Cutdown Master Class | How to Blow a Cutdown Duck Call | MONDO

are you having difficulty making your cut down sound good do you think that a cut down is just too hard to blow well if that's you maybe this video will be just what you need today i'll share with you some things that nobody's talking about a unique approach to learning and mastering the cut down so grab your call we're gonna do this together i'm joel strickland and this is surviving duck season [Music] thanks for watching survive and duck season where we feed your waterfowl obsession and help you to maximize your hunting experience now if you're new to my channel i have lots of videos some incredible duck hunts diy projects and the most extensive video library of duck hunting tips tactics and tutorials that you can find anywhere on youtube so make sure you check out some of my other videos too now today i have some cut down demonstrations and some instructionals to help you with your cut down calling after watching this video i'd really like to get some of your feedback let me know how it helps you and tell me about your journey as a duck caller now this video is going to be pretty long it's a very comprehensive video and you're likely going to want to watch it multiple times the first time or two you watch it you'll probably need to watch it all the way through so you'll fully understand all of it in context but i've also added some chapter markers in the description part of this video so that once you master certain aspects of the call you'll be able to kind of move through and skip to just the spots that you need to work on be patient it may take you months or even longer to fully get it a lot of guys have trouble blowing a cut down call i did too it was very very tough for me but today i'm going to share with you the secret that helped me overcome the barrier that was holding me back now i've never shared this before but this is a story from back in the days when i was learning to pull a cut down i'd been very frustrated there was virtually no videos or other information about how to blow a cut down it was like it was a secret society or something and one day i was going through some old stuff and came across this cedar box that i had found many years before now this is quite a remarkable story but back in 1990 i'd been hunting a lot in the black swamp which is on the cash river in arkansas and along the bank of the river as we traveled back and forth there was this old abandoned school bus now we we passed it every day when we traveled on the river well one day we decided to stop and take a look inside the bus now this bus must have been there for many years there were trees growing around it and through part of it vines all over the place and there wasn't even a road going to where the bus had been left just woods well as we entered into the bus we found that all of the seats had been removed and there were several cots an old camp stove and things like that and under a dilapidated chair i found that cedar box so many years later as i rediscovered this box and was looking through its contents inside it had an old razor a pocket knife a tattered very well used new testament bible in a really cool hunting journal there was also this medallion looking object after closer examination i realized something that i hadn't seen 20 years before it opened like a locket it had this cool looking icon inside of it then suddenly it was something i would have never believed could happen if i wasn't there myself i was face to face with a very wise man who revealed many things about duck hunting to me and some of the most extraordinary things he talked about was duck calling i shared with him about my struggles of using a cut down call and this is what he said patience you must have remember not the things which you've learned of other calls consider not what you've been told about the struggles of the cut down right i'll try that do or do not there is no try master the cut down he wanted me to be confident and make the commitment to doing it to learning the call the way show you i will different is the cut down call saying the notes they make yet different approach does the trumpet and saxophone make the same notes yeah they do thinking of it in that way made so much sense to me it really is a different instrument that makes the same notes this new way of thinking was a pivotal point in my journey as the master continued pouring out his wisdom i knew it was my destiny to call ducks with a cut down style call always pass on what you have learned and to share it with the world so here are some takeaways commit to mastering the call and don't be frustrated believing that the call is too hard it's only different it's a mindset thing forget what you've learned about other calls which you know about calling and think of your cut down call as a completely different instrument just like a goose call is different than a duck call kind of think of it that way we're going to start with the most basic part of the call and it's how do you hold a call you're going to hold your your cut down stop call the same way you would any other duck call you know put it in your hand like this set set the call just like this to where you can clamp all the way down on it now you're not going to blow like that but that's just kind of gives you an idea of how it needs to feel in your hand and then you're going to put the call to your lips just like this just like you're going to drink a bottle of mountain dew now something else to consider that's very important is the orientation of the reed and the tone board in relation to where you're holding the call to your mouth and what i mean is where is the tone board and the reed is the reed on top or on the bottom or is it sideways like this i have found that it's important to have it oriented either up and down one way or the other like this and not sideways and so what i like to do is put the tone board on the top and the reed on the bottom and and then when i you know put the call back together then i always make sure that when i put it to my lips to call that that's the way it is now you can you can certainly see it very simply by looking you know down the barrel of the call but i also tied on my lanyard in such a way that i can feel the knot touch touch my hand and so it always feels the same so i'm not always having to look now if you've had trouble with being inconsistent with your calling whether with a cut down or any other kind of call that may be your problem next what we're going to do is we're going to present clean air into the call no grunting no vocalizations no humming any of that kind of stuff in fact i really don't like any type of grunting uh in in any call but especially in a cut down call just really makes it sound funky what i'm going to do is i'm going to huff very lightly into the call just to produce a sound i'm showing you this how little air it actually takes to make the reed vibrate to make a sound [Music] see how little it is i'll blow a little bit louder now see it just doesn't take much you try it yourself just huff into the call the point i'm trying to make is you don't have to blow super duper loud to get sounds it's as a mindset thing i'm telling you it's not as hard as you think you just have to think about calling on a cut down differently than you would on another kind of call so now the next thing we're going to do is i'm going to show you some real duck sounds that i make on a call we're going to start with a quack but i don't want you to try to make a quack in your call first i'll tell you what i want to do listen to what a quack sounds like okay all right now don't cheat and don't call first what i want you to do before we do that is i'm going to tell you what i'm doing and then i'm going to ask you to do something a little bit different so that's the quack again now let's flip it around backwards so that when i blow through the call you don't hear the reed vibrate it makes a just a wind sound i want you to hear what my wind is doing you hear that i'm just blowing air from my diaphragm through my mouth and i'm stopping the note with my tongue almost a t sound that closes off the air when you blow a duck call at least on a cut down call we don't want to stop with our throat we don't want to stop by stopping the airflow we want to stop it with our tongue okay that's a quack okay you try it it's really important that you want to get as much volume of air coming through as possible you want to open your throat up you don't want to compress you don't want to be like this you want to oh just like you would say ah that's what you're trying to do with the wind coming through your throat and you know all the way out through your mouth through the call you want to open it up and it's a lot of pressurized air just like if you're going to blow up a balloon if you can think of it in those terms you're you're forcing the air all the way through your throat and out your mouth we're not puffing our cheeks we're keeping our our mouth very very stiff uh if you've ever played a wind instrument before like a trumpet or whatever you remember the term embouchure you want to keep that same thought process when you're blowing a duck call let's practice it again through the back of your call and then when you get it sounding right blow along with me in my opinion it's so very important to master the sound of the quack before moving on and trying to do a bunch of other things because the quack is the building blocks of all of our calling so if this is your first time watching this video make sure you watch it all the way through just so you can kind of hear the whole picture of what you're going to be doing but i really encourage you not to move forward until you get the quack down pat it may take you several weeks to get it down you might get it in the first day or two everybody's going to be a little different okay moving on something else that we do is we do what's called throwing the call and that is the way that you hold your hand over the end of the insert and open up your hand while you're blowing the quack or when it's when you get to the cadence is the same thing and what you're doing is it's it's changing the tone why it's kind of making that that type of calling sound and so now today's video is brought to you by high and dry waiters the next time you're out to replace your waders i really encourage you to consider high and dry they're the best waders that i've ever used and i've used nearly all of them they fit and the seams don't leak which makes them better than about 95 percent of other waiters out there to find out more go to hndoutdoors.com link in the description okay moving on now once you have a good sounding quack we want to put some of them together in a sequence or a cadence the first is a three note call i'll show you what it sounds like okay this call is a very common call that we hear a hen mallard making what i'm going to do though is again like we did on the quack let's turn the call around backwards and listen to how i made the sound without the reed vibrating how am i doing my mouth and what's the wind sound like coming through the call here we go okay that's what i'm doing just like that the difference in the the basic quack versus putting it into a cadence or a sequence is you're making different notes quack quack quack quack quack quack quack okay the first note is a little bit longer and each note that you do is a little bit shorter every time okay just a three note call now how am i making the different pitch okay the first note is higher pitched the next one's a little bit lower and the next one's a little bit lower it's part of a scale in music we call that a scale so i'm coming down you know one note down every time [Music] some guys teach the song three blind mice three blind mice just like that that's a good way to look at if you can think of in those terms so practice along with me now going to the higher note how do you get the note to sound higher in pitch and then changing the pitch well it's it's the way that you hold your mouth the way the the amount of pressure that you're blowing through the call but it's also the the way that you form your mouth and what you're going to need to do is just practice different ways of doing that if if it doesn't come naturally to you then what i'm going to say is take your call and just make some crazy sounds on it just trying to get a different pitch and here's how i would suggest doing that so take the call and go see how it's making different pitches and when you get to that higher pitch and you kind of feel what you're doing with your mouth to get that pitch then then it kind of helps you understand what you're doing there are a lot of guys that call it with a cut down call very mono tone sounding it's it's hard for me to even do it because i don't blow my call that way i personally don't care for that style calling but it's very effective a lot of the old timers are just barking into the call making this monotone sounding call there's nothing wrong with calling that way if that's the way you like to call go for it lots of birds have been killed using that style of call i personally like to sound different and vary my call so again take your call that way you kind of know that higher pitched sound that you're trying to get and then once you feel that then you can add that to your quack and then to the cadence as you're making your your sound so again a lot of times you'll hear a hen uh off in the woods or off in a march somewhere just doing that three note call and she'll really draw out that first note that's a really really effective call something that you should learn how to blow so practice that one now and then when you feel like you've got that down we'll move on to the next cadence call the next cadence call is the greeting call which is a five note call i'll blow it for you right now just to demonstrate what it sounds like [Music] okay so how am i doing that call again let me go from the back side of the call and just listen to the way that my wind sounds when i'm doing that five note greeting call you practice that yourself through the back of the call that way it's not making any vibration on the reed just to get it down low along with me okay that's the five note greeting call the next cadence call i'm going to show you is the chop chop call this is an eight note call here's what it sounds like [Music] okay the chop chop call is a reply call that ducks often make in response to a greeting call so i'll show you kind of what it sounds like if you were you know out hunting and heard some ducks calling so the first is going to be a greeting call followed by the chop chop okay that's what it sounds like i often blow them at the same time i blow one followed by the next one it sounds very natural it's an excellent way to call we have a lot of success hunting like that in arkansas calling like that in arkansas the chop chop is also an excellent call to use as a turning call say you've got some ducks that are circling and you're you're calling at them only when you're trying to attract them and to turn them and everything else you're doing is just a little bit of confidence call but when when you make a call generally what you're trying to do is turn them and you don't want to turn them unless they're in the right spot so that they can get lined up to come in that's what you're doing is you're you're turning ducks you're getting them lined up so that they can come in you know to your decoys so again the chop chop call is a is a great turning call so if i i got some ducks that have passed over they're making you know going all the way downwind and right when i think they need to turn [Laughter] and i hit them and bam they'll turn because it's a real hard staccato kind of you know sounding call that's exciting and it's natural and that's one thing that works really well to get them to turn this tutorial is not necessarily about how to call ducks it's just how to blow the call but just kind of putting some of it into context so you know why am i blowing a certain way so what does that call sound like when i'm calling from the back of the call [Laughter] that's what it sounds like that's what it sounds like so you practice that then when you're comfortable turn it around and blow it the other way if you're at that point now i'll call and then i'll let you call with me [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] that's the chop chop next let's talk about the feed call now a lot of people have trouble with the feed call but it's not a hard call to do guys this one is really pretty easy and on a cut down call it sounds so sweet now there's a lot of guys that do uh you know their feed call kind of the what i call main street feed call it's kind of a machine gun kind of thing i don't call that way i'm not going to say that it's not effective there's been guys have been doing it for years and and that's fine if you like to do it it's a what they call a rolling feed call what i do is more considered a broken feed call i think it sounds a little bit more realistic but also i can can kind of be very aggressive sounding with it so here's what that sounds like it's kind of random it's not some uh you know programmed kind of you know thing it's you know a bunch of single clucks run together throw in you know a a quack sound followed by a little tick tick tick kind of thing and that's what i'm doing and so here's what it sounds like through the back of the call okay i know this sounds kind of like a bunch of huffing and huffing but uh what i'm doing is i'm not using those words but it kind of helps you know how you can you know use your mouth and your tongue to get those sounds when you're you know blowing through your call that's kind of what we're trying to do here again you don't want to actually use your vocalizations to come through the call it's clean air try that with me on your call okay [Laughter] [Music] [Music] okay just like that make the feed call your own it's really really effective uh on ducks whether they're close in as a confidence call but you could also use it very aggressively uh just as if you were using some other type of of a greeting call or something like that one thing that i like to do when i'm trying out a new call and especially when i was learning how to call i would use a recording device you know use your phone or something like that and get it off to the distance so that when you blow your call you're not you know all distorted sounding right next to you plus a little distance you know 15 20 feet away really will help you hear what the call sounds like to somebody else or to you know ideally a duck so that's a really good way to practice your calling whether you're a brand new caller or just new to calling with a cut down remember that mastering the call often takes years so be patient keep practicing because at some point and it's different with everybody something is just gonna click and you're gonna get it and you're gonna go ah you know if you have a lot of experience going with another call there was probably that same day when you were calling and finally there you got that tone and you go oh that's what it's supposed to be like you'll get it with a cut down as well it just sometimes takes a little bit longer if you've already have something else ingrained into your head so when it finally clicks remember what you just did and do it again right away so that you feel it and you know what it feels like in here you know what it sounds like all those things you want to repeat that again because eventually you're going to develop the muscle memory and it'll be just like riding a bike today we've been blowing a duck call but calling ducks is an entirely different thing because it not only involves being proficient at blowing your call but it also is in you being able to read the ducks and make decisions on when to call and how to call to a bird or a group of birds we don't call ducks by blowing routines it's a totally interactive thing i have a great video that talks all about it right here so make sure you check that out i'm joel strickland god bless and i'll see you on the next video

Channel: Surviving Duck Season

Views: 36,889

Keywords: duck calling basics, duck calling, duck calling feeding call, duck calling for beginners, Duck call jedi, duck calling tips, basic duck calling instruction, How to blow a cutdown duck call, duck hunting, Duck calling instructional, duck hunting vlog, echo duck calls, How to Blow a Duck Call, rnt mondo duck call, surviving duck season, how to call ducks, hunting tips, joel strickland, learn to call ducks, mondo, rnt mondo short, Duck Calling Tutorial, master the cutdown

Id: gDpmgmHeFsM

Length: 25min 59sec (1559 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 22 2021