Best Sounding Slate Calls

[jbrown]

Who is your favorite slate pot maker? What color slate, gray, green, red do you favor? Which color sounds best, any other pro's or con's? What's your favorite striker, for your favorite color slate?

[Yoder409]

I'm totally a fan of gray slate over glass in a (usually) walnut pot.

The call I carry 95% of the time is one that I made about 20 years ago.

Others that I really like are:

About any flavor of Cody slate
Hally Caller Professional Series

The Hally Caller has been out of production for 15+ years, so eBay would be about one's only chance of finding one.  I've never personally seen one on there, though.

I just picked up a Mad Hatter by Redbeard 4-track player at Unicoi that I'm liking a WHOLE LOT, too.

My "constant companion" striker is a decades-old camo Dymondwood from Chestnut Ridge Calls.  It works on every call I've ever put it to.  Others that have also worked on everything are a Tuscarora Legend purpleheart and a Blodgett flared mesquite (Which I currently can't find.  I know it's here somewhere).

[twyatt]

Gray slate over slate is my favorite call (close tie with ceramic over slate).   Those are the 2 calls that are typically in my vest 99% of the time.  I make calls so I'm a little biased, but from the other calls I've ran and heard - Pat Strawser gray slate, and Cody slate.
Favorite strikers - I have a Corder dymondwood that runs everything good, close 2nd is my Lyman Dymondwood and Lyman Snakewood.

Of all the calls I've ever made - if I could only keep one, I'd keep a gray slate over slate in walnut.  I have to throw the ceramic over slate in there though, it's such a close 2nd

[ChesterCopperpot]

Aside from a similar ease of play, I don't really consider the colored slates in the same category as gray slate. Of the colored slates, I prefer green. You get into the reds and purples and I start hearing some glass sound to those calls. For green it's real hard to beat Buster Halford's green slate in a persimmon pot.

I'm a gray slate man through and through, though. If I could only have one turkey call outside a yelper it'd be a gray slate. I've got a lot I like, and I think that's a surface that most really good callmakers can dial in. I don't own one (do own his ceramic) but I'd bet my  Travis Wyatt's gray slate in a walnut pot that he's mentioning in this thread would be a killer, killer call.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tom007]

Grey Slate is my favorite. My Paul Platz Maple Slate is one that gets lots of time afield. It has a great sound matched with his striker. But I do have one Slate that really is my go-to when nothing else is working. It's my Cody Spec 1 gray Slate. I got this call from Bill the first year it came out to the public. This call has helped me with numerous stubborn Tom's over the years, nostalgically my favorite call in my earliest years of my Turkey career.

[mountainhunter1]

I've got a lot of pots in different combos, but have killed more birds with a grey slate pot than any other. I have some Roberts and Buster pots (some slate over slate and some slate over glass), but not sure if any of them are better than the Lonnie Mabry slate over cherry soundboard pots that he continues to make. I also have a gray slate over glass laminate pot that a friend made me some years back that has been very productive in the woods. And as said above, many of my pots that I hang onto also tend to be walnut pots. Also have one purple slate in a walnut pot which for whatever reason is not as high in sound as many of them are - and it is a good call for me as well.

If a man can come by a really quality copper pot, it is worth having and could become a favorite. There is something about the rasp on a good well-made copper pot. Mike Yingling is a good place to look.

I like a lot of other type surfaces besides gray slate and have most of them in my possession and will kill birds with them at times. But, unless you live in a place where humidity knocks the slate surface out of the lineup, a gray slate pot is just hard to beat for an all around get it done time and time again call if I could only pick one type surface to have to hunt with.

[Greg Massey]

i have several slates, but in all honesty i don't carry them most of the time.. they just don't perform well for me.... The start of our spring season is still wet, cold and weather just affects them too much... So i like ceramic, glass, alum and crystal ... mostly ... But i agree if the weather is right a good slate is just hard to beat in my opinion ... red, purple, green are great ...

[bowbird87]

A few of my favorites

1. Paul Platz Cherry grey slate

2. Buster Halford persimmon red slate

3. Mabry Cedar grey slate

4. Brad Roberts Cedar green slate

5. Lon Trice bullet tree green or birdseye maple grey

[greentrout]

Gray slate will always be a soft spot for me, and even though I too prefer ceramic, I will always have one in my bag. I started a long time ago with a Primos Battey slate. Now I have one of those killer twyatt gray slates in a walnut pot and Chester is right, killer call.

I will add that Brad Robert's green slate in cedar pot is going to find a lot of time in the woods as well. It's just such an awesome sounding call and worth the time to get one.

[Sir-diealot]

I like them all but am fond of green slate. I think all slates sound good with black locust, persimmon and hickory strikers. I also like the higher pitch of red slate on days with a slight wind.

Sent from my moto g pure using Tapatalk

[outdoors]

I have one that I go to when I really need to use it is
John Sinclair.  Grey Slate /slate black ebony

[3bailey3]

Bill Lyman double slate.

[paboxcall]

Rare I carry a slate pot anymore but when I do its a Tuscarora Mountain Jake Taker.

Gray slate, smaller diameter pot for better control with preferably a JLH heavy cedar or original Tuscarora walnut striker.

[BTH]

Footballer persimmon slate over glass. Traded my Wynne persimmon slate back for it. Hickory, persimmon, frogwood or a black locust striker. More mellow but capable of sharp sounds. Another gray/black slate over glass that is growing on me is a Jason Powell chestnut pot. Fantastic flexibility with the purpleheart striker it came with and the strikers mentioned above. 

Green slate
Paul Durham ziricote pot
Red slate
Buster's in  a Persimmon pot. Yellowheart strikers for both. Almost a sharp glass like sound to them. Ipe sounds good as well. Good 1...2 punch with a gray/ black slate.
Have sold and would like to recover 1 or 2 of these one day:
Gray/ Black slate
Walnut wenge Halloran
Laminate slate Halloran
MAC cherry slate over glass
Cane Creek reaper slate in African mahogany.
Green slate
Brad Roberts cedar
Blackstone cherry pot
Buster's persimmon pot

[Big Jeremy]

As for slates, my favorites are:

1. Nathan Taylor red slate in an ambrosia maple pot.

2. Clay Townsend gray slate in walnut pot.

I have tried a few others that I like also, but these two are my favorite. My favorite strikers on these are JLH heavy (TSS) cedar, JLH frog wood, and a Fowelr black locust.