I have lived on Cape Cod for my whole life and have been an active outdoorsman since I was a young kid. During my younger years, my friends and I hunted almost every inch of the Cape. Since those days, the Cape has gotten quite a bit more crowded than it was back then, which has diminished many opportunities for hunting.
Wildlife Calling
I first got into wildlife calling in the 1980’s when I bought my first Johnny Stewart hand call at the Kittery Trading Post. At the time my interest in calling wildlife grew because it offered a different approach to regular spot and stalk hunting and observation tactics.
Calling animals with sounds that will attract them to you means that the animals hunt the hunter or caller, which is the exact opposite of most traditional hunting techniques.
The Johnny Stewart hand call got me started in wildlife calling and my calling equipment soon progressed to electronic calls which were cassette tapes, a Walkman cassette player and a speaker at the time.
After the first few times out calling with the old cassette tapes and the 50 feet of wire with a horn speaker on the end, I was hooked and wildlife calling has been a hobby of mine ever since that first critter came to answer the call.
New Opportunities
There are about a hundred times more houses, people and developed land here now than when I was growing up. Well, maybe not a hundred times more, but let’s just say the Cape is a bit more crowded now than it used to be. Although this leaves Cape Cod outdoorsmen with a lot less hunting areas now, there are still many opportunities for calling, observing, photographing and tracking local wildlife on Cape Cod.
Without a gun, having to adhere to limited hunting seasons and other regulations, you can go and call animals in to the camera anywhere. There are many areas that are loaded with wildlife and are great spots for calling animals, but you cannot legally hunt these areas due to setback restrictions (500 feet from any dwelling in use). Its not easy these days to find a spot with enough room to hunt legally.
The Cape is arguably wilder than it has ever been, (at least in my lifetime). With the expanse of urban sprawl, less hunting pressure and more “new” critters calling the Cape home, the opportunities for wildlife calling on Cape Cod have never been better.
On this website you will find information about the sport of wildlife calling for observation, nature photography, predator hunting, tracking and other information about local Cape Cod critters.