By Matt Wettish

[Introduction]

0:36 How you doing? Welcome to Gundogs Online. What I want to do today is talk to you about something that I see happening all the time. It has to do with the laydown call. They call it a murmur, a laydown call. It's basically what you're doing when you're trying to finish birds. I got a couple tips and tactics for you that I think will really help keep that laydown call a lot more realistic and a lot more effective next time you're in the field.

1:02 The first thing I see happening is when people are bringing in birds, they're really excited; they're blowing that call; they're doing all their clucks, their moans, all that kind of stuff. When the birds are committing, they shut it down. They drop right into a laydown call. And that's not what happens. Nobody goes into that flock and actually throws a switch and says, okay, go from excited to go to a laydown call.

And what it sounds like is similar to this. You have all your excitement and then they shut it down. You have [goose calling]. Okay and it's like somebody throws a switch from all those clucks right into the murmur or a laydown call. That's not what happens. I want to give you something here that I think really's going to help you out.

1:53 What I like to do and the things that I recommend doing as far as keeping it more realistic is throwing some clucks in amongst that laydown call. It's going to keep those birds that were excited when the bird's coming in somewhat still excited so you don't lose the entire sound in the attitude of the flock that's on the ground that you're laying in. It's going to sound similar to this

2:14-2:23 [goose calling]

2:24  What that's doing is it's keeping the attitude alive. It's keeping that realism there. What that can do also, is it's going to increase your ability to control those birds if they try to slip away.

2:38 This is my example of how I recommend controlling those birds. If they're cupped and committed and all you're doing is figuring out how you're going to cook them that night and they start slipping away, this is how you can kind of roll a little bit more excitement into that laydown call and not have that drastic difference in the attitude of the overall flock.

2:57-3:11 [goose calling]

3:12 That's an example of keeping that excitement, keeping that overall attitude, grabbing them back by putting a few more clucks, getting a little more aggressive. So if they're slipping away, you get a little hot on them, bring them back in.  Keep that interest involved in your calling.

3:32 So to practice this call, the laydown portion of it is just basically a [simulating call] into the call. Sounds like this [simulating call] [goose calling]. Then you just add your clucks, randomly, no specific time. [goose calling] You can add moans, clucks, whatever. You just want to keep the overall realism of your flock alive. It's going to make you more realistic and it's going to make you more effective.

4:06 So once you practice it, you get it all down pat, I'm sure it's going to help you in the field because I'll tell you what- those finishing moments are so paramount. They are so important in keeping that realism all the way in til you're ready to pull the trigger. It is going to make you more effective. So next time you're in the field, good luck and safe hunting.

4:25  [Closing with goose calling in background]