As you might guess, I checked in with all my turkey buds last month at Orlando's SHOT Show. One industry trend is to provide friction calls that play when wet. Gone are the days of having to slip a box call into a plastic zip bag on rainy hunts.
Jerry Peterson and Gary Sefton of Woods Wise Products offered insights related to their Mystic Wet Box Calls (not only do they play when wet, but also require no chalk). Two are walnut, and provide raspy turkey yelps. Woods Wise’s strikers and pot-and-peg calls are also weatherproof. Apart from these friction calls, their Callmasters Pro-Staff diaphragms are made with individual side and back latex stretching. Check out www.woodswise.com for more information.
Quaker Boy’s Chris Kirby, Ernie Calandrelli, Dave Streb, and Bob Wozniak promoted their weatherproof Typhoon and Hurricane box calls (www.quakerboy.com), and Hunter’s Specialties’ National Pro Staffers Matt Morrett and Alex Rutledge shared their insights about the range of established turkey calls the company promotes. The H.S. catalog of offerings has never been better, best I can tell (www.hunterspec.com).
Known more appropriately for duck calling because they’re among the best, Haydel’s Game Calls is also offering a new innovative call called the Turkey Flute. It’s the shape of a dry-erase marker pen, contains a reed inside, and can produce the range of spring calls, including gobbles. Rod Haydel, well-known caller and hunter, demonstrated it for me, and it’s a winner (www.haydels.com).
--S.H.
(Osceola/NWTF photo)
