Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED
Presented by Winchester Repeating Arms
The birds are working, you can see them cupping their wings and starting to put the landing gear down. You’ve called them into the hole and now it’s just a matter of seconds until you call the shot. You can sense everyone reaching for their guns, but you notice one bird in the back getting antsy and starting to pick up and really beat its wings- so you panic. You give the call to “take ‘em”, but they haven’t quite made it that last 20-30 yards into good kill range. So now you’re chasing cripples, or worrying about birds that you won’t recover. What was going to be a rain-out turned into a cripple chase and a bunch of sideways stares from your hunting buddies because you panicked over one duck and botched the shot call.
There’s an art to knowing how to properly call a shot. Especially on days when the skies are blue, the birds are making more passes than usual, and they aren’t sucking right into your spread like you would hope. Judging distances can be hard for anyone to do. That’s why optic companies make hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on rangefinders. But as waterfowlers, we don’t have the luxury of ranging ducks and geese as they circle the spread to determine what exact range they’re at. We also need to take into account that more often than not there are multiple guns being fired. Making sure everyone gets a safe and realistic shot is also an important factor. So here are some things you shouldn’t do when calling the shot.
First and foremost, if you’re the one calling the shot, you’re the one that dictates the hunt for those that joined you for the day. If you call shots poorly, or you call shots too early or too late that the hunters in your group can’t make, evidently, their lack of success becomes your fault. So you quickly need to become familiar with everyone’s shooting capabilities. How far are people comfortable shooting? Who’s left-handed? Who can shoot to which side? One of the worst things you can do is sit in the blind, and call the shot based on your abilities alone. This is especially true if you’re a long-time waterfowler with lots of experience. Those divers scorching past the decoys at 45 yards might be an easy shot to you, but for the waterfowler who’s not so experienced, you may want to let the birds work and get a better shot. Don’t just assume that because you can make the shot, that everyone else can too.
Another mistake I’ve seen people make is when birds are fighting the wind. Let them come! If the birds are fighting hard to come to the spread, you’ve all but got them in the decoys. Don’t get so worried that they aren’t maple-leafing in. If they’re fighting the wind and still making headway to the decoys, just keep calm and keep coaxing them in on the call. Usually, birds will wait until they can catch a break in the wind, or until they can use the wind to their advantage before they make their descent down into the decoys. Some people get worried that the birds will swing around or just hover in the air. You are at a disadvantage because the birds can take more time to scan the spread and pick apart your hide, but that’s part of the game. Just stay calm, and let the birds come. If the birds want in, they’ll keep coming. Don’t get so panicked that the birds aren’t falling into the spread immediately that you call the shot too early. Once you do that, the birds will lift their wings, hit the wind, and be gone before you can even take one solid shot. Be patient, let them come, and allow yourself a real smackdown when the birds finally get into range.
A third costly mistake that all hunters have made at one point in time is the bad shot call on a slow day of hunting. We’ve all been out in the field on days where the birds aren’t decoying, they aren’t flying, or they just seem to be headed somewhere else; then finally a group starts headed your way. This is always a tricky situation because this shot call requires a good feel for what the birds are doing, and how they’re reacting to decoys, MOJO’s, calls, etc. More often than not, in situations like these, these are birds that aren’t typically going to suck right into the hole and give you a great shooting opportunity. They’re going to circle and pass and circle and pass and see if your spread is somewhere they’d like to land. One thing that you as the shot caller need to keep in mind, is that just because it’s been a slow day, you can’t get antsy and call a bad shot for shooting’s sake. However, on the flip side of the coin, you also need to understand that these are birds that are trafficked in, and aren’t particularly keen on landing somewhere they hadn’t originally intended on. So be focused on the birds and just remember, just because the hunting has been slow, doesn’t mean you need to be over-eager and call a bad shot. Let them work, and the moment they present the shot you’re hoping for, let ‘em have it!
Now, one of the biggest mistakes people make when calling the shot. Getting greedy. We hear it all the time. “One more pass”, “next swing”, “they’ll come closer”, then that all turns into, “sunuvabitch we shoulda shot!”. There’s an easy remedy for this, though. Find a distance everyone’s comfortable shooting (usually it’s marked by the edge of the decoys, or at a certain point in the decoy spread) and once the birds break that mark, regardless of what’s happening, it’s go time. Too many times I’ve had birds cupped and committed, and we got greedy, trying to get more birds to come in, providing more shooting opportunities, and suddenly one bird flared, taking the entire flock with it. Remember, a bird in the hand is better than an entire flock flying over the horizon to the next county over because you didn’t take the damn shot! Don’t get greedy! These are wild birds we’re hunting, and very seldom do they ever decoy perfectly to plan. Make a plan of where you’re going to call the shot and stick to it.
Also, a helpful hint I learned from a guide back in the day as a rule of thumb is, “let the first few birds almost touch the ground or water, then call the shot. That way you have 3 layers of shooting. The birds down low trying to get back in the air, the middle birds trying to gain altitude, and the high birds trying to make an escape for it”.
There’s never a perfect recipe for calling shots. It’s one of those things that just comes with time. But as long as you’re not skybusting, and you’re calling shots that give people a chance at killing birds, everyone should leave the blind happy.
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