Yelping in the basement during the off-season and calling in the spring woods are different animals. Here are some quick tips to fine-tune your calling efforts this spring.
Sometimes, a funny thing happens on the way to the turkey woods.
Your favorite yelper — the one you ran all winter in preparation of the big moment — seems sick. It squeaks. It skips. Or it’s just silent.
Welcome to the real world. As any veteran hunter knows, calls can perform differently in the cold, damp woods than they do during perfect practice conditions.
Here are a few tips to make sure your calls hit the woods running this spring.
Moisture Madness
If you like to run friction calls, you’ve probably experienced problems with them early in the morning — especially if you’re using a glass or aluminum call with a wooden striker.
The culprit is that darned early-morning condensation. It changes the interaction — that is, the friction — between pot and peg, often leaving you with a squeaky or otherwise inoperable call. The call will function fine a couple of hours later, after things dry off, but it might be frustrating at fly-down time.
First, try a pre-emptive strike, and make sure your call and striker are perfectly conditioned the night before you hunt. Use light sandpaper or a scrub pad to clean the call and striker surface of any gunk or debris. Then, make sure to remove any resulting dust, too. A call in tip-top shape will work better during moist mornings.
Second, switch to a waterproof striker, whether it’s a synthetic model or one of the great new weatherproof-tipped models. That way, you’re taking moisture out of the equation and also throwing another sound at a gobbler.
The third fix is a cop-out, and admittedly, the one I use most often. I go with the friction call least affected by early-morning moisture — a slate. After the sun rises and the dew is gone, I can whip out my favorite glass and aluminum calls and ring yelps across the countryside. But for soft tree yelps and tree clucks during moist early mornings, the slate is my go-to call.
Ready the Reeds
Anyone who’s huffed and puffed on a mouth call knows that you’re supposed to separate the top reed from the call’s other reeds. The top reed is the tone reed or sound board that dictates the call’s sound. If it can’t vibrate correctly — like when it’s stuck to the call’s other reeds — the call won’t run as it should.
So why is it that I constantly hear this: “I just wanted to yelp softly to keep the gobbler coming, but my mouth call was stuck together, and … .”
Argh! When I leave my truck in the morning, job No. 1 is to prepare any mouth call I intend to use. I moisten the calls in my cheeks during my walk in, and then separate the top reed while waiting for the day’s first gobble. Even if I don’t use the diaphragm call for a while, I check it periodically to make sure the top reed is still free and clear. Keeping a flat toothpick between the reeds makes things easy.
Separating the reeds isn’t your only concern. The mouth yelper you loved to practice with during winter might not make it till spring, and opening morning is no time to find out. You must constantly check your diaphragm reeds for deterioration (commonly called dry rot).
As mouth calls age, they typically start to show yellow around the edges. That’s not a big deal. However, as the call gets older, you might notice small cracks or even holes in the reeds. When these appear, the call will lose its sound quality. Every time I practice with a yelper, I check it under a light to see how the reeds are wearing. When I see signs of trouble, the call gets tossed. I double-check them before opening day.
Your mouth calls will yelp longer if you store them in the refrigerator or freezer. Also, keep them away from heat and sunlight. No matter how careful you are with your diaphragms, they will eventually wear out. Just be ready to replace them immediately when they do.
Betrayed by Your Box
Box calls are simple creatures, which is partly why we love them. But chalk, that old box-call standby, can complicate things. Ever pull your box out only to find it covered with blue or brown chalk? Or, have you run it and learned it’s yearning for a chalk fix?
Ideally, you want to lightly chalk the paddle of your box call so the chalked paddle contacts unchalked wood on the sound boards. But through time and neglect, chalk will rub off the paddle and collect on the sound boards, dulling the sound of your call.
The fix, of course, is simple: Check your box constantly to make sure there’s sufficient chalk on the paddle — a light, even coating will do — but none on the boards. Carry a small plastic bag with chalk, a scrub pad and even some light-grain sandpaper. If the paddle is dry, chalk it lightly. If the boards have chalk on them, rub it off with a scrub pad or very light sandpaper, being careful not to sand the wood.
Also, it doesn’t hurt to keep your box in a plastic bag so a spring rainstorm won’t soak the wood and smear chalk all over the call. Further, new commercially available box-call savers do more than make sure the call won’t squawk at an inopportune time. They also keep the paddle off the boards so excess chalk won’t transfer to the boards.
Conclusion
Preparation will solve most field-calling dilemmas. However, if you find yourself in a bind, these temporary fixes can help your calls realize their potential.