Leon's turkey caller

[Herb McClure]

Hi, fellow turkey hunters. I get many inquiries about the Leon turkey caller and the type rubber I use as a single rubber diaphragm on my callers. Single cut rubber replacements for tube callers are what I use. I don't get into knowing the thickness of different rubber replacements, but I like the red rubber and green rubber sold by Midway Turkey Supply co. and is what I use. These I tape on my calls, without the side pins being used. There have been photos down-loaded by others showing how I do them.

On the GON Forum under turkey talk, a guy in Virginia says he is making and selling rubber diaphragms for the Leon callers.  I recommend for inexperienced users to first try learning with double-ply rubbers the way Johenning made for the caller to be used with them.

To call makers out there. I have a walnut wood caller made by a late friend several years ago that is just as good as Leon's callers are. It has a different tone than the Leon's have, which is good, as no two turkeys have the same tone either and it has called many gobblers too.

There is an old out-dated thread by this same title on Old Gobbler's Forum a year ago of Leon's Turkey Caller and it has almost 5,000 hits now, hard to believe.

[1iagobblergetter]

I have a couple of them with the boxes and instructions,but have never put any time into them. In part the reeds were dried up when I bought them. I mainly bought them because I have his booklet.

[Bedge7767]

Here are a couple of photos of an outstanding style and type of turkey caller, which was made especially for Herb McClure by Ol'e Bob, because of the fact that he has lived by and used this style of turkey caller for over fifty years. Herb says: He never needed anything else to call with. This type of turkey caller was invented by the late Leon Johenning".

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[Bedge7767]

(Quote from Herb)
Maybe Ol'e Bob will come on the thread, and comment about the difficulties that are required in making a caller of this style. Regardless, the legend of the Leon Johenning style of turkey caller was enhanced with a beautiful and appreciable Leon's Caller which he donated to me.

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[ol bob]

This call was made because Mr Herb was telling someone at Unicoi that he wished someone would start making a Leon's call today. I don't make many calls now and have a lot of free time so I gave it a try. Its not a true reproduction but it works. It was not that hard to make but you need a lot of patience and I don't see how you could ever make them to sell. I made another one and changed the design some to make it easier to put the latex on, and waiting on Mr. Herb to report on it. Theses are great calls but hard to master. It was a honer to make It for Mr. Herb Bob