Timber Call vs Open Water Call

[Bankermane]

Who would have thought a real duck thread in March.

I got out all my duck calling CDs, etc. last night and have been listening to them. Like most of you I carry several calls on my lanyard, some open water and some timber . I usually use the one that the ducks appear to respond to that day, but I do stick with my "go to" call most of the time. The timber calls that I have are typically softer than an open water call. I've always thought that timber calls were to be used in, well, timber and open water calls better for lakes and fields.

Last night I was listening to a Rich n Tone instructional CD with several guides and world champions sitting around shooting the bull about how to call in different situations. To a man everyone of them said that they thought you should blow louder in a timber situation than in fields. Their theory is that you are hidden better in the woods and that ducks have a harder time finding the decoys in woods so you should blow louder o get their attention so they could find your decoys.

On the other hand, they said that you should not be very aggressive in fields because it doesn't take much for the ducks to find your decoys since they are wide open. They further said that motion or movement of hunters was easier for them to spot due to the same in hte field. I have noticed in field hunting that the ducks were looking at where the calling was coming from rather than where the decoys were. Anyway the whole discussion made sense to me.

I had another conversation with a call maker about what was better, an open water call or a timber call. He said that he preferred to use the same call in all situations. He believed that you should only carry the call that sounded best to you and not carry two or three calls for different situations, He said that live ducks call at the same volume no matter if they were in fields or timber. Ducks don't get quieter when they are in the woods or louder sitting on a lake.

Now I wonder why they call the softer call a timber call and the louder call open water. Its just the opposite of what they teach. I don't use a true open water call while hunting, but use different volume timber calls. Since I primarily hunt fields, I use louder calls when it is real windy and softer calls in calm or foggy conditions. What do you use or what are your thoughts on this subject?

[Greenhead22]

All of the calls made back in the day were a timber style call, ie low volume. When the ideas of duck calling competitions came about, all of the callmakers started boring out their calls more for the extra volume, thus creating the open water/extra loud calls. Then once they developed the open water for the tone they wanted, they had to take it up one more step to sell more calls. Here is where the MVP's of the world were created. You can take a MVP and have just as much rasp and bottom end that you would get from a timber call.

It's all about money, creating a new product that people will buy into for duck hunting. RNT came out with the Short Barrel model about five years ago, and I am damn glad that they did. It was the first single reed that I was ever able to blow. After a couple of years of SB production, RNT decided to tweak it some and make an in-between call, the Daisy Cutter. For the first 2 yrs of production, you could not pry a DC from my hands. RNT then decided to change something in both models and ever since then I have yet to find one that sounded good.

I use my timber calls in every hunting situtation, and I adjust my blowing to whatever the conditions are. If you know what you are doing, you can get down on a timber call, and it will get very close to the tone of an "open water" call. I have people tell me all the time that ducks can't hear a timber call if you are in a pit. I know a man on this forum that kills ducks all the time in pits, and he uses the softest timber calls that he can find, so to each his own.

I prefer using only one call, but I have to keep an extra call or two on the lanyard because I'll lock a call up in a minute with spit.

[Bankermane]

I hunter in Arkansas in flooded rice fields once with three guides. There was one lead guide that did most of the calling with the other two filling in and calling off him. They called loud as hell and never quit. Called until the legs were sticking out and never blew them out of the hole.

[CW]

[champcaller]

[greenheadgrimreaper]

[GordonGekko]

[Anatidae]

[greenheadgrimreaper]

[Bankermane]

[Blackduck]

[GulfCoast]

[Don Miller]

If you are on the X, you get away with blowing trumpet.

[Bankermane]

[Blackduck]