# How many of you can run a tube call....



## Arrow3 (Feb 24, 2008)

Me and Jody bought a couple today at the convention...The ones we bought were made by Derek Fowler...


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## Jody Hawk (Feb 24, 2008)

I'm so good on mine that I've got two gobblers standing here at my back porch right now !!!!!!!!!!!!  I love a tube call and I'm gonna master this thing before it's all said and done. I'm getting pretty good yelps and clucks out of it.


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## Arrow3 (Feb 24, 2008)

Jody Hawk said:


> I'm so good on mine that I've got two gobblers standing here at my back porch right now !!!!!!!!!!!!



You need to get your eyes checked...Thats little bit and Molly.....


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## rex upshaw (Feb 24, 2008)

not me, but i am going to try to make one....saw some guy on one of the turkey hunting shows make one the other day.  used a 3/4 inch piece of pvc pipe, a rubber glove, rubber bands, a circular piece of plastic from the top of a whip cream or butter tub (which was then cut in half to make a half moon and put over one side of the tube call, glue and camo tape.  it was amazing the sounds he was able to produce from that call, including a realistic gobble.  to get it to carry a little further, he said to cut the top off of a 1 liter plastic water bottle.


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## Jody Hawk (Feb 24, 2008)

rex upshaw said:


> not me, but i am going to try to make one....saw some guy on one of the turkey hunting shows make one the other day.  used a 3/4 inch piece of pvc pipe, a rubber glove, rubber bands, a circular piece of plastic from the top of a whip cream or butter tub (which was then cut in half to make a half moon and put over one side of the tube call, glue and camo tape.  it was amazing the sounds he was able to produce from that call, including a realistic gobble.  to get it to carry a little further, he said to cut the top off of a 1 liter plastic water bottle.



Rex,
If you can find the old prescription pill bottles without the child proof lids, they work great too. All you have to do is cut the bottom out of the bottle, cut half the lid off and stetch the latex across the top and replace the lid. The plastic mass produced ones work good too and are pretty cheap. I just wanted a nice custom made wooden one.


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## Al33 (Feb 24, 2008)

I have a couple of custom tubes. I could learn to play a fiddle easier than I could learn to master one of these tube calls.

I gave up trying a long time ago. The way I saw it was that if I couldn't get a tom in with a box, slate, glass, scratch, wingbone, or diaphragm call then I would just quit hunting toms.


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## Jody Hawk (Feb 24, 2008)

Al33 said:


> I have a couple of custom tubes. I could learn to play a fiddle easier than I could learn to master one of these tube calls.



That's probably me too Al. I'm persistant though.


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## rex upshaw (Feb 24, 2008)

Jody Hawk said:


> I just wanted a nice custom made wooden one.



i can relate to that.  i don't think i will be buying any mass produced calls in the future....not that they will not call in turkey's, because they will, but i would rather pay double the first go round with a custom call, that i know has the sound i want as well as the idividual standing behind his product (not to mention the added benefit of it being a good looking call), than be unsatisfied with a mass produced call and have to pay for another one...not knowing if this one will sound the way you want it to...and not being able to exchange the call if it isn't what you are looking for.


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## robertyb (Feb 24, 2008)

I used to use one. It takes a lot of practise. I quit when I lost my last one and realized that there are so many good cheap calls today that it was no longer needed.


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## Dudley Do-Wrong (Feb 24, 2008)

I think I can run one OK, I almost sold out at the T'rama


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## dognducks (Feb 24, 2008)

I have one that I use for gobbling only. I'm not confident enough in my other sounds i make with it. But for gobbling at a turkey it works pretty decent.


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## brucemacgee19 (Feb 24, 2008)

love them......  on windy days that you need more volume.  I have one that's big barrel like a megaphone (L and L calls).  something I was disappointed about at the show was....... when I walked through on sat,  I saw three different tube calls for sale.  and out of those three, it looked and played like they were made by the same guy.  and on top of that none had baffles in the them. nashville last year I know I saw atleast thirty.  but sometimes I'm glad that people don't like them...... when I get on a pressured bird or a call shy bird......that's when I like them.  so in hind sight I hope everyone quits makin them.  but if they do......throw some baffles in them and put some time into them.  cause there are still some guys that will buy the hound out of them.  
got a cornbread's call ordered gonna pick it up at the dixie deer classic next weekend.  if he don't have his baby he said he was gonna be there.  it's called the "strumpet"  awsome call!!!! one of a kind


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## trkyhntr70 (Feb 25, 2008)

I used to use one for a locator, Ive gotta get some reeds for that thing.. Those custom ones you guys got are pretty.


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## Slings and Arrows (Feb 25, 2008)

I allways have a couple in the vest.  Make em out of film canisters - just use the bottom - sergical glove - rubber band.  If you cut barely more than 1/2 of the bottom out, you can create gobbler yelps, clucks and a good gobble.  Try a little less than 1/2 and pull double edge from glove finger for raspy hen.


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## SheldonMOAC (Feb 26, 2008)

I can run a tube call.  Kee-kee, cut, gobble and yelp.  I do not use it that often.  I tend to use mouth calls more than anything, but I have killed several turkeys over the years with a tube call.  I have one of David Mills tube calls and it is the best I have ever ran.


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## striper commander (Feb 26, 2008)

I made one out of a film canister that I can run pretty good. I just can't seem to gobble with it. I am gonna buy a nice one sometime in the future.


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## Greg Tench (Feb 26, 2008)

I can run one but Im no expert. I can cluck and gobble with it and get decent sounding yelps. It takes lots of practice for sure.


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## stev (Feb 26, 2008)

Jody Hawk said:


> I'm so good on mine that I've got two gobblers standing here at my back porch right now !!!!!!!!!!!!  I love a tube call and I'm gonna master this thing before it's all said and done. I'm getting pretty good yelps and clucks out of it.


pretty boy& girl


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## Slings and Arrows (Feb 26, 2008)

300mag said:


> I made one out of a film canister that I can run pretty good. I just can't seem to gobble with it. I am gonna buy a nice one sometime in the future.



ti-ka-ti-ka-ti-ka-ti-ka like a fast mallard feeding call


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## jcarter (Feb 26, 2008)

ive got 3 or 4 that i made from old snuff cans. they cluck and yelp pretty good. once you sit on them a couple of times they seem to lose their sound though.


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## rutandstrut (Feb 26, 2008)

rex upshaw said:


> not me, but i am going to try to make one....saw some guy on one of the turkey hunting shows make one the other day.  used a 3/4 inch piece of pvc pipe, a rubber glove, rubber bands, a circular piece of plastic from the top of a whip cream or butter tub (which was then cut in half to make a half moon and put over one side of the tube call, glue and camo tape.  it was amazing the sounds he was able to produce from that call, including a realistic gobble.  to get it to carry a little further, he said to cut the top off of a 1 liter plastic water bottle.



You can make one from a 35MM Film Canister that will work really well. All you need is a Straight Razor Blade or Pocket Knife, Rubber Band, Piece of Latex and you can make a tube in less than 10 Minutes. If you want to make the call with a Baffle start out with a 1/4" hole in the bottom of the call and increase the size until you find what works for you. This will keep some back pressure on the reed and allow the call to be played much easier. IMO A Tube and a Trumpet are the hardest calls to master.

Here is a link to see how they are made:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/hunting/biggame/article/0,13199,1181558,00.html


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## turkkillr (Feb 26, 2008)

Try Cornbread's Biscuit.Its a wooden snuff can size tube call..Small and lots of volume.


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## silvestris (Feb 26, 2008)

Here are instructions for tuning the tube caller:

http://www.mdwfp.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12342

After tuning you have to learn to use the caller.  More factors go into properly using a tube type or snuff can caller than any other caller. The caller has to be tuned; the caller has to be properly positioned; the lip pressure has to be correct; the air pressure has to be correct; you must learn to mouth phrases and remember what phrases gave you which results. In essense, the tube caller is a musical instrument and will require much perfect practice to achieve your desired goals.

Lets talk about positioning. The rubber membrane should be at 12 o'clock. Your upper lip should rest lightly on the top of the can and should not touch the vibrating half moon membrane. It is exactly the opposite of drinking from a coke bottle. The lower lip should be lightly against the opening created in tuning the caller. With this position you are ready to call.

Insofar as lip pressure is concerned, I believe the lighter the better, to a point. Generally you will find that the lightest pressure will give you more rasp and a lower tone with the caller; increasing pressure will give you a higher tone and and a clear call. Both are important and useful in calling. Control, knowing what you wish to say and saying it, is the key.
A problem many have is blowing too hard. When you blow out candles at your birthday party your cheeks balloon out; this is not what you want. Should you watch a real pro with the tube, you will notice that you can barely discern from his cheeks that he is even blowing at all.  I suggest that you stand in front of a mirror and watch your cheeks as you call. You should just see a small rymthmic vibration as you yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp. It doesn't take much air and what air you use comes from your diaphram. A decent duck caller knows what I'm talking about. I place my tongue to the roof of my mouth for a starting position such that I can't blow air out of my mouth without mouthing a phrase. 

Mouthing a phrase. Isn't that a delightful term. You bet it is if you learn to do it. It is all in what you say. I am going to give you two exercises and I want you to do nothing but these two exercises for the next two weeks. I want you to practice as much as you can on these exercises, but certainly no less than fifteen minutes a day. Of course, practice positioning, lip pressure and air pressure. Mouthing a phrase is different than saying a phrase. When you mouth a phrase you do everything you would do when speaking a phrase except you don't use your larynx. Mouth "tik"; do it several times; do it in succession; change your cadence. In essence, just make high piched, sharp clucking sounds. Then while your are ticking change to "tak"; play with "tak" a while then change back to "tik"; then do a little "tik-tak", "tik-tak"; then some "tak-tik". Throw in a little "tok" and start to mix it up. Listen to the sounds you are making and remember what procedures gave you that sound. Well I'll be danged, that was a perfect Cutt you just produced. Do it again. And again.  It is all about repeating a process that you have learned by practice will produce a certain distinctive sound, a turkey sound.

The second exercise is not going to sound anything like a turkey. You are going to have to trust me on this one. It will really pay some big dividends and much sooner than you might suspect. But promise me that for the next two weeks you will not try to yelp. What you are trying to do during this two week period is to gain control over the caller. Once you have control over the caller you will never lose it. You want to make a high pitched clear as a bell tone. No rasp. The sound you want to make is an even sound. It is high like a squeal but not squealy. Clear, even, high. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. The sound is made merely by tightening your lips somewhat and lightly blowing air from your diaphram. Hold it as long as you can. Practice so that clear, even, high sound can be made at will. It might not come overnight, but if you only practice these two exercises and don't attempt to yelp for two weeks, by that time it will be automatic. Loosen you lips until you get not an Eeeeeeeeeeeee, but an Ohhhhhhhhhh or Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This sound will be lower and not as clear. Remember, tight lips produce high, clear sounds; loose lips sink ships and produce lower, raspy sounds. Once you have your Eeeeeeeeeeeeees and Ohhhhhhhhs and Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhs down, start mixing them up. EeeeeeeeeeeOhhhhhhhhhhhhh. EeeeeeeeeeeOhhhhhhhhhhhhh. EeeeeeeeeeeOhhhhhhhhhhhhh. You will not want to make an OhhhhhhhhhEeeeeeeeee, ever, so you only have to practice one way, high to low.

Don't neglect the drills and practice those sounds occasionally as they are the foundation for the turkey sounds.

Since we have touched on clucking sounds, remember the tik-tak-tok, let us start there. Clucking, putting, cutting, cackling and roost pitting are the sounds I classify in the clucking category. Cackling will be touched on later for reasons which will become obvious. Tik and tak and tok are primarily used to make a cluck. Tic will have a higher sound than tak which is higher than tok. That is all there is to it. A harder cluck is higher (and louder) than a softer cluck. Practice and listen to the sounds you produce until you get what you consider to be a perfect cluck. Remember what you did to produce the sound and practice making the sound until it becomes second nature. Experiment. I cannot describe a putt. Lovett Williams says it is the context in which the call is made which makes it a cluck or a putt. I know I have seen the elbows and ********s of a turkey on a number of occasions upon hearing what to me sounded like a cluck. I cannot always discern the difference.
Cutts as I describe them are two or more notes which seem to contain one syllable, but has a skating effect which when listened to carefully will sound like two or three separate sounds combined into the one syllable. It is very difficult to describe. But the cutts, or syllables, are made in rapid succession and if several are made, the cadence will be irregular. You have heard cutting and know what I mean. If not, get a Lovett Williams Real Turkeys tape or CD.   Call along with the tape or CD and you will soon be a master cutter.

Roost pits are even faster and more irregular than cutts, but softer. These calls are made from excited hens before flydown. I think they are possibly made by the hens with their mouths closed as they are usually not that loud. I've always believed that hens make tree yelps with their mouths closed as well. I prefer to roost pit on a slate type caller that has a good grab because you have a bit more control with the striker than you have with the tube caller for that particular call and the slate type pits are softer.

Yelping is why you are here primarily, so lets get to it. Essentially the yelp is nothing but starting with the high note you practiced in the last lesson and falling off into the low note. EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeOhh, EeeeeeOhh, EeeeOhh, but there is a better more consistent way, the mouthing phrases way. To yelp, I mouth the phrase "Tchook". It is like saying chuck to sound like the word took with the mouth beginning with a T. I have tried several phrases but I believe tchook gives me the best yelp. Remember, you are not saying the phrase, you are mouthing (perhaps whispering) the phrase. You want your yelp to have a snappy chopping cadence like you were trying to chop down a tree with a hatchet using perfect turkey rhythm. All yelping sequences have a chopping rhythm, though sometimes is seems implied; it is there. I am going to use a two yelp sequence some this year. I had some jakes moseying around me the tail end of the season for an hour doing nothing but a two note yelp sequence. I found the sound to be calming even though I was periodically getting a glance at two fine gobblers at fifty yards the whole time. I think the call may have its place and I intend to find out. A two yelp sequence doesn't really give you a chance to develop a rhythm; as long as you are close in cadence, I think you will be alright. With the third yelp a cadence is started and continued to the end of the sequence, no matter how long. I heard a hen one morning yelp 45 times in succession and the cadence was uniform. I have her on tape somewhere.

You are going to throw this caller down several times until you begin to develop a sense of confidence. Pick it back up and go again. When you feel frustration coming on, give it a rest. But go back to it; it is a marvelous caller.

I said earlier I would get back to the cackle. I address it here because, basically a clucking sound, the fly down cackle has a yelping element. Ka - tik - tik - tak - tak - tak - tak - tchook - tchook - tchook - tchook - tchook or any number of variations of the same is the fly down cackle. The fly up cackle and fly across the creek cackle are just about the same. They do not have the yelping element: Ka - tik - tik - tak - tak - tik with more or fewer notes. I find that most hens end this cackle with a high note (tik). Cackles are really variable. I don't think that turkeys really mind if you give a fly down cackle later in the day, in fact, I believe the yelping element appeals to the gobblers.

Purrs. Pdt-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t rapidly but short. Basically it is a flutter of the tongue. I have a whistle that I took the cork ball out of to see if I could get a presentable kee-kee. I can take that whistle and make it sound like it still contained the cork ball. You know what a whistle is supposed to sound like. If you have trouble getting the caller to purr, get a whistle and cut out the ball. Then try to make the whistle flutter without the ball. When you can do that, you can then switch to the tube and make a perfect purr. Practice tak- Pdt-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t; tak- Pdt-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t; tak- Pdt-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t - Pdt-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t. Hopefully, you won't need the whistle, but if needed I think it can get you where you want to be. Once you have your purrs down, moisten the end of your index finger and try strumming the membrane from the inside with your finger while you purr. You may find that you are creating some amazing turkey sounds. Your purrs can be variable. Purr a little harder and your contentment purrs break out into a fight, or aggravated purr. I believe the tube makes the best fighting sounds of all callers.

Gobbling. I believe that nothing gobbles like a tube caller. Kenny Morgan, who invented and produces his Morgan Caller, mouths the phrase "Kutt-Yeow" into the caller while strumming the rubber membrane with his index finger. He is better than me so I suggest you work some with this method. I do it a little differently. First, without the finger inside the caller, mouth Kut-tuk-a-tuk-a-tuk-a-tuk-a-tuk into the caller first with tight lower lip and relax your tightness until you get a presentable gobble. Practice this a lot until are comfortable in producing a decent sound. When you feel pretty good about your sound, moisten the end of your index finger and strum the membrane as you gobble. I think it sounds pretty good and by varying the tightness of your lips and the strumming method and the force, you will be able to produce both a presentable old gobbler and a jake gobble. The gobble can be a productive call when used correctly on the right gobbler. The gobble of the old gobbler is probably not as productive as the jake gobble. If the turkey you are calling to is dominant in the pecking order, he may come to investigate the intruder, no matter what the age. However, I think he is as likely, if not more so, to investigate the jake gobble. If the turkey you are calling to is submissive to another, he is probably more likely to come to the jake gobble. If the dominant gobbler in the area allows other gobblers to observe, the submissive gobbler may come to the gobble of the old turkey. Getting a handle on the turkey you are hunting is difficult today with so many hunters in the woods.

I use the jake gobble about 90 per-cent of the time when I gobble. I just think the odds are higher with the jake gobble. There is one situation in which I use the old gobble. If I am in an area and I have another hunter invade my space and I am in walking distance of another good hunting spot, I will use the old gobble to lock the intruder into his location, perhaps answering him two or three times, before I leave for the other location. I assume he is walkin' and talkin' and I want him to stay here and not inadvertently follow me to my new spot as he rambles. He has had fun; he has a story to tell about that old gobbler who just wouldn't come; and with a little footwork, I just may be able to salvage a hunt.

Here are some audio sounds of how I use the caller:

http://media.putfile.com/Morgan-Caller-pt-1-80

http://media.putfile.com/Morgan-Caller---Pt-2

Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope some of you find it helpful.


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