ABOUT US
My name is Luke and I have been a hunting and trapping enthusiast my whole life, across multiple disciplines.
While predator hunting in rural Western Australia for animals such as the red fox, the feral house cat, and feral dogs, I continued to encounter a recurring and frustrating problem which resulted in missed opportunities. The animals would come toward the distress call from a distance and then stop to assess the situation. My heart would sink to see them begin their large arc to circle downwind and I knew the hunt was futile.
When hunting with lower calibre rifles, shotguns, and bows, this problem is exacerbated. I needed a solution, which came to me when undertaking hunting expeditions with my team of whippets and ferrets. When a whippet had hold of a rabbit netted in the mouth of a warren and the rabbit’s chest was compromised, that rabbit had a distinctly different sound to one that was simply being held by a ferret. It was at these stages that, despite vehicles being parked in the vicinity and dogs loose off lead, foxes would occasionally come barging in with almost reckless abandon.
The foxes clearly knew time was of the essence and needed to act immediately or miss their opportunity, and I knew that I needed a way to imitate this variation of a distress call. I enlisted the help of my good friend, Gregory, a world class computer systems engineer, and together we embarked on a journey to make ‘as close to nature’ replications of the noises I have heard in the field. To do this we obtained audio samples of multiple versions of small mammals being severely injured by crush injuries to the chest, such as those in the talons of a raptor, or having coagulated blood in the throat, such as those with perforated lungs in the jaws of a cat or fox. Thanks, Discovery Channel.
Utilising an airborne ultrasonic monitor to digitise a copy of the soundwaves, we managed to match several common recurrences across several different species of prey animal which formed our base sample. The initial calls created were a modified version of an ancient shepherd’s whistle which has been adapted for modern hunting, colloquially known as the tenterfield whistle. We made several hundred variations of the tenterfield whistles, modifying the orifices, until we reached our eureka moment. We had cracked it and the Diamond Series was born.
Field testing ensued and the results were staggering. Foxes, feral cats, feral dogs, jackals, caracal cats, coyotes, and a myriad of predatory birds were coming to the calls.
Down Under Predator Calls have expanded with the same philosophy. Find a distress call of a severely incapacitated and injured prey animal and put the work in to emulating that call. All our calls are thoroughly field tested prior to being released to market.