It’s been awhile since I’ve been out due to bad weather and chores around home, but I set out this morning to try a little predator calling. I hiked up a long ridge that seems to be getting steeper all the time, but I have a good spot to call from up there. I got my stand all set up and reached in the side pocket of my back pack for the remote control unit of my electronic call. I came up empty! Huh? I searched the other pockets of the pack with no better luck. I use a mouth blown call as much as I do electronics, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember where I had used the e-caller last. I racked my brain and narrowed it down to 1 of 2 possible places, both miles apart. I still couldn’t be sure which place I had used the call last, and aside from that we have had a lot of rain since then. I had my doubts if the small electrical unit would still be in working order even if I was lucky enough to find it. There was one other possibility. The weather had been colder, and I was sure I had worn a heaver coat on at least one of those stands. It was possible that I had put the remote unit in the pocket of that coat. Not my usual routine, but it was possible.
At any rate, that wasn’t helping me now. I had climbed all the way up this ridge, so I decided to go ahead with the stand and see what developed. I hung the caller on a low limb of a tree and set it to play one continuous sound, then settled back to watch. This is all that showed up.
That’s a Stellar’s blue jay, one of the most frequent visitors to a predator call. Actually there were several of them, but this is the only one that sat still in one place long enough to shoot a few seconds of video. The sound you hear coming from the electronic call is that of an injured woodpecker. It’s a good sound to play for fox and bobcat, but jays will come to almost anything.
After walking back to the truck I ran Bear up the road for a little exercise, then parked at a nice spot to eat lunch. The missing remote for the e-caller was still bothering me, so I decided to call it a day and headed for home. When I walked in the house the first thing I did was get my heavy coat out of the closet and go through the pockets. There was the remote, tucked into the inside pocket. I put it back in the side pocket of my back pack where it should have been all the time!
