Predator Calls

Predators are intelligent and cunning animals. Nature endowed them with heightened senses to make them good hunters and hard prey. That’s why it’s difficult to harvest predators if you go hunting with nothing but a rifle on your shoulder.

To ease the process and increase the odds for a successful hunting trip, the market offers calling devices and tools. A predator call is used to mimic the sounds of different animals to lure the predator into the range where you can take it with an accurate shot.

To use calls wisely and appropriately, you need to know the basics of animal behavior, what sounds they produce for what reasons, at what time of day, in what season. It's valid for any type of game you are going to hunt. But predators are a special case. They can be attracted both by the sounds of their kind and the calls of their prey.

Coyotes, bobcats, foxes, opossums are hard to outsmart. The longer they live, the more they learn about the world. The chances that a particular predator individual heard calls most often used by non-creative hunters are high. So you can’t stick to a couple of sounds and be successful. Otherwise, your performance won’t attract any audience. Be creative and experiment with your calling techniques.

As far as types of calls are concerned, there are non-electronic (hand-held and diaphragm mouth calls) and electronic calls.

Mouth calls are probably the most difficult to master. But they are small, leave your hand free, and can be extremely versatile if you are skillful enough. 

Hand-held calls can be closed-reed and open-reed. Predator calls are often open-reed as they provide better versatility through using fingers, lips, and teeth to produce high- and low-pitched sounds. Most of them are made to imitate the sounds of jackrabbits and cottontail rabbits, but with some level of dexterity, you’ll be able to use open-reed calls also to produce chicken sounds, fawn bleat, pup-in-distress calls, squirrel noises, and so on.

Hunters choose hand calls for reliability and portability. Using hand calls, you’ll adapt to a situation faster and be able to creatively produce unique distress sounds.

Today, electronic predator calls are even popular among hunters as technologies develop and become cheaper over time. They have numerous advantages like versatility, programmability, ease of use. Novice hunters can use them right away as e-calls don’t require any before-hand practice. Most importantly, the sound source can be separated from a hunter, thus he/she draws no attention their selves. On the other hand, they are expensive and work from batteries which can become a limiting factor in the field.

The best predator electronic calls can employ two speakers to mimic the call of moving prey. The sound will go from one speaker to another to achieve such an effect.

Gritr Outdoors have collected the most capable predator calls available on the market.