HAMPTON
First-year judge Frank Wade wanted to hear calls that demonstrated three things Saturday during Virginia's goose-calling championships: cadence, clarity and realism.
"It's like playing a musical instrument," said Wade, who has hunted waterfowl for more than 35 years. "It's not like blowing a party horn. To kill a goose, you've got to sound like a goose."
Nearly twice as many people registered for Saturday's contests at Bass Pro Shops in Hampton's Power Plant compared with last year's event, with close to 40 contestants coming from across Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region, said Todd Cocker, president of the Virginia Waterfowlers' Association.
He and other organizers are hoping for similar success at today's duck-call championship, which also will be held at Bass Pro Shops in Hampton. Registration starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 11:15 a.m., with the competition following immediately afterward.
During Saturday's contest, some callers swayed and rocked side to side, keeping their physical movement in step with their calls. Others simply kept their elbows closer to their sides, cupping their hands around the bottom of the call as they went through their routine.
Contestants blew through acrylic or wood goose calls, each about 5 inches long, in 90-second routines of varied pitches and volume that, in the field, would draw in a flock of geese and settle them down.
To the untrained ear, the sounds coming from the teenagers and adults in the goose-calling contests could have easily been mistaken for the real thing.
The judges, however, appeared to have little trouble finding those who most sounded like the real bird.
"There were some awful good ones," said Wade, one of five judges, "and some others that need to spend some more time in the field."
Shawn Day, (757) 222-5131, shawn.day@pilotonline.com
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