Ya'll got me interested enough to call in coyotes and I just got my Foxpro FX3. Probably a dumb question but - How loud is too loud, or what is loud enough? I live in the midwest with the land composing of woods and cornfields - not the huge open expanses of the West.

Thanks.

Many, if not most new callers, and many "seasoned" callers as well, tend to use too much volume. This can blow out critters that are close and make critters coming in more cautious. I have rarely turned up any of my e-callers up past 1/2 volume. I do a lot of calling in west Texas where we do have strong winds. We need to remember how good a predator's hearing really is. Can you hear a mouse moving under the snow at 100 yards?

Start out at 1/4 volume or less depending on what caller you are using. This will call in the close ones. You would be surprised how close a coyote, fox, or bobcat may be to us when we set up. After a couple of minutes, try turning it up half way for 30-60 seconds and then turn it down to about 1/4 to 1/3 volume. This will get the long distance runners on their way.

When you have them on string heading in you can turn the volume down some more or turn it off entirely and lip squeak them the last 100-200 yards. I personally turn the volume down a bit if I don't have it turned down already. I also use a decoy by the caller.

Getting new predator callers to tone down the volume has always been one of the biggest challenges and frustrations for Gerald Stewart, of Johnny Stewart Game Calls fame. He preached and preached this constantly back when we were all using the JS cassette caller, with only a few sounds, one sound per each cassette. (Imagine being successful with only 4-8 sounds to use?)

Over the holidays, on my annual New Mexico Coyote Safari, I had coyotes in front of me between 30 seconds and seven minutes. We could see the "7 minute" coming in from 3/4 of a mile.

With that said, remember, the first rule in calling coyotes is that there are no rules. Nothing is set in granite. Beware of the "the only way to call successfully is my way" crowd.

Good Hunting,

Bob

Thank you very much. I can't wait to try this out. I don't think the coyotes have been hunted around here at all and have really increased.