Hoochie Mamma\'s

Not.


I have no experience with elk hunting, but I am a hunter.


In my unit of 385K acres, they have over 900 hunters a year.
I bet most new/younger elk hunter out there are afraid to use mouth calls, so why not use something easy you just push.

Well, just like any older and mature animal, they learn these sound. Imagine a symphony of hoochie mama calls blasting off from Sept to late Dec...



That is why I had mine custom made. It\'s different and new.....


Speaking of which John, I have not forgotten about you. I just need to upload these sound bites.
 
I have a couple kicking around somewhere.
They work in a pinch I guess
I would recommend learning an open reed call if they dont like diaphrams before using a HM
 
I have one but never use it anymore. It just never lived up to the hype. I am sure if a person wanted to sound like several different elk, a H.M. could be a useful tool. If you just want to make cow sounds, why bother?
 
\"Swede\" said:
If you just want to make cow sounds, why bother?
Click to expand...



Well I have been reading all about calling from this site and other areas and then you say this and makes me think my thought process is wrong.
If elk are talking so much and can be generally louder animals in the woods, am I wrong for thinking that if I am walking around and cow calling, that will cover any additional noise I may make. (I prefer quiet, stealthy, and sneaky :think: )

It wasn\'t my set plan, I was hoping it would draw I in a younger elk too.(who doesn\'t know how bad I am at calling) Or even a cow?
 
I have one but I don\'t ever use it. It might just be me but they just don\'t sound good.
 
Iccy: Obviously I was not clear on what I was trying to say. To me it is just inconvenient to carry around a H.M. I have a Larry D. Jones bite and blow on a string around my neck, several diaphragms in a pouch in my pocket or pack, and a diaphragm in my mouth, so why would I want another?
The H.M got to be so common, that 10 years ago, in high pressure areas you would hear and identify them. Now I don\'t hear them so often, but I have not used mine. I have no issue with them or the people that have one.
The problem with the H.M got to be one of perception. They were so common that people called them the \"Hoochie Cow Scare\". I am sure it did not deserve the bad rap, but every green hunter had one, thinking they were the answer to their calling needs. People were making ridiculous claims about how great they were. I am sure they are fine, if used the same way you would any other cow call.
 
\"Swede\" said:
Iccy: Obviously I was not clear on what I was trying to say. To me it is just inconvenient to carry around a H.M. I have a Larry D. Jones bite and blow on a string around my neck, several diaphragms in a pouch in my pocket or pack, and a diaphragm in my mouth, so why would I want another?
The H.M got to be so common, that 10 years ago, in high pressure areas you would hear and identify them. Now I don\'t hear them so often, but I have not used mine. I have no issue with them or the people that have one.
The problem with the H.M got to be one of perception. They were so common that people called them the \"Hoochie Cow Scare\". I am sure it did not deserve the bad rap, but every green hunter had one, thinking they were the answer to their calling needs. People were making ridiculous claims about how great they were. I am sure they are fine, if used the same way you would any other cow call.
Click to expand...


I probably misunderstood because I agree with everything you just said (see my first post)

I was reading it as \"why would anyone want to make just cow calls\" and it scared me on what plan I had decided to go with this season :dk:
 
I want to touch on a key point that Dan brings ups. How many hunters and how they use them. I can image, a hunter walking through the woods push it every 20 yards. Do you really think that is what a real cow does? How many have heard a cow do that? Now take that one hunter and multiply it by x number of times. Not the hoochie sound, but instead its repetitive and unreal expressions.

Now, imagine a restless herd. Maybe one cow is upset with another. Several short burst of cows talk, with sounds walking over each other. Very hard, if not impossible, for a hunter to mimic this. Unless, you have a call in your mouth, and one in each hand. Maybe a more realistic expression of what you\'d expect to hear in a herd. :think:

Play on the elks curiosity? Maybe?
 
I have noticed that Primos calls have a tendency to sound the same. From the HM to their bugles.
 
Come on guys/gals, I want to hear from everyone. Even if you don\'t have a lot of experience. The newbies can contribute just like everyone else. What have you seen or heard? As a newbie, do you find yourself interested in them because you can\'t use a reed?
 
I have two HMs...one i found out in the woods. I rarely use one. I do prefer the mouth reeds because of the versatility in different sounds. Plus I don\'t have to fumble around getting my call out if one is in my mouth. The only time I use a HM is in conjunction with a grunt tube. I think it sounds better with the tube.....not sure the elk agree with me or not on that however. I like being able to mix things up from time to time.
 
Eastmans Hunting Journal had a subscription drive a couple years ago in which you got a free hoochie with a new subscription. I got in on the deal, but have yet to use it. I think it sounds fine, but just always have a diaphragm in my mouth. Used in conjunction with a mouth call to sound like multiple cows might be the secret weapon we use this fall. The biggest problem I see with them is that about every hunter has one, & thinks great things will happen if they just keep tootin on it. It\'s a decent call, just miss used way too often.
 
I guess I like to add a personal element to my calling. I enjoy the challenge of learning calling technique. Pushing a button doesn\'t interest me. I don\'t use one. I hunt with guys that don\'t invest the time it takes to learn to use any call, even a bite and blow. They carry one. It has not called an elk to them but it is a tool in their toolbox.
 
8 years ago when a friend dragged me out of bed to call for her new interest in elk bowhunting, she handed me a HM and said use this. By the 2nd or 3rd year of calling for her, I used the mac daddy mouth piece off a bugle tube. I found I could vary the tone and intensity with that mouth call and show emotion in the call. This brought them to us, so the HM stayed in the pack.

5 years ago when I became the hunter, I started using the open reeds (single & double hyper lip, sceery ace) with mixed results. Last year, I added mouth reeds and tried adding the HM in for herd talk for cold calling setups. No luck with this in my hunting area. I wasn\'t good at herd talk.

Also last year, I could not figure out how to do calf sounds with mouth or open reed calls. I bought the baby HM to see what sound that made. It sounded terrible.

At a Chris Roe seminar last month, his advice on the HM was to remove the rubber end and throw the sound around, plus cup your hand around the end of it to vary the sound.

Since my results are best when I do a single light cow mew or a single whiny cow call, the HM is likely to stay in my pack. I prefer the open reed calls. I can fine tune the intensity, tone and pitch with open reeds. However, I will not totally dismiss any tool. With the surge of new hunters last year in my hunting area, the HM is not likely the right tool.

I am currently practicing making calf sounds with my voice only. That may be my ticket to having a unique sound over other hunters. My best results are when I use the mac daddy mouth piece. Perhaps because no other hunters are using it in my hunting area.
 
Here\'s my spin. I\'m not an elk hunter yet. I consider myself a veteran turkey hunter though so I\'ll apply my turkey hunting logic. You can buy push button yelpers made by various manufacturers and most sound about the same depending on the material they are made out of. They are virtually automatic providing you do a little maintenance on them. Will they work? Sometimes. If you used them in conjunction with another call in the right situation they have a place. If you only learn how to operate that call and that\'s what you are depending on to call in a gobbler on pressured public land birds in Southeast Missouri, you should probably just concentrate on looking for mushrooms. :lol: I think a HM would be about the same, you can\'t put emotion into it. You can\'t make it sound like a different cow or multiple cows or a cow making different sounds so it\'s very limited. I don\'t own one. When I started this elk hunting quest, looking at calls, I took the same approach as iccyman. I like calls that are different, not sold at Wal-Mart or Bass Pro and not readily available to most hunters. I\'m not knocking anybody that uses calls from those stores, I just want something that\'s different and hopefully gives me an advantage. I believe turkeys recognize calls that have similiar sounds and it doesn\'t help when most hunters are calling from gravel roads and logging roads. I am assuming elk will be the same way. Hopefully I made good choices on my calls and sound decent enough this fall to fool a dumb bull that doesn\'t hear that well :lol:
 
I\'ve been known to keep one in my cargo pocket ... and use it in conjunction with a diaphragm to simulate multiple elk.
 
Got a question here and please don\'t don\'t be offended but why does someone want to sound \"different\"? I have always tried to sound exactly like an elk. I have a friend that raises elk and sometimes I will go to his place just to sit and listen. I really can\'t say that I have ever heard one that sounded \"different\". They all sound pretty much alike but with some variations in intensity and duration. Am I missing something?
 
I don\'t even carry one anymore. They sound too much like a robot and not enough like an elk. Sure the single note sounds good but you cannot imitate a real elk or several elk with one. They are useful to locate other elk nearby that may respond to the sound though. A good thing about them is that you can easily tell when it is a hunter calling and not elk!
 
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