Calls

[Chick]

I have only been hunting turkey for about 8 years. Used nothing but a diaphragm and scored every year. Looking at all the calls, reminds me of duck calls. Use to, for $10 you could get a good call. Now, there are all these pretty calls with huge price tags on them. I asked a guy why they were so expensive. I mean, hey. You can only sound like duck. So, why are some pot calls $15 and others $150? My diaphragms are all cheap and they all work. Plus. I can use it with out moving my hands and while I am aiming my shotgun.

[ol bob]

At a show a fellow asked me the difference between a $40. call and a $150. call smiled and said $110.

[Crghss]

Why do people drive a Maserati vs Yugo? Why do people buy a Sage fly Rod vs a Fenwick?

To each his own.

[Pluffmud]

I'll bite. I'm a call snob for sure! Not just for my turkey calls, but especially my duck calls.

I believe that the average duck caller is not that good at sounding like real mallards. That being said, the further North your average duck hunter is, the better chance he has at killing birds, because what matters most is cadence! If the cadence is right, you have a good chance of fooling younger inexperienced birds. Now, older mallards that have made it up and down the flyway once or twice, they've heard and seen many duck calls and decoy spreads and getting those birds to commit is more challenging. Those same young mallards that the guys up north crushed, the guys down south are gonna have to add more realism to their calling and setup in order to seal the deal, since now those birds have some experience around a duck call and are pressured.

I believe the same thing applies to turkey calling. 2 year old birds or just early birds in general are going to be easier to kill. They gobble often and are dying for some attention. Ive heard many stories of guys killing gobblers with a squeaky gate hinge, slamming a car door, racking the pump on their shotgun, etc... 3 year old birds and late season public land birds, at least where I hunt, are very weary. Any level of realism that I can add to my illusion of being a live turkey, I will use. To me, I can tell the difference in my high dollar calls and my low dollar calls. That's not to say that I don't have a high dollar call that sounds like junk (to me). I also have a cheaper HS Strut pot call that I've killed some birds with. However, when the season gets late and the birds that are left get reclusive, I sure am glad I have some more realistic sounding calls.

Ok so now that I've argued that case, Ill come clean and admit that that is only 30 percent of the reason I like my high dollar calls. The other 70 percent is because I just enjoy custom calls! Custom calls are a work of art and they add to my hunting experience just like the camaraderie of the turkey woods and duck blind does. Making, trading, and talking duck/turkey calls helps me get through the summer doldroms, and I've met and developed some great friendships through custom calls and calling contests. My wife still doesn't get my obsession with custom calls. Then again, what's even harder for her to understand is why in the world I would ever wake up at 1am to drive 2 hours in severe winter weather to and carry 80 lbs of gear through knee deep mud and freeze my tail off in some nasty marsh all day, come home empty handed, and why I am so excited to do it again tomorrow morning? To each their own I guess.

[paboxcall]

I recently posted the following on another forum to an OP asking essentially the same question:

Custom calls are about the experience and building relationships. I sure don't feel the same about deer hunting, to me a bow is a bow, an arrow an arrow, a rifle a rifle, a grunt call is just a grunt call.

But taking a public land, big woods gobbler with one of my custom calls simply makes that entire experience richer. When I hold a call built by a callmaker I've gotten to know, have personally spoken with, or even hunted with, that is really special. It was hand tuned by that person.

And it's been tuned to the sound I want to hear, which translates to added confidence in my calling. Afterward, that callmaker enjoys seeing the results of a tag on a big gobbler just as much as I do, making it a shared experience.

These callmakers study their craft, study the history of their calls, and have worked with the greatest names in turkey hunting going back 50 years or so. The long box I carry was made by a guy who was taught and guided by Neil Cost. How cool is that?

That said, I still carry a few production calls. For example, I have a Dick Kirby aluminum in a cheap plastic pot call I found on a clearance table for five dollars. $5! And I will use whatever the birds want to hear that day, but Dick's mass production line got that cheap plastic pot call 100% right. Turkeys sure love it. But even that cheap pot call means something to me because I met Mr. Kirby as a kid and he's what sparked my turkey chasing interest as a young boy.

My equipment for deer hunting are nothing more than a means to an end. But my equipment for turkey hunting fully immerses me in the total experience.

[packmule]

Great posts Pluffmud and paboxcall, spot on.

[ol bob]

The top name custom call makers make all the calls the same as far as Dimensions that's what makes the sound, the difference in price is mat. fit and finish. A maple blank can be bought for a few dollars. a snakewood blank will run $100 plus both will kill a turkey but you can't sell the two for the same price,one looks a lot  better and if you can afford it that's great.

[GobbleNut]

Great explanations on the passion for certain aspects of turkey hunting.  For folks that fit that mold, their reasons for things like call collecting, getting the most out of their shotguns, equipment preferences, etc. need no explanations within their ranks.

Having said that, your question is a completely valid one, Chick.  There are those of us that focus more on the bird and the hunt itself more-so than all of that extraneous stuff.  I have been spring gobbler hunting since 1965 and, although I have a passion for it, that passion has always been directly correlated to my fascination with the spring mating rituals of the wild turkey and my never-ending desire to immerse myself within it. 

I find no fault in those that focus on those other things.  If that is their "bag". more power to them. For me,...and perhaps you and others,...if given the choice between going to a call collectors show, or shooting the latest and greatest turkey gun and loads, etc., or going to the spring woods to listen to an early-morning gobbler announcing his presence to the world,...I will take the spring woods and listening to that gobbler every time.   

[Greg Massey]

Anyone new to turkey hunting , my suggestion is get yourself some custom calls , and skip most of the cheap production stuff. I agree sometimes you will find that call in the production stuff that sounds just as good as some custom calls. If you stick with good custom call builders, it will save you money in the long run and you want end up with bunch of production stuff in a box or drawer that you no longer care to use. Put you a list together of the items your wanting in calls and put together names of builders that fit , your call want list.

[shademountain2010]

A guy will enter a call at a contest or the nationals and win a award. Right away he thinks his calls are worth more. What's he do .  Raises the price of his calls . the judges are humans and places this call maker with a trophy.  The call besides his might sound better but is not picked. It is all what that judge likes.  Ernie

[mspaci]

sometimes whats judges like & what kills turkeys arent the same at all

[jgard]

Some outstanding posts in this thread. Why I love this forum

[shatcher]

Ernie is spot on.  I can't wait to get that longbox this week!

[Loyalist84]

As a recent convert I will readily admit that production calls can and will kill turkeys until the end of time. However, I have yet to see a production call that produces sound as easily and with the clarity that a custom one does. More than that, I've never seen a green slate surface, osage pot or any of the myriad variations in construction that are second nature to custom guys that you can never find on a rack at Cabela's. I've learned about more new woods since I got on this forum than I would have if I was a carpenter!

The bigger part of it for me though is the living history of North American turkey hunting that we become a part of by purchasing custom calls. Names like Farmer, Cost and Lynch are integral to the history of Wild Turkey hunting, and by using calls inspired by theirs and by the new makers who are becoming legends in their own right within these circles, we are both inspiring and perpetuating a century of tradition in the sport.