Fun Friday with the Griz-N-Gray

The morning's crisp air had a slight chill to it. Fall is almost here I thought to myself as I settled into a rocky outcropping which overlooked a small canyon. The freeway wasn't far off, but the few hills that separated that stretch of asphalt from my current position was enough to dull the sound of traffic as it raced by, seemingly unaware of the beautiful morning that I had just sat down to enjoy. The sun was up but not yet shining on me as I pressed the call against my leg and a slow but rythmic fox pup distress began to pour out from the wooden exhaust. I rose the call in volume and intensity, and the sound echoed throughout the rock walls and steep draws that made up the canyon that I was hoping to pull some gray foxes from.

It hadn't quite been 5 minutes when I caught movement from the right - two gray foxes were coming in, and coming in fast. They were leaping from rock to rock as they made their way towards me and towards what they thought was a gray fox pup in distress, and potentially a rabbit meal when they caught sight of my decoy. I dropped the call on my leg and moved my left hand to the forearm of my rifle, quickly getting a solid cheek weld on the stock and finding the farthest fox in my scope. They were 50 yards out, then 40, then 30, then BOOM! My AR barked and the first fox hit the dirt. The second fox looked confused, started to run to his companion then suddenly jumped the other way and headed back to the safety of the canyon. I grabbed the call and pumped it once against my leg. That was enough to stop the fox dead in his tracks, and as he started back towards me I found him in the scope and just like the first fox, this one hit the dirt hard. A few more minutes of calling produced no further animals, but as I walked to collect my foxes, I looked at the call in my hand and realized that the way I had been calling gray foxes into the stand was about to be changed forever.



There's a new hand call on the market, and I guarantee that it will put foxes in front of you! Kettle Creek Calls has released their Griz-N-Gray call, which is a hand call with bellows on it that you pump against your leg. I was skeptical at first, until my friend Scott Francom tried one out and called in 9 foxes on 4 stands during his first time out. After that I knew I had to get my hands on one.

I had stopped in to see Scott at his house and he had shown me a box of calls that Curtis Houser from Kettle Creek Calls had sent to him to support the Arizona Predator Callers club. That in itself is a testament to good character and the kind of company that I want to do business with. So I picked up one of the Griz-N-Gray calls from Scott and headed home. On the way I decided to do a few stands, and as you read in the story above, the very first stand was a real experience. Anytime I take a new call out into the field and it produces animals on the first stand, I am excited. But when I take a new call that has a unique design and a one-of-a-kind sound out into the field and it produces animals on the first stand, I am impressed. I have been looking for a way to create a gray fox pup distress sound with my mouth calls for a long time, and while it's possible it is not easy and certainly not perfect. But the Griz-N-Gray makes it easy and perfect, and I had to keep testing it.



I setup for another stand in a position similar to the first stand, but when I sat down I realized that my visibility was limited. I didn't call for the full 15 minutes that I usually spend on stand, mostly due to the difficult setup, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something had responded. Oh well, on to the next (and final) stand. I setup under some oak scrub brush and had a great view of lots of rocky terrain and some open brushy flats. I worked the Griz-N-Gray for about 10 minutes, and when nothing showed I switched to my mouth calls. I had just started to blow a cottontail distress when a young coyote came barging into the stand from my left, headed right for my Quiver Critter decoy. She was getting closer, and closer, and she was just about on top of me when she stopped behind a bush, but it was just a little bush, so I centered my crosshairs on her chest and pulled the trigger. Well it turns out that it was a kevlar bush, and my bullet was deflected off course. But instead of turning to run the young dog jumped forward, towards the decoy. This put her in the open, and about 15 feet from me. Should've brought the shotgun were the words that went through my head, but I couldn't miss at that distance and that young female coyote went down less than 2 feet from my decoy.

I can't say that it was only the Griz-N-Gray that brought that coyote in, but I hadn't been blowing long enough on my open-reed cottontail call to think that it did all the work. I attribute the kill to the Griz-N-Gray, and even though I was done hunting for the day I know I'll be out there again soon with my new "leg-thumping" call, putting more fur on the ground and enjoying every minute of it.

If you're interested in the Griz-N-Gray or in any of Kettle Creek Calls other amazing hand calls, visit their website at KettleCreekCalls.com. To hear what sound I was making with the Griz-N-Gray to draw in these foxes and coyote, go to the right sidebar of my blog under the "Hand Call MP3s" section. You'll also find an alternate sound you can make with the Griz-N-Gray, which is a Raccoon distress. I love versatile calls!