Top 5 Goose Calls Under $50

My young editor wrote me the other day with an article idea. I was hunting with my 13-year-old grandson, which, as it should, took precedence over everything else. The editor asked if I’d craft a piece titled "The Top Five Goose Calls Under $50.” My first thought? I wasn’t sure there is a decent goose call for under 50 bucks.

Much to my surprise, there’s a bunch of them, several of which are being made by folks who build incredible sounding, albeit more expensive short reeds, and aren’t hesitant to stake their reputations on calls running the price gamut from $250 down to the aforementioned $50.

So, post-hunt, I wrote back and said “Yeah, I’ll do that. This could be interesting.” Fact is, a couple of these I already carry in my blind bag each trip afield, and, yes sir, will use them from time to time when the Canadas are acting a bit squirrelly. Those I didn’t already own I received in the mail and played with long enough to arrive at some sort of decision. Worth 50 bucks? More? Less? Sound? Feel? These are all things I took into account as I made this list.

Bill Saunders Refuge Series HP Canada Honker ($39.99)

As I have for the past two seasons, I’m running Saunders ‘Triple B” short reed on my day-to-day working lanyard and love it. That said, Bill does have a pair of under $50 short reeds in his lineup—The Refuge Series HP (High Performance) Canada Honker, and the Refuge Series Canada Honker.

The HP is a double O-ring polycarbonate call individually hand-tuned by Saunders. It features a shaved reed, and standard yet specialized guts that Saunders explains are “actually modified to run similar to used guts.” That is, the HP blows out of the crate as if it had hours upon hours of field experience.

The big picture here is the Saunders’ name, and the man standing behind ALL his products, be it a $39 HP or $175 Triple B. In hand, I found the HP very user-friendly. It’s light and easy to blow but not overly “bouncy” and tough to control. Now mind you, I’m pretty basic when it comes to a short reed; however, the HP makes me sound good AND it’s one that new callers can certainly grow into.

Sean Mann’s Express Eastern Shoreman ($49.99)

Sean Mann’s Express Eastern Shoreman (EES) is one of the two calls I always have tucked away in my blind bag. The EES is easy to blow, sounds good, and gives me another tool in my goose hunting toolbox. An instrument I can pull out on those days when the birds need something different from the same short reed sound.

But isn’t hauling a long call, i.e. a non-short reed, into the field out of style? “I love it! Love it,” Mann laughed. “I’m so glad you asked me that. I’ll tell you this. Every champion level caller and every top-flight guide in the country has one (a long call) in their blind bag. You don’t become a top-level caller without having some versatility and some knowledge of what the various styles of calls are capable of. No lure catches fish every day. Why do they work so well? Because they sound like geese. A lot of people think that flute calls aren’t in style, and that’s fine. But when a person calls here and asks me what goose call they should buy, whether they’re new or already has a call, I tell them an Eastern Shoreman. It won’t break the bank, and he’ll have some bird sounds come out the other end. Every year, there’s been a flute in the finals of the World Live Goose Calling Championship, which is a contest based solely on sounding like the birds.”

The Eastern Shoreman dates to the early 1980s when Mann, unhappy with the goose calls available for his competition purposes, decided to build his own—the Eastern Shoreman. It’s a long call—flute-like—but Mann is quick to tell you it’s definitely not a flute; rather, it’s extremely versatile in its range and capability, and it’s more of a short reed or hybrid than it is a traditional flute.

Flambeau Outdoors Big River Long Honker ($34.99)

If you close your eyes and picture an Old School Louisville Slugger ball bat, only in some type of camouflage pattern and capable of conjuring up some pretty fine honker sounds, you’d have Flambeau Outdoors Big River Long Honker. Measuring a full 10 inches long, the Long Honker lives up to the “long” portion of its moniker.

But hey, for less than a large double meat/double cheese take-out pizza the Long Honker will be around for, I’m guessing, as long as you are and then some. The Long Honker is a flute style call; air goes in one end, and honks come out the other. No back pressure. No “hold your tongue this way.” Air in; goose out. It’s simple. It’s easy. And, if it’s big Canadas you’re after, it’s spot on with the tone. Plus, I can hand the Long Honker to my 13-year-old grandson and he can be even more involved in the hunt.

DJ Calls’ Build-Your-Own Goose Call ($42.55)

If you don’t know, the “DJ” portion of DJ Calls stands for David Jackson. Jackson, now 66, worked for Phillip Sanford Olt, or as he’s better known simply as P.S. Olt, and the Olt Family for 30 years before the company went out of business. Following the closure, Jackson bought the tooling, and call dies from the company and has been for several years producing Olt-style calls under the new moniker, DJ Calls.

And while Jackson and his new/old DJ Calls makes what I would call traditional or recognizable goose calls, including several short calls and the legendary A-50 flute, the current model modified by Jackson himself, it’s his “Build Your Own Goose Call” kit that I find interesting. One, at $42.50, it fits the Under $50 criterion. Two, with only five parts, it took less than five minutes to assemble. And three, it sounds pretty darn good. It took some back and forth, sanding the wedge and then fiddling with the overhang on the reed. But I got it to where it sounds like a wooden goose call should; mellow and smooth, with a good break. The Build Your Own carries model number YGK-33, the ‘Y’ standing for Youth; however, Jackson was quick to make comment that “plenty of adults get this one, too.”

Is the Build Your Own going to take the stage in Easton in 2025? I’m guessing no; however, it’s a fun, unique little call that puts the ‘fowler/craftsman in the driver’s seat while sounding suprisingly good.

Rich ‘N Tone Quack Head Branta Max ($50)

What’s the most challenging part of using the Rich ‘N Tone QuackHead Branta Max short reed? Getting it out of the package!
 
Once that was behind us, the QuackHead Branta Max, named in short for Branta Canadensis Maxima, or Giant Canada, is a sharp looking polycarbonate short reed made by the same Stuttgart-based folks that brought the ‘fowling world the Daisy Cutter and the Mondo cut down duck calls. She’s a hefty thing, weighing in at 2.05 ounces compared to the 1.77-ounce average of the five calls I scaled. Double O-ring build and a from-the-shop shaved reed make the Branta Max user-friendly in new hands, and an excellent in-the-field performer for those with a little more experience. When I got mine, I stepped out on the porch, ran through my quite elemental routine, and was pleased with how she sounded. This short reed, like others, has some limitations, at least according to the 2000 World Goose Calling Champion, Shawn Stahl,but they’re not limitations that 95 percent of the field goose hunters, myself included, will ever notice nor complain about.

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