Like others i use both. I do a squeak when i feed the little stinkers, and when i want their attention, as long as you reward them when they come to it, they soon get the idea. Banging a stick also works, because it stimulates their natural interest, and the final resort of jumping up and down like an idiot on top of the warren (in the old days). But like has been said, no amount of that will get the ferret out of a sunken pit, or out from behind a dead rabbit. I know a few folk who have one locator collar and work a few jills without them, if a ferret doesn't come up they run an old hob throu