Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Making a Birch Bark Moose Call?

I have a piece of birch bark soaking in water to make it more pliable. Any advise from anyone that has made a call?

Laces, size, other?

Google has a number of articles on building one, along with several videos on you tube. Wish I could be more help, but we don't get many moose in Florida.

Try posting this on the Canada forum..

i used split willow wands for lacing. had mine around for some years until it got crushed. then i used a plastic milk jug with the bottom cut out. good for calling and raking. and plenty in camp in case of need of replacement.

If you get it worked out, post some pics etc, thanks.

The classic lacing in far western Canada is split cedar bark or split cedar roots. There is a trick to splitting roots with your thumbnail. They split full length if you start from the correct end of the root, otherwise split out to the side. I can't remember which end but you have a 50% chance of being right the first try. Wet it. Punch small holes in the bark rather than push through with a needle.

Birch bark moose calls are beautiful but I doubt that they are much better, if any, than many types of plastic or other material. FWIW I have called more moose with my voice alone, nothing else, than I have with various bells tubes etc. Last year on the way to hunt moose I'd forgotten to bring a commercial plastic moose call someone gave me, so we stopped at a Dollar Store, bought a plastic baseball bat, cut off the ends and used that. Sounded good. That cut off bat is what some commercial elk calls are using.

I'd love to have a birch bark moose call, but it would go on my mantel for art rather than carry it when moose hunting.

they are more art usually , but if a guy only gets to hunt a moose once in a lifetime there is something cool about using a birch bark call.
when i first moved here i was alone for 6 months on the mountain side and made stuff to occupy myself during the long withdrawals from not having even radio.
i even wrote a letter on the inner layer of birch bark , put a stamp on it and sent it to my wife. about a week later she showed up to see if i was still sane.

Thanks men, yes a wall hanger mostly, but hey, you never know?

I wacked more than 30 moose over the years and never use a birch call... a empty plastic qt oil can,has put many a pound in the frezzer.

Well men, I sort of made a bark call yesterday. It is a bit crude, if I get ambitious someday I might try for a pretty one. One might think, how hard could it be? Harder than I thought.

We use a crazy carpet and duct tape.

So we're you?