Calling by Pete Hauer

Predator hunting strategies invade my thoughts on a daily basis.

Often I reflect back on both successful and non successful hunts and try to visualize a pattern which led to the final outcome of that hunt. There are many variables which contribute to successful hunts and recent Foxpro newsletter tips have covered many of them. Scouting, working the wind, call volume, etc. are all important parts of a well thought out predator hunt.

When I started hunting predators, I felt the harder and louder I called the more territory I was covering and the greater my odds of success were. I mainly used dying rabbit mouth calls and tried to sound as though I were a bunny being torn apart. Loud, hoarse, gravely, guttural calls were on the menu every time I hunted. While some of my hunts were successful, many were not. Many of my early hunts throughout the 1970s and 80s were during a time of high priced furs. A prime northern red fox pelt was pushing $100 and the competition for these pelts was intense. Predator calling had ramped up and the animals were tough to call. Many of these fox had been educated to the dying rabbit blues over and over by hunters who had been there before I had called.

I had many dry hunts with little to no success. Fox barking in the distance in response to my calls finally let me know the game was over on many sets. I was frustrated. This all changed during a small game hunt on our Pennsylvania farm. I was hunting rabbit and pheasant with 2 of my friends and we had just come to the end of our property line. By this time it was late morning and the hunting had slowed. In my small game jacket were a small Radio Shack tape recorder and a handful of Johnny Stewart tapes. Gray fox pup in distress and dying crow call tapes were on the menu. I also had a couple predator calls and a crow mouth call in my pocket. I wanted to see how far away my friends could hear my tape recorder. I climbed down a steep bluff, crossed a narrow valley and called from the top of the adjacent hillside.

In very short order, I had mouth called with a crow call and played my tape recorder with both crow and fox distress calls. In under a minute a prime Pennsylvania red fox slipped out of the woods and headed up the trail towards my 2 hunting partners. He came through a section of woods we had just hunted for rabbits. At point blank range he almost ran over my friends as he scampered up the steep bluff. The first attempt at said red fox was ironically a squib 12 gauge handload minus a load of red dot. The end result was primer ignition only. A load of 7.5 shot rolled out the end of the barrel and the wad stuck in the end of the choke. Luckily a second load was never chambered and fired. My second friend was toting a 22 mag and a hail Mary was fired in desperation as the red headed south after almost running them over. That red fox left the scene in educated fashion and I was left scratching my head in disbelief. Why had he responded in late morning when calling that same spot at prime time had failed miserably? A wounded crow will provide an easy meal for a fox. It is a call he had not likely heard from another predator hunter and it was a realistic sound for that area.

Since that time, diminutive bird calls have fast become my all time favorites for both fox and coon. As predator calls, they provide promise of an easy meal that is attractive to all predators. Not only have many rabbit calls been over-used in many areas, they can also signify risk to a smaller predator. A young or smaller vixen may not want to risk fighting another predator for a larger rabbit which is struggling to stay alive. I think small birds like a titmouse, nuthatch, mallard duckling or a woodpecker in distress represent an easy meal which is hard to resist. I tend to call predators of all sizes with these calls and my overall success ratio has increased dramatically by using them as my preferred calls. They are often high pitched, pleading, busy calls which are quite common to the area being hunted. They are also less frequently used by predator hunters.

Some years ago, I had an educated red fox giving me the slip on a regular basis. He knew the game better than I and would hang up out of range when I ran through my routine calls. Finally in desperation, I slipped into a streambed and fired off some mallard duckling calls at last light. He came to the set so fast I had a hard time stopping him for the shot. It was a call not used by other predator hunters, but one he expected to provide an easy meal in that streambed. I've since used that same setup many times on other farms with great success.

The point of this is to think outside the box when it comes to calling predators. Learn to utilize bird calls and I feel your success ratio will increase. I'd also like to thank Steve Dillon of Foxpro for producing some of the hottest bird calls to hit the market in recent years. They have transformed my way of predator hunting and are worth trying on day or night calling sets.