For a hunter, perhaps nothing is quite like the feeling of tracking your prey and putting it down with a clean shot. The thrill of the hunt is a great adrenaline rush that makes all those hours in the wood worth the while.
That said, no one should rush into a hunt without being properly prepared. If you lack the right equipment for the hunt, it could take you hours and hours to track an easy prey, and even then, when you finally get a good shot at it, there is always a very high chance of it running away. For this reason, it is a good idea to invest a little bit more than usual into e-callers, as they will help you to lure prey into open areas. The Lucky Duck Roughneck sits on the more pricey end of the scale, but it is certainly quite a capable model that will produce great results.
How important is the Lucky Duck Roughneck to your hunting trips? Our experts will weigh in all the pros and cons in the article below!
Overview of Lucky Duck Roughneck
The Lucky Duck Roughneck is an e-caller that can imitate the sounds of prey in the wild, attracting all sorts of predators to a clear position where you can take your shot.
Lucky Duck is a leading expert in the field of hunting gears. Since 1995, the year of their founding, the company has been consistently producing high-quality and innovative hunting products that will allow you to deceive all sorts of creatures with ease. The company is a small family-owned business, and they will usually listen to customers’ feedback in order to further improve their products.
The Lucky Duck Roughneck is a relatively new product that was released in December 2019, and it quickly gained the love of many enthusiasts. Compared to other models, the e-caller features a smaller and more compact design, allowing you to pack lightly on your hunting trip. In spite of the small frame, the e-caller can still produce loud and clear sounds that will attract prey from a vast distance away.
The wild is full of environmental hazards such as dust and dirt that can damage your equipment, so all Lucky Duck Roughnecks come with a protective cover made from silicone. The cover will also help to dampen the sounds from hard plastic housings, as well as to boost speakers’ clarity.
This e-caller comes with 150 pre-recorded sounds that can attract predators such as coyotes, and it has the capacity to hold up to 2,000 sounds, offering a great opportunity for you to be creative with your hunting approach!
Another top feature of this e-caller is the fact that you do not have to stay close to it all the time. The Lucky Duck Roughneck comes with a remote control that lets you take control of it from an impressive distance of 100 yards away, helping you to stay focused on your prey instead of the caller.
Design & Features
With a portable and compact design, the Lucky Duck Roughneck is a good e-caller that is easy to work with, allowing both amateurs and pros to enjoy its range of functions.
Remote control
Arguably one of the most important components of the Lucky Duck Roughneck, the remote control boasts an impressive range of 100 yards, allowing you to stay far and away from predators that could threaten your life and safety.
This remote control is also among the newer models in the market, with a 3.2” LCD screen which displays all the important information you need. Even better, the remote also includes the new day/night mode, which will change the screen’s brightness accordingly to the time of day. The screen boasts 10 different brightness levels, making sure that it will not be too bright or too dim. At night, the buttons are also lightly lit to ensure that you will be able to see which buttons to press on.
Compared to previous Lucky Duck Revolution models, the remote has been substantially updated. The bigger screen allows you to read small texts more easily, even when it is dark outside. The pause/play button is raised a little bit higher than the others, which helps you locate it and push it without having to look. Compared to other models, its response time might be a bit quicker.
The remote will control the following functions:
- Volume
- Which sound you will play
- Pause
- Re-call
The remote control will need 3 AAA batteries in order to function properly.
Portability
This Lucky Duck Roughneck e-caller is, without a doubt, among some of the most lightweight and portable models to take with you on your hunt.
It also comes with an ergonomic handle which helps you to carry it without getting fatigued easily. In spite of its small and compact size, the e-caller can still put out loud and clear sounds that could rival bigger models.
Speaker
The pride of the product lies in its speaker. Boasting a horn and tweeter speaker that produces crisp and clear sounds over a vast area even in windy conditions, the e-caller offers a good performance that could satisfy your expectations. The total power output of the speaker is 30 Watt (Very very high). The caller’s protective silicone cover will help to boost the quality of the sound even more.
Staying true to the company’s philosophy, this Roughneck coyote caller produces very high-quality sounds that stand a very good chance of deceiving predators or disorienting them.
Sound library
With a pre-loaded library of 150 sounds, the Lucky Duck Roughneck boasts one of the best sound libraries on the market, allowing you to attract more coyotes with ease. The preloaded sounds include popular and effective ones such as high-pitched cottontail sounds, syco jack sounds, etc.
The e-caller’s sound library also gains an edge over other competitors over the fact that it can take on additional sounds. Its memory card is capable of carrying up to 2,000 sounds, including custom ones, offering you a vast variety of choices. Lucky Duck also updates their sound library regularly to provide newer and more interesting sounds that will attract coyotes.
Programmable
The e-caller’s sound library is nothing to be scoffed at. It comes preloaded with 150 basic sounds, recorded by The Verminator, Rick Paillet, himself. This sound library will allow you to start hunting easily without having to do a lot of preparations beforehand, as the most important sounds are already covered.
This e-caller is completely programmable, meaning you can add new custom sounds to the system as you see fit. This will allow you to create special blends of sounds that will attract multiple predators to your position. The Lucky Duck Roughneck can carry as many as 2,000 different sounds in its memory.
Battery
The Lucky Duck Roughneck e-caller requires 10 AAA batteries in order to be fully functional, and these batteries are not included in the package. To change batteries, simply remove the battery cover at the bottom of the e-caller, and put in new batteries.
Recharging will not be a big issue, as the e-caller is compatible with Lucky Duck’s rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack.
Disadvantages
Although the Lucky Duck Roughneck boasts impressive performance and functionality, like all things, it does not come without flaws. Some of the most glaring disadvantages to keep an eye on include:
- Bad battery cover that seems very jangy
- The batteries drain quite quickly
- The antennae break quite easily
- Batteries are not included (this is understandable since it seems to have become a normal practice)
- Very little moisture protection
- Quite expensive and generally is a big investment
Alternatives
Naturally, it is a good idea to take a good look around before you settle for one option, and if the Lucky Duck Roughneck e-caller cannot satisfy your needs, there are always other alternatives that you could consider. Here are the most prominent ones.
Icotec Outlaw Programmable Game Call/Decoy Combo
ICOtec Outlaw Programmable Game Call is a highly versatile model that can work both as a caller and a decoy, helping you to lure your prey to a better vantage point. The most striking feature this product possesses is the fact that it can emit two sounds at the same time, giving you a great advantage when hunting for predators. The caller comes pre-packed with 240 sounds.
This model is available at a more moderate price when compared to the Lucky Duck Roughneck. However, it does come with quite a glaring downside: the sound quality leaves much to desire. With its inadequate sound quality, it might have some bits of a hard time to attract predators.
FOXPRO Shockwave American Made Electronic Predator Call
Foxpro is considered by many to be the top rival of Lucky Duck, and there are many good reasons why. This product from Foxpro comes with many benefits that the Lucky Duck Roughneck does not have, such as the ability to mimic moving preys by fading sounds from the left speaker to the right one, adding a touch of realism to the sounds.
The most prominent downside is that the product can be a little bulky, so it might cause some logistic issues when you have to move it around.
Verdict on Lucky Duck Roughneck
The Lucky Duck Roughneck is a portable and lightweight e-caller that is exceptionally easy to carry around, so it would probably be a good choice for hunters who want to pack light and easy luggage. It does come with quite an impressive sound inventory, with over 150 pre-loaded sounds, and you can also upload more sounds into it.
Although other heavy-duty models might perform better, the e-caller still possesses quite an impressive battery life. Do be sure, however, to check the battery cover to make sure that it will not fall off.
The Lucky Duck Roughneck’s speaker can produce far-reaching sounds that help you to attract predators, and the fact that the e-caller can be controlled by a remote means that you will not have to put yourself in harm’s way.
In short, hunters who are in search of a compact and portable e-caller will find the Lucky Duck Roughneck a pleasant surprise, if you can look past its rather hefty price tag. It is small, but it certainly packs quite a punch!