FOXPRO HammerJack Review

The FOXPRO HammerJack is a mid-priced e-caller that has all the bells and whistles you’ll need at an attainable price.

Editor’s note: We received no compensation from FOXPRO for this review. It is simply my go-to caller, which I purchased with my own money.

There are so many e-callers on the market these days it will make your head spin, with prices varying from just $100 to well over $1,000 for more elaborate setups. When I set out to find a caller, I did loads of research on what features I really wanted, which ones I could live without, and how how much I really needed to spend. I finally settled on the FOXPRO HammerJack. It provided the best value: Although $300 isn’t cheap, it didn’t completely break the bank and still offered some of the high-end features found on the top-of-the-line models.

The first thing I considered was sound quality. Although there are a number of options for free sounds that you can play from a Bluetooth speaker, these sounds pale in comparison to the variety and quality of sounds offered by companies like FOXPRO, Primos, and ICOtec. Coyotes are smart animals; while free calls might work once, if you miss on your first shot or you’re after an entire pack, don’t expect them to fall for the same cheap sounds a second time. Premium sounds are the way to go and, in my opinion, FOXPRO has the best sound library currently available.

Not only are premium sounds essential, but the HammerJack takes best advantage of them. With two speakers—tuned for different frequencies—you’ll get rich, realistic sounds no matter what you’re looking to imitate.

The HammerJack also comes with a cool feature called FoxCast. With this, you can program a string of different sounds at different volumes—interspersed with pauses—into what’s called a “stand.” This enables you to focus on watching for an approaching coyote instead of fiddling with your remote to change sounds. Conveniently, a number of stands come preprogramed, so if you have a hunt planned for the next day, the HammerJack is ready to go out of the box.

One of my favorite features is the integrated FoxJack motion decoy. Predators have great eyesight and seeing motion can be the final ingredient to bring in a suspicious coyote by playing off its predatory instinct. You can even program this to change speeds or turn on and off throughout your FoxCast stand to mimic changing excitement levels.

Once you’ve lured in a coyote and take your shot, the FoxBang feature of the HammerJack will automatically change to a pre-selected sound at the report of your rifle in an attempt to stop and turn a fleeing coyote.

The HammerJack comes with 100 sounds pre-loaded and has a capacity for an additional 200 sounds. This will be plenty for most people, but if you are also going to use this for a number of different species, it is very easy to change sounds by connecting to your computer via a USB.

Now on to the shortfalls of the HammerJack. First, this call does not have the ability to blast out sound. It has decent volume, but it wouldn’t be my first choice for calling in snow geese. However, there are two output jacks for additional speakers.

Second, the HammerJack will make your battery budget skyrocket. The speaker and FoxJack require eight batteries and the remote takes another three. And they chew through them. Do yourself a favor and get some rechargeable batteries.

Check out the FOXPRO HammerJack on Amazon.