The New Huntmastersbbs!: Mp3 player?

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Posted by Gerald Stewart (Member # 162) on August 15, 2005, 07:51 AM:

Can any of you recommend a good brand and model of Mp3 player for use in the field?

Posted by Todd Woodall (Member # 439) on August 15, 2005, 08:25 AM:

Gerald,
mp3? is that kinda like an 8 track, if so I gots one in my truck. [Smile]

I have never owned one, but they do have Oakley sunglasses with an mp3 built right in. Now thats a guy devoted to his music. Put an amplifier on your belt and bolt a speaker to you had brim, man I think I am on to something here. [Big Grin]

I'll talk to ya later, I gots to go get a patent.

Seriously I dont know much about them. I am sure a much more knowledgable person will chime in pretty soon.

Take Care,

Todd

Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on August 15, 2005, 09:02 AM:

Gerald. That strikes me as funny because you are someone I would consider asking for an opinion on MP3 players.

Todd, did you get my email? I don't know, every time I write, anymore, I get dumped into the spam file!

Good hunting. LB

Posted by Gerald Stewart (Member # 162) on August 15, 2005, 11:08 AM:

It has been several years since I used what I thought was the best at that time, a Diamond Rio. I want to use one for testing some new sounds. I do not have a convenient way to get the sounds on a test card for the Preymaster and I want better sound quality than a cassette provides, plus I also need light weight for the style of calling I want to do.

I just thought there might be some out there that may have a grasp on the latest models.

Posted by Tim Behle (Member # 209) on August 28, 2005, 10:45 AM:

Gerald,

Would an Ipod work? I've seen them for a couple of hundred bucks, but I can't bring myself to spend that much for something the size of a pack of chewing gum, even if it can hold a couple of hundred songs.

Have you ( Or anyone else on the board ) ever tried Antelope bleats? I was talking with a Game Warden about an antelope release he was part of several years ago. He said coyotes started popping up on the horizon before the antelope got a hundred yards from the trailer. Those coyotes had never seen an antelope before, but followed the trailer in out of instinct by either the scent or sound of them being moved.

Posted by scruffy (Member # 725) on November 03, 2005, 09:34 PM:

Gerald, I use an RCA Lyra 128mb mp3. It has a display, shows the track, volume level, battery level, etc. The volume, track forward and back buttons, on/pause, off, etc buttons are all big and on the sides. It has 128mb of onboard memory and plugs into a usb port via the cord that comes with it.

Another plus to this unit is that it has a slot for SD cards. My local walmart has 128mb sd cards for $19, but I've seen them as low as $12.

I have one SD card right now, but plan to get a half dozen or so if I can find them on sale. I'm going to have one card with the 16 mp3 tracks from JS CD's coyote calling vol1 and vol2, bobcat calling 1, and crow calling 1 (I bought these CD's earlier this year). On the other cards I'll have saved different "playlists" based on the time of year.

For instance last spring/early summer when I was starting to accumulate the CD's I did ADC work on a farm south of me where the farmer saw two coyotes drag a partially born calf out of the cow, drag the calf to a nearby creek, and while biting it tried to drown it. The farmer stopped the attack but not before it was too late for the calf. He, and his neighbors, had coyotes following their cows in the middle of the day, walking through their yards at all hours, and walking the roads at all hours. I shot one coyote after making a set and walking back to my truck, turning around, and a female wet coyote was following me and when I stopped she began to circle me, but I'll get to that story below. Not a lot of fear in this bunch, but alot of mange and very under nurished.

Anyway, on my MP3 for the first evening I loaded the following:

1st evening:
silent intro - 3 minutes (so I could get setup)
coyote pup in distress
3 minute gap
coyote/fox fight
3 minute gap
canine pups
3 minute gap
coywolf barks howls

I put the mp3 and speaker infront of me 20-30 yards while I sit back in cover, in the shade, etc.

On the first stand I shot a year old male at 200 yards, he popped up right when the canine pup distress started. 2nd stand, no coyotes...

2nd evening:

3 minute intro
coyote pup in distress
3 minute gap
coyote/fox fight
3 minute gap
canine pups
3 minute gap
distressed housecat

Called and shot and missed a hairless coyote at 200 yards a minute after the housecat track ended. After the shot the area erupted with a number of coyotes howling and barking. After 5 minutes the place settled down and I got up and walked back to the truck which was parked right infront of the farm house, looked back as I got to my truck, saw the coyote tracking and then circling me. I ducked down so she couldn't see me and walked over to a dumpster, right infront of the living room window, slid the rifle up on the dumpster, barked to stop her and shot her at 103 yards.

Made a second stand, nothing.

3rd evening (changed from predator distress to prey distress with housecat as dessert):

3 minute intro
fawn distress
3 minute gap
hp rabbit distress
3 minute gap
fawn distress
3 minute gap
distressed housecat

The first set, the first sound track, a coyote came in from over the top of the hill crest behind us and ran down the hill towards the brush pile where the call was below. My calling partner that evening was in the way, a cow saw the coyote, charged up the hill at my calling partner. He had a cow charging in front, a coyote behind him that he didn't know about, it was a little tense. He drew on the cow to get it to stop, I drew on the coyote but it was a bad angle and the coyote was only about 10 feet behind my partner at this point. The coyote 180'd and high tailed it up the hill. Not wanting to launch a centerfire bullet over the top of a hill the coyote got a pass. The cow backed down and walked away.

On the last track, distressed cat, another coyote, a very dark one (the other was red) was leaping in some tall grass approaching the call through the bottom on the other side of the fence. My partner was getting the pace of the leaps and was getting ready to get him on a bounce (he was about to wind us) when he didn't bounce. I don't know if he winded us or what, but he disappeared. He was right at 100 yards or a little less.

After that stand we started walking to the next stand ontop a ridge, below the crest to not be skylined. The side of the steep ridge was thick brush and timber. We were half way along the ridge when the "pack" of coyotes whipped up and ran in below us in the brush and timber. We could hear the leaves and branches thrashing. Some of them passed no more than 30 or 40 yards from us, howling and yipping, but we never were able to see the coyotes. They had the wind advantage so we looped around and got downwind of them behind some other ridges and got setup on them again. There was almost no light (we can't use spotlights in Iowa...) but we tried to call one last time with the last few minutes of light. I turned on the fawn distress again and one coyote started coming in to my left but I didn't see him. My partner was sitting back a bit from a higher visibility and saw the coyote stalking up on me and when I couldn't see well anymore and didn't see anything I turned off the call. My partner could see the coyote from his vantage point and said when the call stopped the coyote stopped, did a 180, and disappeared.

I let the place sit for a week after that. I wanted to find the den but it wasn't on the farm I had permission to hunt, and the neighbor farmers didn't know of any dens on their farms either. There is a junk yard (80 acre) a little over a 1/2 mile from this farm so I theorize the den is in there somewhere, almost anywhere, in there...

The farmer said for 5 days the coyotes were going nuts at night. On the sixth night and after they split up. They didn't run as a pack anymore. A couple howled from the west, a couple from the north (salvage yard), and one to the south.

My theory is this "pack" was the mated pair and the pups from last year. I shot one of the pups from last year (no big deal to the pack), missed another of the pups from last year (again, not a big deal), but I killed the mated female, wet, when she was stalking/circling me. I theorize that after 5 days the pups must have died and they abondoned the den or something.

Maybe someone would know better what happened, but I've been back there two times and called and no coyotes came in. Both times the cows were at ease, relaxed, there were turkeys walking around, deer at ease and walking around, and just your typical wildlife you expect to see.

The farmer couldn't be happier. I talked to him a couple weeks ago and he said he hears them howl occasionally but they're not close and they aren't a number of them together. To say he's happy is an understatement.

So I think having this years litter die took most of their agression out, since that was probably their driving force for being desperate to kill.

I've never seen such an agressive group of coyotes, nor have I seen a group of coyotes so sick with mange, both of the ones I killed were 50%+ mange, the one I missed was 99% mange. The farmer said all of the ones he's seen were mangy as well.

Starving and desperate they turned to calves for food. It's sad it came to that, sick and desperate. I'd much rather call and test my skill (and luck...) with a healthy coyote. But having cattle farming in my blood (all my grandparents, some of my uncles, worked their farms growing up) a coyote in with the cows makes my trigger finger itchy.

But I hate knowing that a litter starved. I usualy don't shot a wet coyote, I'll give her a pass until I can find the den, but when she's stalking me, then circling me, well, no pass is given.

Anyway, thanks for making a very good product and selling the sounds indepentantly so people like me can make our own ecallers and set them up as we wish.

later,
scruffy

Posted by Q-Wagoner (Member # 33) on November 04, 2005, 03:52 PM:

Hell Gerald, just go buy your self a Foxpro, I hear they are easy to down load sounds to. LOL

Good hunting.

Q,

Posted by Nahuatl (Member # 708) on November 07, 2005, 01:27 PM:

Gerald,

We met many moons ago when you gave a seminar for CSVCA at Raahague's in Norco. I still hunt with OC.

Two years ago I put together a digital caller for the truck using a TOA amplifier and speaker and an Apple IPOD. They marry up easily. The 30G Ipod holds your entire catalog, the MP3's, as well as some 2-3 minute loops as high-fidelity wave files, and a ton of sounds from other vendors. It has a huge memory and I can't ever envision filling it.

The display is backlit and works extremely well at night for these old eyes. It's easy to read and easy to control volume, pausing, and sound switching. It's easy to put collections of sounds with detailed descriptions into "playlists," to seperate them by source or style, to rearrange them in any order, and files loop flawlessly for continuous sound. I-Tunes, the apple jukebox software, is great for managing your files and hooking up with the computer, and it rips cd's to waves or .aai (apple's own file format) flawlessly. Electricity-wise, the IPOD hooks up to the truck's 12v and stays charged or it charges while hooked to the USB port on the computer, or it charges from 110v wall current using a firewire. It plays wave files, MP3's, or .aai files, so format switching is not required. I've dropped it several times and it continues to perform. It even keeps track of how many times you've played a particular file. I have nothing bad to report, except the high initial price, and maybe that the plastic parts get scratched up while hunting. It's a great product.

OTO, my daughter uses a 256K USB memory stick and a $20 MP3/FM adapter she got at COSCO that plugs straight into the lighter of her pickup to play tunes and she loves it. She doesn't use any kind of MP3 player.

Gary

Posted by Gerald Stewart (Member # 162) on November 07, 2005, 03:14 PM:

Thanks Gary. You have about convinced me that is the way to go. Thanks.

Q...I'm willing to bet you got sent to the time out corner a bunch in Day Care. [Big Grin]

Posted by Merle (Member # 45) on November 09, 2005, 02:00 PM:

Hello Gerald,
About 2 yrs. ago I purchased a used Steve Taylor
mp3 caller the base of the caller is the Rio MP3
The unit works fine, the only thing I don't care for is the size of the operation buttons.
When the weather is cold and you have a pair of warm gloves on, operating the unit is a hassle for me and I have small hands. If I were going out to purchase one I would take along my cold weather gloves and I would be inspecting the ease of operation, (by trial) Changing sounds is a longer process than I wish it would be with the Rio. From what little I've seen this process looks like it would be easier on the Ipod. I know that digital is the future trend but the most calling success I've experienced is calling over the JS 512 and that wonderful sound library that was available to it. In my book they were the best sounds available. [Wink]

Posted by Q-Wagoner (Member # 33) on November 09, 2005, 05:10 PM:

For a second there I thought I was the only one that thought that was funny. LOL Maybe I still am? As far as day care, I can’t remember a “time out corner” but I do remember a few spankings. LOL Times have changed.

Just busting your balls a little Gerald. Krusty hasn’t been around lately so what else am I suppose to do?

Good hunting.

Q,

[ November 09, 2005, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: Q-Wagoner ]

Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on November 09, 2005, 06:18 PM:

Watch it there, scruffy.

quote:
But having cattle farming in my blood (all my grandparents, some of my uncles, worked their farms growing up) a coyote in with the cows makes my trigger finger itchy.

The last time someone used the term cattle farming, we ended up in a very long discussion about tea bagging. [Smile]