotes behind you.   They smell humans every day, and expect to pick up scent from the trails.  It's when that scent is stronger, closer to their core areas that it causes them distress and to leave the area.

I can see what Al is doing now.  If we had that type of terrain, i am sure it would work here very well.   But funneling a coyote here means bring him in along the edge of a swamp or maybe a creek bed. 

This is one of the reasons I told you about how we hunt out of tree stands so much here.  It allows you to get up high and have a better vantage point the same as if you were hunting a ridge and funneling the coyotes to you.  And Al's mention of calling sequences is exactly what we do when hunting this way.   Many times I will have sequences that last from 30 minutes to an hour with the soounds only playing for a minute or so evey 5 or 6 minutes.  You can watch them use the game trails to get to the sound.  They will stop and look often and go directly down wind even if it means they have to go a long ways to do it.  Towards the end of deer season it gets hard because if they cut a scent on one of the game trails left by a hunter, they scoot the other way.  I've seen it way to many times.   In the early fall and a month or so after hunting season ends, it's not so much of a problem.  Sometimes the yourng ones will come right down a trail to the caller, but more often than not, they take a trail that is a good 30 to 50 yards off the one we came in on, even if sometimes they have to pck their way through the woods to do it.  The advantage of the tree stand is that you can see them and watch then doing it.  Over time, you learn how they are going to behave when approaching the sounds.   I've been out too many times with new hunters and have told them right were the coyote was going to come from, only to end up having them looking somewhere else when they appeared or scarring the crap out of them when the coyote shows up 20 yards away.  It's a different kind of hunting for sure.  Things happen fast on the ground and you best be ready or you are going to get busted every time.    IN a tree, you have time to watch and pick a good shot.  Which is one reason I like the hand calls in the woods if on the ground.  You just concentrate more I think.

If I hunted more in the northern area of the state, where we have big mountains and ridges running for miles, I bet Al's way would work very well here.    But I don't much like climbing mountains LOL so I stay in the woods where it's flat.   

Thanks again Al for telling how you do things in your neck of the woods.   I will keep it in my bag of tricks should I ever run into an area like that and put it to good use.

AL
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com

[Arkyyoter]

Well, as has been said by others...I am certainly no expert, and can only attest to how it works in my neck of the woods, my terrain, with my style of hunting...

Firstly, let me say I am a non-conventional caller I guess....'cause I prefer to call WITH the wind....I hunt mostly tree lines with fields/pastures , rights of way, and edges between woods/fields. My preferred set up is in the edge of the woods/trees, with at least 1/4 mile of open hayfield on the down wind side...I face down wind and call down wind, and 90% of the time, he will come from down wind....I have watched many come out in the edge of the open, circle to get down wind before approaching...then come as if they are on a string. I have been told the only reason this works for me is that we shoot them a little farther than most prefer, ( we seldom let them get closer than 150 yards, prefer 200 - 250) . I do use a JIB, which sometimes causes you to have to walk where you would prefer not to, and has probably cost me a few by perhaps being seen, but I believe it has gained me more than it has lost, especially cats, but yotes too.

I too prefer hand calls, and use them probably 90% of the time. When I use my e caller, I simply set it by my thigh, turned down very low....I had an old 416 B till recently....I now have an FX5 and am anxious to put it to use this fall....it sounds waaaaayyy better than my old one. I primarily use an e caller late in the season when things get slow in my area.

Ya'll feel free to guffaw and poopoo my methods, you won't get a cherry here, and as I said, it may not work for you or your area. We may only kill the really dumb ones here...if so, then that's good enough for me, as long as I get to call/kill a few I can deal with whatever lack of intelligence they may have 


Joe

[Rich]

The only thing I see in Arky's method that I would change is  placement of the E caller speaker. I feel that I can call  just as many critters with mouth calls, and maybe even more. When I use the E caller, it is for the purpose of getting the screams out away from my person.  In broken and brushy country, the proper use of an E caller helps a guy kill more of the critters that he calls.

[possumal]

Hey Arkyyoter: Quoting you, "I simply set it by my thigh, turned down very low.". (You better watch that stuff, as one of those big coyotes might change your gender) :roflmao: I call with the wind a lot too, but I prefer to head the ecaller quarter wind in the direction I want the coyote to show up. You are putting out a wider sound pattern that way for the wind to carry the sound downwind, and it does not require as much volume for coyotes to hear it.  Like Rich says, getting that caller away from you should result in more coyote kills if you place it right.  I always try to place the ecaller in such a way as to make the coyote show himself to me to get to a spot where he can see where the sound is coming from.  If you think out your setups right, you can usually achieve that goal.  That is also where the proper scent works well with decoys. They hear a fawn, see a fawn, and smell a fawn, so it must be a fawn.  If you have your seat positioned higher than the ecaller, your scent does not enter into the equation nearly as much either.

[KySongDog]

Great thread, guys.  Thanks for sharing.