Seinfeld Voice: Whut's the deal with game calls?

[The-Last-Round]

Thinking about trying crow hunting next year and started looking at electronic calls. 'Bout fell out of my chair looking at the prices.

Is there a reason to spend $200+ on a FoxPro when a wireless bullhorn speaker is just a few bucks?
Ex:Amazon.com : Pyle PMP42BT Bluetooth Megaphone with Bullhorn : Sports & Outdoors

Paint it with a camo rattle can and use my phone to play MP3s of crow sounds to it?


What are you paying for with the pricey game e-callers? I get that they would have been expensive a decade ago if they had proprietary sounds in them, ran off a battery etc. But anymore the sounds are online for free or cheap and wireless sound transmission is easy too.


Basically all I really want is a wireless speaker with a way of loading up some MP3 files. It would be nice to get something self contained like a fox pro but for the money I think I could cobble something together for 20% of the price or less.

Anyway, just curious if anyone has experience with making their own e-caller or why the price is justified with the foxpros and similar.

 

[bigbaloo95]

I am interested in hearing the replies for this question as well. I have thought the same thing. My friend and I use a cheaper caller but it doesn't have enough volume. I wonder if its a sound quality issue?

 

[wsenefeld]

I use my foxpro for coyotes and just for fun I've played with all the sounds. The "crow fight" or "dying crow" will always bring them in but they won't land unless there are decoys set up. They will circle the area overhead for 3-5 minutes before moving on.

I couldn't justify the foxpro price for shooting crows. I like having the speaker about 20 yards in front of me. Some of the coyotes I've called in have come all the way up to the speaker (when shooting at night) and personally, I don't want to get that close while I'm sitting or laying prone. On one occasion a coyote snuck up behind me and came by about 20 ft to my right and kept heading towards the foxpro.

Having a remote speaker makes sense when hunting a predator but for crows you might try less expensive alternatives first.

 

[yote hunter]

If it was that easy then don't you think they would be for sale somewhere ????? A FoxPro is the only way to go, but we to use ours for yote hunt'n and not crows.... Best wishes, As stated above you will prob. need crow decoys to go along with your call whatever you use....????

 

[The-Last-Round]

If it was that easy then don't you think they would be for sale somewhere ????? A FoxPro is the only way to go, but we to use ours for yote hunt'n and not crows.... Best wishes, As stated above you will prob. need crow decoys to go along with your call whatever you use....????

Well, it seems that the hunting industry likes to sell stuff at the highest markup they can and use their margins to buy marketing to get people into the stores. Kind of like razor blades: safety razor blades are cheap as dirt but the shelf space in the stores goes to the pricey disposables. So few people know you can buy an old-fashioned safety razor and mail order the blades.

But maybe there is a reason foxpro can demand so much money but I just don't see what it is. Portability? Volume without distortion or battery life? I dunno. I was looking at the Foxpro snow/crow caller and it's just PA speakers and batteries in a pelican case. With their proprietary circuitry for their special audio codec of course.


Either way, I found some people online doing what I'm talking about. One example: Making a Homemade E-Caller

But again, without trying both I'm not sure if there would be issues with sound quality or whatnot. I'm guessing that for crows you need high volume to draw them in from any distance and to simulate the ruckus a group of the sky bandits make.

 

[wsenefeld]

But maybe there is a reason foxpro can demand so much money but I just don't see what it is. Portability? Volume without distortion or battery life?

Portability, yes.
Volume without distortion, yes.
Battery life... For the remote, yes. For the speaker, eh, mediocre.

 

[Kart29]

Either way, I found some people online doing what I'm talking about. One example: Making a Homemade E-Caller

I wouldn't bother with that setup. I made one like that and it just doesn't work out very well. The speaker sounds very "tinny" and the low powered amp gives distortion at anything above a low volume. I called in a few crows with mine but it's still just a hassle to have all that baggage to fiddle around with.

I use mouth calls mostly and sometimes a Johnny Stewart electronic caller. But I sure wish I had a FoxPro. The remote capability is a worthwhile feature. Trust me - when setting up a coyote calling stand, the last thing you want to be doing is messing around with cords, separate controls for a player, a wireless transmitter, a receiver connected to a speaker, etc. It is just not efficient. It's even more of a mess if trying to use it at night and keep control of lighting at the same time.

I still like the sound of a hand call better than any electronic caller I've ever heard. But the easy portability and simple wireless remote capability of something like a FoxPro makes me wish I had one.