As you may or may not already know, there are three basic calls a true duck hunter must master in order to be confident that on a given day, birds flying by will be sure to lock up and be killed. Those three calls are: The basic quack, come back call, and the feeding chuckle. Even more important than these three calls, is knowing when and how to use them.
First we will discuss the basic quack in the simplest form I know how to explain. When you are blowing a duck call you are not sucking in mouth full of air and shooting it through the call, but rather using air as if you were trying to fog a window or warm your hands. Using this hot air, I want you to start humming VOOT into your call cutting it off at the T with a crisp T sound at the end. A lot of times you will hear callers drawing this sound out and using four or five quacks with a one second pause between. This however is a big no no as this is the call ducks make as they take off from the water, which to be frank is not a good combination of notes when you are trying to convince the green heads above that all is well in your spread. The quacks in-fact should have 3 seconds in between to mimic the calls of a lost hen.
The second call I want to go over with you guys is the come back call. In order to master this call you must first master the quack. The come back call is a series of quacks put together with no pause in between. For a more aggressive call you will blow louder and less drawn out, versus a more reserved approach which is generally more quiet and drawn out ( mostly for finishing the green ). I usually will blow a five to six series of quacks on an aggressive call for early season and a 3-4 more drawn out for late season or finishing. Once again you make accomplish this call by humming VOOT into the call like a slinky rolling down a series of stairs.
The third and final call is the feeding chuckle. This is a very tricky call that is in my opinion a tough one to learn but is a great wing man call for if you have more than one caller. This call is accomplished by saying ticca ticca ticca ticca into the call as fast as you can. When starting to learn just say (tic ca tic ca ) long and drawn out. The better you get the faster you will be able to drop these notes into your trusty duck calling machine.
Now that I have told you how to blow the calls, you need to know when to blow these notes. Most sites are great at explaining how, but what in my opinion is even more important thing to remember is if the birds are locked up comming in, dont throw a huge comeback or long series of quacks. Give them a little chuckle or two and forget it. Ive seen birds blown off the water more times than I can count and frankly its frustrating, as those dumb birds are now someone elses blessing.
Second rule of thumb is never to blow when they are working directly in front of you. You would be surprised at how well these ducks can place where that call is coming from, which is going to bring all those beedy little black eyes on you and your last minute hung over blind you managed to put together the morning of opening day after that great celebration the night before.
Remember boys, these birds are responding to this call most likely because they are looking for the source of what sounds like a lonesome hen, and when they find an overweight balding middle aged man, they tend to freak out.
My third and last little tip for you is to call when they are on the edge of their circle or already behind you. The three sweet spots you want to hit your notes are directly behind you, exactly straight to the right, and straight to the left as they are working around behind you. Hit them in these three locations so the birds never can quite put an exact location on where that call is comming from and they are likely to hit the water faster as they are getting more antsy and excited to find their prize. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also is known to kill more ducks as well.
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