ON-HAND
Place the insert between the thumb and index finger and wrap the rest of your fingers around the call just until your fingertips touch your palm. For most right-handed people, your LEFT HAND will be your on-hand for operating a goose call.
OFF-HAND
Place the thumbs side by side and press the bottoms of your palms together to forming a sound chamber. Place the fingertips of the OFF-HAND onto the knuckles of the ON-HAND. This will help build the back pressure you need to operate the call.
Just like other duck and goose calls, the air you present into the Speck Hammer should come from your diaphragm. There are several ways to characterize the mechanics of forcing air from your diaphragm, such as fogging a mirror, or a quarterback that steps up to the line and barks “HUT HUT” from his gut or diaphragm. Blowing air by puffing out your cheeks, as if you were blowing out a candle, will not produce the sound quality required to effectively use a duck or goose call.
- Your reference word to say into the call is “oot-oot” or “who-who” for making the speck yodel
- You will huff this note into the call in two-note intervals. You will need to experiment on how much air you need to huff into the call to get the pitch you are looking for. The harder you huff into the call, the higher and clearer the notes, and vice versa.
- To reproduce the clucks that specks make, say “K” into the call sharply. It’s almost a squeak of a note, but it works excellent on decoying specklebellies. String together a sequence of these “K” clucks to mimic contented geese feeding together.
Practice these exercises as often as you can. Mastering a specklebelly goose call takes time and practice, as the air presentation is a little different from a Canada goose call and even a mallard duck call. You will definitely appreciate the performance of these calls with a little “hands on” time.