Back in the day when I was in my early teens in the 60’s, I got hold of a P.S. Olt catalog that was full of various mouth calls. I was too poor to have anything but a mouth call. After a lot of dreaming and yearning my Mother gave me, as I recall, $1.75 of hard to come by money to purchase my first ever call, a P.S.Olt Crow Call. We didn’t have coyotes back then, so crows became the logical target. I actually became pretty good at it and regularly brought down crows with that call and with 12 ga. Iver Johnson single shot. I surprised my Dad since he didn’t think I would be very successful.
I later acquired catalogs of Johnny Stewart and Burnham Brothers that had electronic calls, record player types and I would practically foam at the mouth with desire for one but too poor to give it any real consideration. Then, one Christmas my parents got me what I consider to be my best ever Christmas present, a Burnham Brother’s electronic call. It played the 45 rpm records that were prevalent at the time (Johnny Stewart Crow & Owl Fight was my favorite). It was heavy as an anvil, bulky, but boy did it produce. I soon found out that rather than a lone crow responding to my mouth call, I was suddenly swarmed by them. The old single shot Iver Johnson struggled to keep up.
I guess my point is that there’s something special about using a mouth call, kind of classic in a sense, more natural and pure. I have since called a few bobcats with mouth calls, however I have called more crows and predators with the electronics. I am just glad we have both to choose from and to use on any given day when we feel like it. Hopefully mouth calls will not go the way of the dinosaur, and I don’t they will, though no doubt demand may not be as good as before.
