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Finding The Right Call For Your Next Duck Hunt

20 April 2022

Wade Moreno

Duck hunting is challenging, and hunters often find that they need ways to entice the ducks to come into an area and feel like it is safe for them. Usually, that means putting out decoys or simulated ducks to make the area look safe from the air, and using duck calls to produce sounds that the ducks are familiar with can also be extremely helpful.

The Right Call

Not all ducks use the same calls to communicate with each other, so before buying duck calls to draw in the birds to your duck blind, you should do some research into the types of ducks that are in your area, and if there are times of year that the population changes. Often migratory patterns can change the kinds of ducks near you completely. However, it is also essential to determine what those duck populations are during the hunting season, which often does not fall during migration. 

Calling a mallard when the ducks in the area are wood ducks may work, but often the ducks that respond to the call will be territorial males that think a mallard is invading their space. This situation does not necessarily lead to good duck hunting, so finding the right duck calls for the birds you have around you is the best place to start. 

Buying Calls

When you have an idea of the calls you need in your hunting zone, you can go to a large outdoor outfitter, hunting store, or gun shop to source the calls you need. Often there will be many types that you can choose from, and all of them have a learning curve to use them effectively. 

The associates working in these shops often have some interest in hunting and may have some recommendations for you and can help you determine which duck calls are most effective and the easiest to learn how to use. Once you master that first call, you can move up to other available calls.

Calling Birds

Ducks can be very wary of what is happening on the ground, and slight movements or sounds that are not right will often alert them to your presence. It is essential to practice calling until you can reproduce the ducks' sounds and get the right call for the right situation. 

Training videos can be a great way to master your new duck calls, and often the educator on the video will show you how to produce specific sounds and what each of them means. Once you understand the language of the ducks, it is easier to make them think you are one of them, and you can produce calls that will bring them into your hunting blind and allow you the best opportunity to harvest the birds you are after.

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