Western Rivers Predation Review
By Doug Kellermann
December 2007
After having the garage raided and damaged by raccoons, I felt it was time to start predator hunting. Having most of the equipment I was ready to start but I was missing the most important tool, an electronic caller. After looking at the electronic callers I was very confused. The expensive callers looked nice and I was seriously considering the purchase of a $700 caller. But reality set in, especially with a second child on the way, and I held off on dropping over $700 for an electronic game call.
Instead of looking at calls to see which was best, I started to think about how I was going to use the caller and what the caller needed to do. After thinking about this I determined the caller needed to have the following features:
1. The ability to easily put different sounds on the caller;
2. A display showing the name of the sound playing and the ability to scroll through the sounds;
3. Expandable memory;
4. Remote control for daytime calling; and
5. Low price given the call was going to be used just a few times per month.
After researching 7 callers on the market I selected the Western Rivers Predation.
The Predation has a 32mb hard drive, an expandable MMC memory slot, a USB interface to plug directly into the computer, a display that shows the name of the mp3 sound being played, a remote, a power cable for a decoy, several hundred sounds on a CD and a 3 year warranty. The price was $275, which was the lowest price of the 7 units I researched.
After using the Predation I have found it works great for me. I have even added the decoy, which adds a new element to predator and varmint hunting.
When I first received the Predation I found an issue with the power monitoring capability. After charging the battery for a few seconds the unit displayed the charging was complete. I called Western Rivers and a customer service rep responded very quickly and professionally to my call. Evidently, the unit continues to charge even when the display states it is fully charged. I learned it takes several charges for the battery to charge at a rate fast enough to be recognized by the charging monitor.
The battery has always held a full charge allowing me to call with the decoy for hours without issue. I even ran the decoy all day to see how long it would run in a charged battery, after 12 hours of continuous use I powered off the decoy.
The Predation comes with 10 sounds on the hard disk and a MMC (Multimedia Memory Cards) expansion slot. Western Rivers provides an MMC memory card with the Predation. Connecting the unit to the PC via the USB cable was simple; the Predation displays a computer icon when the unit is connected to the PC. Copying sounds onto the Predation is the same as copying files to any removable drive attached to the PC. I renamed the Predation hard drive to “Predation” ensuring I was able to easily tell the difference between the hard drive and the MMC card in the MMC expansion slot. I also found a 16mb MMC card and 512 mb MMC card in old multimedia cell phones and loaded deer sounds on one card miscellaneous sounds on the other. The Predation comes with four storage slots, above the MMC slot, to hold these additional cards.
The Predation displays the sounds in alpha/numeric order. I have found placing the number, representing order, as the first character in the name ensures the sounds are displayed in the desired sequence. The Predation display is very clear and easy to read. Once the sound name is displayed it starts to continuously scroll from left to right. The unit displays the file name along with the artist’s name, to help conserve real estate I have removed the artist name from the sounds I use on the Predation. The display is not backlit which is a plus to me, by not having extra light shining when night calling. The display lights up nicely using any of the red lights we use when night hunting.
I originally had the mindset that every sound had to be 20 minutes in duration. What I found is that the recording duration does not matter. The Predation Repeat function allows any length sound to be used. I did find the longer the duration the more storage space used. For example, a 1 minute sound file uses 2.5 mb while the same sound with duration of 18 minutes uses 44 mb of space. All my sounds are now less than 5 minutes.
The Predation has played several sounds at the highest volume level without any distortion. Typically, while using the caller I start the sounds at a low volume and gradually increase the volume over time. When changing sounds the Predation starts the new sound at a lower volume level and gradually increases the volume to the level
The marketing material states the remote has a range of 250 yards. Given the way I hunt I have never needed a range beyond 40 yards. After walking 300 yards with the remote still working I stopped testing the range of the remote. I am confident the remote will work beyond 300 yards for line of sight use. The day the remote was tested weather conditions were cloudy, 65 degrees with 70 percent humidly. The antenna on the remote works best when it is in the vertical position.
One night I powered off the Predation with the remote, the next time I went to use the caller the keypad on the Predation would not power the unit on. After a few minutes I remembered the Predation was powered off by the remote, the user manual states that the Predation needs to be powered off using the keypad on the unit, not the remote. After this experience I remembered that if the unit is powered off by the remote then the keypad on the Predation is disabled.
The Off button has 2 functions. When pressed and held down for a few seconds it turns off the Predation. When pressed for a second it stops the sound that is playing. There is also a Pause button on both the Predation and the remote, which pauses the sound and allows for the sound to resume from the point it was paused.
After using the Predation for several months and successfully calling raccoons and coyotes I am happy with the features and performance of the Predation. The only issue I have experienced with the Predation is the display showing the battery is charged when it is still charging. Given the features and low price of the Predation I can live with this minor inconvenience.
