I saw a "Phantom Predator Call" Friday at Sportsman's Warehouse. Electronic, 60 ft. speaker cord, keyboard control of the many calls.

It looks good to my novice eye, but has anyone used it? What are the advantages/disadvantages of an electronic box compared to the blown calls? (Other than the fact one listen to my calling, and the predators seem to leave the county! )

If I did get one, how hard would it be to add another 50' of speaker cord for a bit more offset.

Would an attractor decoy, set up so you could move it with 100' or so of monofilament fishing line be something to add to the mix?

What do you guys think?

I have one of the old phantom's with the wired speakers and a Cass Creek hand held unit . The advantages are as you have stated: you can get some separation from the speaker keeping you concealed better, less motion to bust you out, and a "real" sound. With the phantom you can also mix in the ground hops and leaf noise at the same time as the distress call. I have found that like the old TV character ALF, the coyotes like to eat the cat. The feline distress has been very good to me. Once you get the coyote coming in the rodent squeaks can keep them coming if they hang up a bit.

Disadvantages are the repetition of the same sound is not natural and can spook some older coyotes. If you batteries start to run low sometimes you get more distortion and a more mechanical sound out of the call.

If you add another 50' you may lose some volume due to the added impedence of the extra wires.


The decoy on a string or with one of the predator heart rolly balls in it is something I have wanted to try but have not yet.

I think that electronic calls are a valuable part of your bag of tricks but I would not go out without a few mouth calls in my pocket too.

Sniper, I had a freind who bought one of the Phantoms and was totaly unsatisfied. He claimed it didn't have enough volume. Volume is something you never think you need, until the wind picks up. I listened to it on more than one occation, and I would agree with Dawgdad that it sounded rather un-natural, just too short of sound loop. The most important thing I have to ask is, where do you plan to hunt? Here in the southwest, we need, I would say, fairly high volume to cover large, wide open spaces. I myself use several different elec. calls. I have the tape player and I also use the Foxpro. The Foxpro is probably the closes thing I have to a Phantom. They cost a lot more, but are worth it. If you have never used an elec. caller and are on a tight budget, get yourself a Cass Creek. For a small unit it carries incredible volume and is extremely handy. I seldom hunt without one in my bag. I am not too fond of speaker wires. It is a pain in my butt to roll it up after every set and then keep it from getting hung on every bush on the way back to the Jeep. Check out the Foxpro, if you can afford it, it is the way to go. I have never had any problems with them and have called in coyotes in wind I thought had shut-down my hunt. Best of all, you can have it custom loaded with the sounds you pick, and they carry hundreds of sounds to choose from. You can solve the problem of speaker wire by going to a remote control unit. Remote control is always the ticket, in my book. The Johnny Stewart Attractor is a romote controled unit at a small price, it works, but then again, it doesn't have a lot of volume. Best way to use it, I have found, is to mouth call until I spot the critter, then switch on the Attractor to get the attention away from me, deadly. Best advise I can give is to go to the sporting goods store and listen to the unit. Try the volume and different sounds, try different models, then decide. One thing I can say, "I have been down this road and eventually, if you get hooked on calling critters, you will get the Foxpro." On the decoy, I went to a pet shop-super store and found a cat toy that was a plastic ball with a string and critter attached to in. Inside the ball was an unbalanced battery operated gyro. I attanched it to a spring and covered it with an unstuffed easter bunny. The cat toy cost me $5 and the bunny cost $3, and it really works great. A word of caution: be prepared to defend its life. Good luck and happy hunting to you all.............

Electronic calls, in general, certainly have a place in the world of varmint calling. Some do a great job. I have a Fox Pro with remote that works up to 100', but, honestly I far prefer an open reed call.

Open reeds offer added versatility in tonals and variations. They are light and easy to carry and very inexpensive. In areas where coyotes have been called often (usually with electronics) I find the open reed will often get them to within shooting distances.

Decoys need not be elaborate, IMO. I use bundled feathers on some occassions and an old discarded stuffed toy chicken on others. With the chicken (its white with pink!), I'll use fishing line sometimes and the poor thing has a few teeth marks on it.