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John's Journal...
Entry
79, Day 2
Calling Geese
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Mitch Sanchotena of Middleton, Idaho, a longtime goose hunter
and a pro staffer for Knight and Hale Game Calls, enjoys hunting geese
in the Snake River valley in southern Idaho.
Question: Mitch, how do you decide how you're
going to call the geese?
Answer: I let the geese dictate what my calling strategies will
be. If the birds are pretty vocal and doing a lot of calling, they're
looking for a response, and I better be prepared to give them one. Yet
if the geese are coming in on silent winds and are pretty well committed,
little guttural sounds and single honks may be all that are necessary
for me to make.
Question:
Do you call your geese all the way to the ground?
Answer: I do. Live birds never quit calling when birds are approaching.
I think many hunters make the cardinal mistake of not having the confidence
in their ability to call. Once the bird makes a commitment to come in
at 100 yards or whatever it is, the hunters quit calling. That works fine
the first two weeks of the season when you're hunting all the young, dumb
birds. But we're hunting now nearly 100 days into our season. I think
quitting to call early is bad because you alarm the birds that something
isn't real and something is wrong. Of course all goose hunters have a
hard time reading the geese because these birds don't flare like they
do when they see a person or they see movement within the blind. They
simply lose interest and leave. If you're not calling, then you're not
making the scenario real enough for them to make the final commitment
and get within the critical 30 or 35 yards you need them to be to kill
them.
Question: What calls are you using?
Answer: I'm using the Knight and Hale Double Cluck Plus and the
Knight and Hale Mad Clucker.
Question:
Why do you like those calls?
Answer: I like the effects I can get with the Double Cluck Plus.
As the birds see the decoys, they get pretty excited and make the double-cluck
call. The Double Cluck Plus produces sound both on the exhale and the
inhale. The Mad Clucker is probably one of the farthest-reaching calls
I've ever used, and many times we're pulling our geese from nearly a mile
away.
I
got in touch with Harold Knight probably back in the late '60s. I had
come across a little tube call he made. It had a diaphragm across the
front of it, and it read, "Harold Knight, Cadiz, Kentucky." I was always
looking for something different, so I called information in Cadiz, Kentucky,
and asked for Harold Knight. I got Harold on the phone, and we chatted
for probably an hour and a half. He sent me a couple of calls, and from
that time on I've been fairly loyal to Knight and Hale Game Calls. I've
had good success with them, and the company is good about keeping reeds
available for the calls. I can't think of anything more frustrating than
to have a call you really like, and in three years you can't get a replacement
reed for it. That call becomes almost useless to you.
Tomorrow: The Secret to Calling Late-Season Geese
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