Short reed goose calling tips - what am I doing wrong?
So, after my last message here, I decided to upgrade from my cheap call to a Foiles Strait Meat Honker. The tone seems better and it's less likely to "stick" (not sure the term I'm looking for, but basically where incorrect air volume - too much or too little - creates a very bad note or no note at all), but it still doesn't sound totally realistic.
I can do a cluck sound, but the note is almost "too clean." There's no rasp or depth to it. Per the videos on youtube, I try to create a chamber with one hand, holding the end, and leave a small hole by raising my middle finger higher than the other chamber fingers. I can alter the note's pitch a little depending on how I position my off-hand cupping the chamber hand, but it still sounds a little higher in pitch than geese in the wild. Blowing, I'm trying to keep my tongue behind my bottom teeth (another youtube suggestion) and doing a "too-whit" type blow for two-tone notes, and just the sharp "whit" for single cluck-type notes. I can add a little rasp if I grunt while I blow, but that's still sort of unnatural.
I wish I knew somebody local but unfortunately, no dice. Any suggestions for getting lower notes and more realistic calls in general? At least having splurged on a nice call, I know it's me and not the hardware now.
I see that no one has replied to this yet, sorry for that. Short reed goose calls, at least for me, are very difficult to get the sound that I want. I have tried the $150+ acrylic call and I've paid the $25 for a polycarbonate call. With both scenarios, I end up tuning each of them until I get the sound that I want. But, I am not a huge Canada hunter. We very rarely hunt strictly for geese; usually just duck hunting with a dozen or two goose floaters thrown in and we hunt the traffic birds. I have been able to make good enough sounds with my "tuned" calls to get them close enough to drop. When we hunt in Sascatchewan, our guide uses his mouth and hands, no calls and the geese land in our decoys, then I ask myself why I spend money on calls.
For a lower notes, or more realistic sounds, again for me, I grunt while blowing the call. I first tried this on all my duck calls and it gave me noticably lower note calls and much raspier. I definately do not do this while hail calling. I tired it with my goose calls and it helps some, but by the nature of a short reed goose call, they have higher notes, almost to the point where they don't sound realistic.
I know it can be frustrating trying to master the short reed goose call; I know I still haven't, and I wish you the best of luck. Practice, practice, practice!!!
