How to Call to Ducks with a Feed Chuckle

Calling ducks to a set of decoys can be a challenge. The common situation is a set of decoys spread near a blind occupied by the hunter or hunters. It is up to you to provide the soundtrack to go with the visual attraction of the decoys. The feed chuckle is one of the calls used to accomplish this. The feed chuckle mimics the sounds of confident flying ducks, making it an important part of the hunter's sound arsenal.

Things You'll Need

• Duck call
• Duck decoys
• Duck blind

Instructions

1. Break the stream of air that you force through the duck call with the tip of your tongue, according to GundogsOnline. Make the single cut chuckle by using your tongue to break up a sound similar to "ti-ca" or "tu-ca."

2. Break the stream of air first with the tip of your tongue and then with the back of your tongue to perform the double cut chuckle. Your tongue should perform a rocking motion to create the two breaks or cuts in the call. Crisp movements of your tongue will produce crisp and sharp sounds similar to the natural sounds of a duck.

3. Monitor the sounds made by other ducks in the area. The best duck call is one that sounds as close as possible to sounds made by the local ducks.

4. Make long strings of call sounds while the ducks are far away. As they approach the blind, cut back to sets of four or five repetitions of each sound.

5. Perform the feed chuckle, and any other duck calls, with one hand. In hunting situations, having one hand on your call and one hand on your gun may be the best approach for the greatest hunting success.

Tips & Warnings

• The feed chuckle is supposed to sound like a content, confident duck. The ducks flying above the decoy set will be more receptive to landing near the blind if they hear the confident feed chuckle. Some hunters believe the call may mimic the confident sound of one of the ducks in the flying flock, rather than a sound coming from the feeding flock.

• Practice sessions, especially if you can compare recordings of your calls to the calls of experts available online, are ideal as you prepare for the duck season.

• The feed chuckle is not the most important call in the duck hunter's repertoire, according to GundogsOnline. The call is best used as a confidence builder in conjunction with calls that get the attention of distant ducks and calls referred to by hunters as the "comeback call".

References

• Wildfowl Magazine: Duck Calling Strategies
• GundogsOnline: If You Could Just Teach Me to Chuckle