Osage Roost
General Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: Zumer on February 09, 2014, 08:06:20 AM
-
Why do you callmakers build calls...????
Very interested in hearing YOUR reasons for building calls....
Thanks for your replys....Zumer
-
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.
-
I build bc I love it...I love everything about callmaking... ROTFLMBO...I am pasionate about turkey hunting and this helps me hone my craft....Whats not to love... *ride*
-
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.
-
Fargobox hit the nail on the head. Art and creativity, you can't keep it inside.
Ralph
-
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
-
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.
-
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. *lol*
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.
-
It was a natural progression as a turkey hunter and loving to work with wood or maybe the other way around. :D 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. :-\
-
(http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/4696188-T600450.jpg)
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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!
-
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.
(http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu84/JohnEddleman/Tunica%20Turkey%20Season%202010/TunicaTurkeySeason2010014.jpg)
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.
-
To kill turkey's ;D
-
To kill turkey's ;D
that's right Stoner been waiting for that answer *up*
-
To kill turkey's ;D
That is a good answer. Also because it seemed all my friends and thier friends and so on wanted one. Service to others is how it got to here.
-
I am not much of a call maker myself, but I think most call makers make them to kill turkey. I also think every call maker trys to make there next call better than there last call. All call makers look for that perfect sound. I know my Dad started out trying to get a better sound than what he could buy in the store. I think it's a number of things that makes a call maker make them, with calling a turkey to the end of a gun barrel being #1
-
I'm not really a Callmaker....more of a hobbiest, but I do it because it's a very enjoyable and rewarding craft. Plus it gives me something to do with my wingbones, lol.
I will continue because of something I never counted on when I started fooling with wingbones and that is all the really good folks I've met.
-
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.
That's not long winded at all. And I agree.
-
When I was a kid I had the chance to meet Dick Kirby long before his company became the big name it is, and after that I always felt compelled to build a turkey call. Because of that meeting, I built a handful of pot calls about ten years ago using wooden pots turned on a machine, and aluminum or glass cut by someone else - so I don't call myself a "callmaker."
That said, the only thing that I ever took from raw to finished were a dozen strikers I whittled with a pocket knife, sanded, decorated and coated.
But this I do know for sure: I'll never forget the overcast, cool predawn morning few years back, when I took one of those strikers to a pot I built, and had a gobbler answer those light yelps. What an indescribable feeling that was to have a bird gobble on the roost to something of my own work. It didn't compel me to continue building them, but instead seemed to settle that goal to build a call after meeting and shaking hands with Mr. Kirby as a young kid.
For whatever its worth, just my two cents. But had I not met Dick all those years ago, I don't think I would have had that experience in the woods. (Nor would I have that sweet little cherry/walnut scratcher Bob Fulcher built for me from Mr. Kirby's personal wood pile!)
-
I started making calls because of several reasons. 1, I am a slightly obsessed turkey hunter... 2, I am a slightly obsessed carpenter, that hunts turkeys *lol*
Turkey Hunting changed the coarse of my life years ago. It put me on a better path. And to be able to cherry pick wood that is destined for a landfill, fireplace, or a bonfire, and creating something that may sound like a turkey is pretty fun.
And, when my daughter went on her first hunt, using the box call and pot calls I made for her, ...the result pretty much sealed my fate...here she is, first bird, first hunt.
(http://i1287.photobucket.com/albums/a626/John_Buchin/Cooper-20120427-00113_zps3577793f.jpg)
-
I started making calls because of several reasons. 1, I am a slightly obsessed turkey hunter... 2, I am a slightly obsessed carpenter, that hunts turkeys *lol*
Turkey Hunting changed the coarse of my life years ago. It put me on a better path. And to be able to cherry pick wood that is destined for a landfill, fireplace, or a bonfire, and creating something that may sound like a turkey is pretty fun.
And, when my daughter went on her first hunt, using the box call and pot calls I made for her, ...the result pretty much sealed my fate...here she is, first bird, first hunt.
(http://i1287.photobucket.com/albums/a626/John_Buchin/Cooper-20120427-00113_zps3577793f.jpg)
John,
I do hope, you have that picture framed & on your mancave wall....It doesn't get any better then that !!
-
I do it for the enjoyment of creating something that not only fools the quarry we all covet, but also knowing that something I created has pleased others and that they are proud to have that something in their vest every day they venture out in to God's creation
-
I do not concider myself a callmaker when compared to you all. I build wingbone turkey calls to hunt with. Back when I started turkey hunting back in the early 90's I learned to use a mouth caller,slate,and a box call. I was hunting public land and those birds where very people shy. They called to all them turkey with all the calls I mentioned and where very hard to get to come to the call. I had heard about wingbone turkey calls from a turkey hunting magizine. With the diections from that article I made my first wingbone caller. It was a two bone parker Whedon sytle wingbone caller. I took a huge gobbler using that wingbone caller back 2001. I have been hooked on making my own wingbone calls ever since. With the help from alot of good wingbone call makers my calls are getting better. My hat is off to all the great callmakers. I hope one dau to be half as good as you all are. The passion shows in ya'lls work.
-
And I will say to all of you that do it, thanks I enjoyed reading the reasons and I enjoy buying a piece of art that helps me fool a good ole long beard in the spring and some whitty ole hens in the fall!