I was brought on a few dog hunts last winter and definitely became hooked. I want to get started with solo hunts with shotgun... Any recommendations on one "go to" call to get started? Any advice helps...
Hand calls? Scheery, flextone, predator sniper. Tell you the truth, there is no one call. Most any will work at any time. Biggest thing is to get in without them seeing or winding you.
Jackrabbit, cottontail, mouse, bird, deer and domestic animal sounds have all worked for me.
The flextone rabbit dist call is a easy start out call. Closed reed scheery calls in cotton tail or coarse cottontail is a easy call to use also. Really any closed reed in cottontail or even jackrabbit is a good first call. Careful though buying coyote calls can get addictive. I got drawers full of perfectly good calls that never even been out in the field. It's one step below my muskie lure addiction.
With using shotgun learn to lip squeak or find a mouse bulb to get them that last 50 yards. I have a primos mouse bulb that velcros to the receiver right above the trigger. All I got to do is move a finger to get them to close in that last bit.
I just got a primos sit-n-spin decoy this fall that i'm going to try out. So I will see how effective a decoy is this winter.
Mostly shotgun since I do most of the calling. I have been using hevi shot dead coyote T's but got some 4 buck and honrady bb loads I'm going to test out. But the dead coyote load is a killer so it will be hard to use the others.