Why do callmakers build.....

[Zumer]

Why do you callmakers build calls...?

      Very interested in hearing YOUR reasons for building calls....

      Thanks for your replys....Zumer

   

[fargobox]

Zumer,

For me I have always been a wood worker, nearly 40 years now and I enjoy it emensely.  There is a special satisfaction working with one's own hands to watch something form...working through the organic process, knowing that you are working with a natural product that grew in the woods one day and taking that wood to create something else...giving it a whole new life, a new purpose solely due to my thoughts and the workings of my hands.  It could have easily been duck calls, or jewelry boxes or a million other things, but as a hunter for 40 years, being a callmaker helps to connect me deeper to the natural world which I have always appreciated and love.  It also allows me in a very small way to express my ego, let's make no mistake, part of being a callmaker is also an expression of ego, I can't deny that.  Last, and I didn't know this upon entering the world of callmaking, that I would also be able to express myself as an artist with my wood burning.  Art for me in some form or another, is a must in my life...I can't stop it and I need to express it and callmaking became the ultimate canvas for me.

Sorry for the long-winded answer, but there isn't a cut-n-dry response...all I know know is that I believe it was always inside, just wish it didn't take so long to discover.

[trb136]

I build bc I love it...I love everything about callmaking... ...I am pasionate about turkey hunting and this helps me hone my craft....Whats not to love...

[Shadetree Callers]

When I was five years old, my Grandpa made me a boxcall and I was fascinated with it my whole childhood even though I had never seen a turkey. When I was thirteen , I experienced my first taste of turkey hunting and that is when the bird took a hold of my soul. I started building scratchboxes in high school shop class after a little instruction from Grandpa who was a master craftsman and gunmaker. In 1994 I took my turkey hunting obsession to the level of what I call an '' affliction between two pieces of wood and a screw when I started making laminated boxcalls. In 2004 I decided to try my hand at making boat paddle calls because I wanted one bad but in the wake of Neil Costs passing, i knew I wouldn't afford one so I built my own. After encouragement from my good friend, Gregg Guthridge, I entered my first contest calls in 2007.
 In short , I love the bird and the sport of hunting  so much that this allows me to stay connected with the wild turkey all year long. Combine that with the thrill I get whenever someone kills a turkey with the help of a caller I made and its a true passion.

[Old Geezer]

Fargobox hit the nail on the head.  Art and creativity, you can't keep it inside.

Ralph

[GR8CALLS]

Fargobox hit the nail on the head.  Art and creativity, you can't keep it inside.

Ralph

LOL! I'm short on both ends of that one! For me, I'm getting a kick out of taking a piece of wood and turning it into something that can bring a turkey into shotgun range. Wood working has been in my family for over 75 years.

Bill

[callmakerman]

I agree with all of you. I started just to see if I could build a call and then call a turkey in with it. My first bird with one of my calls was a jake and I couldn't have been happier that day. Bottom line is it's about getting the best turkey sounds out of the box or pot call that I'm building and knowing that I did it with my hands.

[West Augusta]

I always liked fiddling with stuff.  Seeing how things work, tearing them apart and putting them back together.  Making my own stuff.  That' why I went into Engineering.  When I started turkey hunting, I knew nothing of custom calls and like most of you, bought my first calls at Wal-Mart.  I thought I could go better.  I didn't have the setup to make pot calls so I did the best I could.  I made a striker. I just finished number 535.

Now I'm starting pot calls. Not because I think that I can out do the custom pots out there but because it's fun learning new stuff.  I'm having a blast learning how to stuff a turkey into a pot call.

[firedup]

It was a natural progression as a turkey hunter and loving to work with wood or maybe the other way around.   And like W Augusta, I like to figure out how things work..or make them work.  I looked at an old lynch or something many years ago and thought...I can make one of those.  After making a few I realized I enjoyed the process and it was a good diversion from other, more weighty, things in life.  I enjoy the process of making any call and the seeing the results but for whatever reasons....box calls are just more satisfying and fun for me to build. But honestly, its both a hobby and a true passion but I don't want to build calls 365 days a year.  That would just make it work. 

[longbeard48]

See the emotions on those guys' faces?  I helped put 'em there!  See that Mississippi Scratch Box and striker on that longbeard?  I made that call and striker with my own, old, grubby hands!  I get lots of pictures like that every year from customers from Florida to Washington state; it's a big part of what keeps me in the shop, sanding my fingernails to the quick and risking losing fingers on my old Delta table saw.       

[ol bob]

Had a closed machine shop and a friend talk me into making a few call " never forgave him" they were junk but I kept trying. Spent the last 18 years trying to make them sound or look better.Retired 2008 and let my son and grandkids have it,but I go to the shop almost ever day to try something new. Just finished a new machine that took a year to build ,you can see the results in Nashville. This is like drugs once you start you can never stop.

[nx95240]

Had a closed machine shop and a friend talk me into making a few call " never forgave him" they were junk but I kept trying. Spent the last 18 years trying to make them sound or look better.Retired 2008 and let my son and grandkids have it,but I go to the shop almost ever day to try something new. Just finished a new machine that took a year to build ,you can see the results in Nashville. This is like drugs once you start you can never stop.

 BOB I seen what your talking about at the GA st . a few week ago and like what I seen.

[3CB]

I like to play with wood. Some of the results are good. Some aren't. Basically boils down to the fact that I like turkey calls and couldn't afford all the ones I wanted. So I started building them myself!

[Jake St. John]

In 1986 my hunting partner and I were trying to find a louder turkey call.  We hunted the vast reaches between the levees on the Mississippi River.   He had a lot more experience than I at turkey hunting since his dad was one of the first to hunt the 14 day season when it opened in Mississippi in the 50's.  We both had the usual mouth calls, slate calls, wingbones, and lynch boxes.   We wanted something that would really reach out through the very heavy woods along the river.   I borrowed an original Stribling box from an older neighbor down the street that I bass fished with.  Mr. Stribling was around 80 at the time and had quite making them.  Mr. Wineman and I took that call and we each made the crudest reproduction you have ever seen.  Wade's first call ended up sounding like a jake.  Mine would not call a dog on a good day.  Horrible sound -- gave the thing to my brother.  I'm sure he threw the thing in the garbage.  Wade's call, even though it sounded like a jake, was deadly.  He wrote about the call in East of the Slash.   I think he has lost count of the birds he has killed with that box.  The second box I made was in 1987 and is the one pictured here.  It is on every hunt and still harvesting birds.  Wade only made the one box.  That second box hooked me like nothing else every could.  It would reach out like no other,  but play the softest tree music and soft calls you ever wanted to hear.   That is reason I make calls.  To impart that sweet music into two pieces of wood.  It is an art as old as the land where I hunt.  It hooked me like nothing else could.


If you are in Nashville this year.  Come by Mississippi Callmakers Association, booth 14.  I would love for you to play the call that hooked Mr. E.  

 

[B-Ready]

To kill turkey's