(Richard Baxter) CCP

At one point or another you will find you want an e-caller. You will quickly find that there are a lot of e-callers to pick from so which one?

1. Do you want a remote?
2. Do you want a wireless remote?
3. Do you want preloaded sounds?
4. Do you want to load your own sounds?

So many choices and so many price ranges to choose from. So where do we start? First look at your budget and see what price ranges fit in it. Now if the top of the line highest priced caller is a $1000.00 and you have a thousand dollars is this the caller you buy? Yes/No/Maybe? If this is your first e-caller purchase do you really know exactly what features you need? Probably not so how do we find out which one is the one we need.

First look at your setups are you hunting open ground? Wooded grounds or a mixture of both! If you are hunting wooded areas mostly you may not need a remote or wireless remote. A simple on off switch or wired remote will work because more than likely you are not very far from your caller. If you are hunting open ground you may want a wireless remote to get the caller farther away from you.

Look at your sounds what type sounds you want? Do you want it to already have the sounds loaded or the ability to put a preloaded sound card in your caller and go? Or do you have a computer and want to load your on sounds? There are a lot of callers under $150.00 that have the sounds loaded or you can by sound cards for and some have a remote. The ones with the ability to load your on sounds usually range from $300.00 to holy cow that’s expensive and most all in this category have a wireless remote.

I came into the e-caller craze when I left FL (which at that time didn’t allow e-callers) to TN which allowed e-callers. I just had to have one and thought the coyotes would come running in as soon as I turned it on. Well I found they don’t come running in like that but did learn a lot about callers. I have tried many callers through the years and worked a lot of over time trying to pay for them. I first started with a Prey master and fell in love with it. I killed many animals with that caller BUT as human nature got the best of me I thought I had to have a wireless caller so I switched from that to the Foxpro 416 and thought I was in heaven this was going to be my last caller I ever needed BUT then the FX3 came out and I thought I just had to have it more toys on the unit and remote. Then I would find myself wanting the sound the metal speaker on the preymaster produced and starting plugging in my metal preymaster speaker to the Foxpro. This cured me for a little while but found myself still toting a caller a speaker with cord and still using the JS sounds on my Foxpro. SO when I seen the Minaska All In One with built in decoy and most of all a metal speaker and I could program it myself well you guessed it I had to have one. I truly fell in love with the unit and it’s simple to use remote. I have been using it over the last three years and it has served me well. Now I have picked up me a WesternRivers night stalker and have been playing around with it and like the unit and have killed several critters with it. I used it to kill a fox the other day by putting it out the night before. Something I was not able to do with my other e-callers.

After all this e-caller buying I have found they will all call critters they all work well and have had no problems with any of their warranties. My advice is to see what your needs are and don’t worry about your wants. If you feel you need an e-caller find the one that fits your budget (Hard times ahead) the type setups you do and don’t worry about what the other guy is using.

You can find a lot of info on the web about different callers. Beware of some of the biased forums out there they will sometimes force feed you an e-caller brand or try to make you feel lesser for buying another brand. There kind of like going to a Browning gun forum and asking what brand rifle you should buy. You already know what 99% of them or going to say.