David makes a good point and up till now I hadn't thought of it that way, but it does make sense. To me a callmaker should always continue to try new and different things, if by chance they could make a call sound and or look better, or provide more diversity for the hunter to run the call easier and/or add more to his or her arsenal of sounds to bring the bird to the gun.
In this case, since I did run the call before, during and after the hunt, I was surprised when I first saw it, but when I held it, even though I am used to running and holding a pot call that is normally round and has no handle, I figured what the heck, how 'bad' could it be, well, it isn't 'bad' at all and as a matter of fact when running the call after the hunt I did more trial and error by listening to Chuck run the call by holding the handle and by holding the rim of the pot portion. It was clear that the sound did resonant better when he held the handle and when he held the pot it was quieter and more subtle, but that was intentional in for the case of the hunt this was what was called for. Chuck initially rain the call for some soft tree talk and we got a great response. After the bird hit the ground from the roost we waited about 10 minutes and listened. I then ran it only by giving 3-5 clucks and holding the handle, again we got a great response and we knoew then the bird had committed to us and the call was put down.
If I had to guess, Chuck will probably only build a few of these unique calls, but I could be wrong, the point is and as do many callmakers he was experimenting and keeping it fresh and as a fellow callmaker I thought this was cool. The 2 pics attached were taken just moments after the kill.
