Speaker 1: All right, welcome back to another episode of Cutting the
Speaker 1: Distance podcast. Today, I've got Steve Morgenstern, i got James Harrison,
Speaker 1: and these are the masterminds behind our small batch calls.
Speaker 1: So I thought, you know, I came out here to
Speaker 1: film some content around the small batch calls, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, well, while I'm here, I might as well
Speaker 1: get these guys together and let them chew the fat
Speaker 1: a little bit, so to speak about building calls, calling
Speaker 1: turkeys and anything these guys want to talk about. So
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Guys. What's the first thing on
Speaker 1: your mind? James, I feel like you got a lot
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 2: Usually it's almost turkey season, so that's what's on my
Speaker 2: mind right now. Is uh, you know, we just got
Speaker 2: done wrapping out the NWTF convention and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: so we are full pull on turkey mode right now.
Speaker 2: Everything turkey right it is. Winter has been long and
Speaker 2: we were ready for spring to get here. Here's some
Speaker 2: birds goblin and get out of state and Missouri and
Speaker 2: kill some turkeys.
Speaker 1: Right So, these guys would never probably pat theirselves on
Speaker 1: the back, or well I know James would. Steve, I
Speaker 1: can't reach my back. My shoulders from patent it no no,
Speaker 1: or they wouldn't you know, tooth thrown horn. But these
Speaker 1: guys are some very accomplished callers, so they do a
Speaker 1: competition calling for for turkeys, whether it's friction, whether it's
Speaker 1: mouth diaphragm, whether it's awl hooting. Until a year ago,
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about al hooting, and let alone,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know there was a contest, So it
Speaker 1: was kind of like, wait, what they hoot in a contest?
Speaker 1: How hard could it be? Well, it turns out it's
Speaker 1: a little harder to think I can alhoot with my voice,
Speaker 1: but enter James Harrison's Harrison hooter. So immediately I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna blow this thing like a like a elk call.
Speaker 1: And I can't do it right. I can't do it
Speaker 1: at all. So it took a little bit of time.
Speaker 1: Had to watch his instructional videos that we have on
Speaker 1: Phelps Game Calls YouTube channel, and after watching him do it,
Speaker 1: you know, explain it, and then watching his his facial expressions,
Speaker 1: his his the way he moved his mouth and his jaw,
Speaker 1: the way he was pushing air through it, I was
Speaker 1: actually able to do it. Now if you put me
Speaker 1: on the spot right now. I probably wouldn't do it
Speaker 1: very good, right, sound terrible, but we.
Speaker 3: Need to get him out real quick.
Speaker 4: We have this on video.
Speaker 1: Steve, he's a great al hooter too, I guess. I
Speaker 1: guess James is kind of like the o G like
Speaker 1: he's been doing al hooton for a long time and
Speaker 1: then somehow drug Steve into al hooting and uh.
Speaker 4: Made me do it.
Speaker 2: Well, the reason Steve's out hooting is because he's good
Speaker 2: at and the reason I'm not friction calling in contest
Speaker 2: is because I am terrible at it. So and that's
Speaker 2: just that's the if anybody knows this, that's the honest truth.
Speaker 3: That is a friction calling is not my forte.
Speaker 1: You want me to try one of these things, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: yes we did. We want to see this happen. We're
Speaker 1: just going to wipe your cooties officing, all right. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do just like James said, So you take
Speaker 1: your hand and make a little signal okay down at
Speaker 1: the end of the barrel here, and then you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to put your hand over this cuppet like you're
Speaker 1: holding the baby chicken.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Is exactly how he said it before and you don't
Speaker 1: want to seal off the air. You don't want to
Speaker 1: let enough come through. So the first thing you want
Speaker 1: to do is get some some noise go through through
Speaker 1: through there kind of like this. We're not gonna blow
Speaker 1: it like we're blown out a birthday cake. We're just
Speaker 1: kind of like tightening our core and getting some of
Speaker 1: that air coming out from our from our diaphragm up.
Speaker 1: So first those first few noises.
Speaker 4: Get made.
Speaker 1: The dog, yill, my dog, my black lab, goes nuts.
Speaker 1: He starts howling and barking every time I start al
Speaker 1: hooting or quacking on a duck call or ething.
Speaker 4: So yeah, our dog at home, he hope come here.
Speaker 4: If he's sleeping when you start al hooting or turkey
Speaker 4: calling or whatever, he just stays there. He just sleeps right.
Speaker 1: Well, this is Ranger here.
Speaker 3: He's part of the Sweet Dream security team.
Speaker 2: So anytime I'm up here in the shop, the lab
Speaker 2: door's up here sleeping and this one's in and out
Speaker 2: checking on everything. But he's uh, he's the supervisor of
Speaker 2: the whole thing. So when you're out hooting, he was
Speaker 2: he was listening to you right there. Oh yeah, that's
Speaker 2: why he came in. He heard the AlOH houton and
Speaker 2: he was coming in and check it all out.
Speaker 1: So so okay, give me a grade like, uh zero
Speaker 1: to ten probably five.
Speaker 2: Oh no, No, you're you've got the tone right, you're
Speaker 2: doing it. I mean, you've got the hand placement. The
Speaker 2: big thing is is guys need to practice the call,
Speaker 2: and everybody's hands a little different and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: so it changes up a little bit. But you have
Speaker 2: your hand placement down and it's it sounds great. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're you've got You're over the hurdle.
Speaker 3: Put it like that, right.
Speaker 2: Next step is the more you practice it, the better
Speaker 2: you're gonna get. The more real owls you listen to.
Speaker 3: That's the key.
Speaker 2: I listened to a lot of real owls, and the
Speaker 2: more I listen to him, then I just start to
Speaker 2: mimic them, just like elk or anything and it goes
Speaker 2: from there.
Speaker 3: So that works great. And I can't even do a
Speaker 3: dog sound here.
Speaker 4: The thing with the owl hut that I found is,
Speaker 4: I mean I've been a I've blown one, you know before.
Speaker 4: But when you get to James and uh, he can
Speaker 4: tell you what you need to you know where you
Speaker 4: need to go with it, and it's it's a uh,
Speaker 4: it's just a matter of of knowing where to be
Speaker 4: with it. And that's what he did with me. You know,
Speaker 4: when I started getting back into you know, we're getting
Speaker 4: into the owl contest. You know, he's like, well that's good,
Speaker 4: but here's here's where you go. And not necessarily does
Speaker 4: a person I wouldn't think need to do that hunting wise,
Speaker 4: because you're trying to get a turkey to cobble, which
Speaker 4: is what the biggest percentage of people are looking for.
Speaker 4: But when you start getting into that, once you get
Speaker 4: into it, you want to go more. You know what
Speaker 4: I mean, You want to You want to, man I
Speaker 4: can do this, and man I want to be able
Speaker 4: to do that. So you start thinking and learning. That's
Speaker 4: where James helped me a lot. You know, it was
Speaker 4: taking me to that next, next level and next level
Speaker 4: and just keep stepping up to where you know you
Speaker 4: have success at that. But then it's then it's a
Speaker 4: no brainer when you're trying to make a turkey gob
Speaker 4: But you can do whatever you want to do because
Speaker 4: you've done it. You know, you've learned how to do
Speaker 4: it and made it happen. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, James said one thing about what I really
Speaker 1: keyed in on is he listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: real owls hooting, right, and you went out and played
Speaker 1: with the owls. That's how I kind of have gotten
Speaker 1: better at ELK calling over the years, is listening to
Speaker 1: the ELK try to mimic those I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: mimic my favorite YouTube celebrity. I'm trying to mimic ELK,
Speaker 1: real live Elk, and as good as a guy can get,
Speaker 1: it's just still just just like there's that nuance, like, man,
Speaker 1: I've just that Elk is way better than me. And
Speaker 1: is that? Would you say that the true with owls?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, hundred percent.
Speaker 2: No matter how good I build that out hooter or
Speaker 2: how I refine it and keep practicing it, when the
Speaker 2: real owls right there in front of you, it just
Speaker 2: humbles you because you cannot do what they're doing naturally.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're working with plastic and wood and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, where they're putting all their vocal cords and
Speaker 2: feeling into it, and there's just an element there even
Speaker 2: with an ELK call or a Turkey call, that realism
Speaker 2: that they get. I mean, they've got all their feeling
Speaker 2: and it's just we try to get as close as possible,
Speaker 2: and I think we're I think we're there, but to
Speaker 2: match them is just I mean, the more you listen
Speaker 2: to the real thing, the better off you're going to
Speaker 2: be on you know, Turkeys Elk.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker 4: You know, well, yeah, I think it's I think that's
Speaker 4: exactly right, because you've even mentioned that. You know, no
Speaker 4: matter how good you think you are with an Elk,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like, man, I'm not taking good And
Speaker 4: that's that's the way with the ol Hooters, the Turkey calls.
Speaker 4: You know, this stuff has progressed so good nowadays that
Speaker 4: I mean, the stuff that they had twenty years ago,
Speaker 4: ten years ago is not even in the same ballpark.
Speaker 4: But when you put them side by side, where you
Speaker 4: have the real thing, whether it be an al An
Speaker 4: Elk at Turkey and then you you have you on
Speaker 4: this now, it's better than it used to be. But
Speaker 4: it's still not. It's that it's that those tones that
Speaker 4: just that real, the real thing that's there, and it's
Speaker 4: you know, no matter how close we think we are,
Speaker 4: we're never ever going to get there, I mean not fully.
Speaker 1: Right, Sam with Elk calls el calls have come a lot.
Speaker 1: Like I started calling ELK in nineteen eighty nine, and
Speaker 1: back then, you know, you had frames, you had the
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner hose tubes. It was it was a whole
Speaker 1: other world. You know, there was not much for even
Speaker 1: external cow call you. They had those ones. They were
Speaker 1: called cow talk by ELK. It looked like a little
Speaker 1: plastic credit card looking thing with a black rubber band
Speaker 1: stretching between and you blow on and it sounds it
Speaker 1: sounds like more like a weird bird than it did
Speaker 1: in ELK. But ELK they would reply. There was lots
Speaker 1: of people use those and helped them successfully take an
Speaker 1: ELK home with them. So you know, ELK calls, turkey calls,
Speaker 1: I think deer calls. Everything is like progressed over the
Speaker 1: last decades a lot.
Speaker 4: Oh, sure it has. And just like you know when
Speaker 4: you talk about ELK would respond to it. I mean
Speaker 4: that's like back in the day, you know when I
Speaker 4: started with mouth called had little lead frames and you
Speaker 4: know your scratch boxes and James talking about the natural
Speaker 4: voice out hooters and stuff and listen, some of them
Speaker 4: are horrendous, But turkeys would respond, right, And that's the
Speaker 4: ultimate goal of what any of us are trying to do.
Speaker 4: You know, the contest stuff is fun and I enjoy it.
Speaker 4: James enjoys it. You know, I've done it thirty four years.
Speaker 4: You know, this is my thirty fourth year doing it.
Speaker 4: But it's still not you know, walking out on the
Speaker 4: stage to Grand Nationals is something I love and that's
Speaker 4: why I still do it. But it's still not like
Speaker 4: walking out to the timber and having a response and
Speaker 4: and you know that turkey goblin and coming to you,
Speaker 4: or hit the out hooter and that turkey blows up,
Speaker 4: you know, fifty yards away or seventy five yards away.
Speaker 4: But the ultimate goal is to have that response, you know,
Speaker 4: get that response from oh yeah, from whatever it.
Speaker 2: Is, the more realism you can put in it. And
Speaker 2: the same way when you're when you're hunting, whether it
Speaker 2: be ground, public ground, whatever, I want to be as realistic,
Speaker 2: whatever animal, whether it be a deer, turkey and owl,
Speaker 2: whatever crow I want to be.
Speaker 3: Man, I want to sound like that owl sitting on
Speaker 3: my shoulder. I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: I want it to be as so realistic that other
Speaker 2: owls here can come in because a lot of times
Speaker 2: in the mornings I'll get up and I'll hit the owl,
Speaker 2: scream and I'll hoot and then another owl respond. Well,
Speaker 2: then I quit calling and I just listen. You know,
Speaker 2: if you can get one out to hoop back at you,
Speaker 2: then he's got another owl. So they're actually doing my
Speaker 2: job for me. So the more realistic I can get it.
Speaker 2: It's just like calling it a bunch of cow elk
Speaker 2: when you're el hunting man.
Speaker 3: You got the real deal right in front of you.
Speaker 3: What's better? You know, same way with a bunch of
Speaker 3: hen turkeys. You got them right in front of you.
Speaker 4: That's the you know, Plus you can you can sit
Speaker 4: back and you're not making that noise and you're number one,
Speaker 4: you're watching the show, but number two, you're able. That
Speaker 4: puts you in a better position because it puts you
Speaker 4: a leg up because you're not messing with a call
Speaker 4: at that time. You've done your you've done your park,
Speaker 4: you've got that realism amount and you've got them fire.
Speaker 4: So you set back, let them do the work, and
Speaker 4: you can analyze a lot better because you've you're not
Speaker 4: having to do the calling or you're not having to
Speaker 4: do this or do that. It just puts you in
Speaker 4: more a better advantage point.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I say, oh for sure.
Speaker 2: And then one big thing too, like on locator calls
Speaker 2: and even turkey calls when we're hunting, me and Stea's
Speaker 2: hunting together, you know, anytime I do a locator call,
Speaker 2: I put him out in front of me a ways,
Speaker 2: just so because I'm blowing a call that's you know,
Speaker 2: al scream, hawks scream stuff like that, that's super loud. So
Speaker 2: if I put him out in front of me, he
Speaker 2: can actually hear that turkey gobbling good and get a
Speaker 2: good direction where I can hear a gobble. But then
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, where you come from, right, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm saying it'd be the same with l two
Speaker 2: you're bugling and you get one to cut you off.
Speaker 2: You're like, okay, I heard him, but I don't know
Speaker 2: where he was at. So and we do that with
Speaker 2: turkeys too. We always split up and I get him
Speaker 2: out in front running that friction call and I sit
Speaker 2: there and listen, you know, and I'm like, okay, that
Speaker 2: bird gobble there and the more realistic here. I mean
Speaker 2: when we were doing some videos before and we're hunting together,
Speaker 2: I was always a mouth caall guy for competition. But man,
Speaker 2: Steve running friction colon Woods, I mean that that is
Speaker 2: a hen turkey coming in. That's how realistic he's got it.
Speaker 2: I mean you have to like stop and look like
Speaker 2: that's awesome, and that's that's I mean, if it sounds
Speaker 2: that good to us, you know them turkeys are just
Speaker 2: going nuts over it.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, yeah, Steve has said, yeah, that call
Speaker 1: there has got a lot of turkey in it. And
Speaker 1: when you say that, you're you mean that thing sounds
Speaker 1: as real as it gets with it with the pot Yeah.
Speaker 4: When yeah, when uh, when you're saying it's got a
Speaker 4: lot of turkey in it, you know, it's there's stuff
Speaker 4: that you play that it just almost like it's just
Speaker 4: making noise. But then you pick up something that and
Speaker 4: as soon as you start running it, it's like, wow,
Speaker 4: I can hear you almost it almost puts a picture
Speaker 4: of mine. I can hear that and see that old
Speaker 4: hen out there just flapping her beak, you know, just
Speaker 4: prop I mean that's when that's when it, in my
Speaker 4: mind has turkey in it, you know. I mean there's
Speaker 4: not necessarily one up inside there beating around, but yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean that's.
Speaker 3: What Wait a minute, there's not a turkey inside of
Speaker 3: the little thing.
Speaker 4: I know it sounds like it when I play one, James, there's.
Speaker 2: Not a gum well, and the cool thing and I'll
Speaker 2: and I'll even go a little further on the small
Speaker 2: batch called you hit it earlier on like the red slate.
Speaker 2: You know, one might be a little higher pitch, one's
Speaker 2: a little lower pitch. On the same way when I'm
Speaker 2: doing the owl hooters, you know, I'm hand tuning every
Speaker 2: one of them calls, and not all two owls sound
Speaker 2: the same, right, and the turkeys are the same way.
Speaker 3: So in that small batch.
Speaker 2: The cool thing about that when we say there's a
Speaker 2: lot of turkey in there, or I get it, I
Speaker 2: always say, man, that thing's spitting feathers or you know,
Speaker 2: I mean that thing's it's every one of them, like
Speaker 2: you grab a pot, maybe a little bit higher pitch
Speaker 2: and maybe a little bit lower pitch, but they're all turkey.
Speaker 2: And now that's what's cool about it, because there's not
Speaker 2: too you know, everybody always asks me, well, why do
Speaker 2: you carry you know, why do you have a triple
Speaker 2: threat locator and a crow call in it?
Speaker 3: Out here?
Speaker 2: Well, certain spots I've got spots that I hunt that man,
Speaker 2: there's so many hours.
Speaker 3: The turkeys don't even respond to them. They just they
Speaker 3: won't gobble at it.
Speaker 2: Where I can grab a hawk scream and it's something
Speaker 2: new and fresh to them and they'll gobble at it.
Speaker 2: Same way with a turkey call. You've got your mulberry
Speaker 2: with the gray slate, and then you've got the the
Speaker 2: babinga that red and I mean it's just two different sounded.
Speaker 2: They're both turkeys, but they're just different sounding. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure it's the same way with ELK two. You can,
Speaker 2: you know, change it up and make different sounds to
Speaker 2: get different results.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's what like, you're talking to different. It's
Speaker 4: a turkey, but it's maybe just a different turkey, but
Speaker 4: it's still all turkey. And the thing is and that's
Speaker 4: something that you know, I hear guys say alls, I
Speaker 4: needs a mouse call. Listen, man, you're walking by more
Speaker 4: turkeys than you're ever seeing or hearing. If you're just
Speaker 4: taking one call and by the pitch change or by
Speaker 4: the variants, say in the red slight, a higher pitch,
Speaker 4: a lower pitch, whatever, get two of them, you know,
Speaker 4: don't get one that's high pitched and one's pitch. But
Speaker 4: you can also do that with different strikers, mouth calls,
Speaker 4: different mouth calls, a box call, box call, anything, you know.
Speaker 4: And what happens is everybody gets a sound in their
Speaker 4: in their head that that's what they want to hear. Well,
Speaker 4: Turkey's Turkey's quote responding to it, you know, and they
Speaker 4: they then you have to go with something that they
Speaker 4: don't hear every day, or maybe something that that I've
Speaker 4: had instances where I've yelped and yelped and yelped to
Speaker 4: this turkey and he's gobbledy's brains out, but he just
Speaker 4: walks right on by, you know, one hundred yards out. Well,
Speaker 4: he's following a hen and I've listening to her yelp
Speaker 4: and it's like, man, I've got a box call at
Speaker 4: home or a or a pot call or something at
Speaker 4: home that sounds just like her, and go back out there,
Speaker 4: and I mean, he just loses his mind as soon
Speaker 4: as because that's the hen that he's that he's hearing. So,
Speaker 4: you know, the fact of different pitch, pot calls or
Speaker 4: out hooters or whatever else what we try and do,
Speaker 4: and James nails it. You you get the most owl
Speaker 4: or the most turkey out of that particular piece of
Speaker 4: wood and piece of slate or box call or whatever
Speaker 4: it is. You get as much of that turkey out
Speaker 4: of that as you can, and that's when that's when
Speaker 4: you start hitting it. You know, you just you get
Speaker 4: all you can out of that particular piece of wood,
Speaker 4: and it's you know, it's.
Speaker 2: And the advantage of building the small batches. Anytime I'm
Speaker 2: building calls, and I've been building calls since oh man,
Speaker 2: what seventeen years now, custom calls every I'm never satisfied.
Speaker 2: Steve's never satisfied, just like you guys, aren't. You know,
Speaker 2: Jason's not satisfied with ELK calls. We're always looking to
Speaker 2: improve that call, to get it even just that much better,
Speaker 2: whether it be for stage or for hunting. Like a
Speaker 2: stage all. I run the Harrison Hooter and the Maple.
Speaker 2: I love the sound of that maple. It's a great
Speaker 2: tone for hunting. I run the Hooter Probe because it's adjustable,
Speaker 2: and the reason for that is you can choke it
Speaker 2: down and get nice and quiet, or you can open
Speaker 2: it up and get as loud as you want. And
Speaker 2: the same way with you know, I carry two different
Speaker 2: friction calls with me. You know, I carry a slate
Speaker 2: and I'll carry aluminum or a glass or whatever. I
Speaker 2: carried that O Sage aluminum last year and turkeys just
Speaker 2: went inside it. I mean they just turned.
Speaker 3: Them inside out. And it was that frequency.
Speaker 2: And it didn't matter if I was in Kansas or
Speaker 2: I was in Missouri, or I was in Arkansas.
Speaker 3: Wherever I was at, turkeys were responding to it.
Speaker 2: So that's you know, that's what We're always trying to
Speaker 2: make it better all the time because we wanted you know,
Speaker 2: we want hunters, not just us, but we want hunters
Speaker 2: to have that advantage too.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, I think, you know, as a as a hunter,
Speaker 1: you think, well, well I already got a pot call er,
Speaker 1: I've already got a box call, or I've already got
Speaker 1: my one diaphragm I like to use. But to your point,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't hurt to have more than one, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: you know I used to. I kind of fell for
Speaker 1: that whole thing back in the day when I was younger,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just gonna run a diaphragm for turkeys, And
Speaker 1: there was days I cannot buy it. Freaking gobble with
Speaker 1: a diaphragm, and then I bought a box call and
Speaker 1: on those days I couldn't buy buy one with a diaphragm.
Speaker 1: Then they were answering boss calls, and then there's the
Speaker 1: days they don't answer either one. Well, then I got
Speaker 1: a pot call, and then now again we have a
Speaker 1: completely different sound profile. And it says same with ELK.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you know those external, external read ELK calls, some
Speaker 1: people will say, oh, yeah, that's all you need. They
Speaker 1: worn't really great all the time. But for me, just
Speaker 1: where I hunt ELK, and I think maybe regionally answer
Speaker 1: calls differently, but where I go, I've had pretty good
Speaker 1: luck with those open recalls, maybe twenty percent of time,
Speaker 1: ten percent of time. So two bowls out of ten,
Speaker 1: one bull out of ten, probably two out of ten
Speaker 1: will answer that external call way better than they will
Speaker 1: a diaphragm call. And on those days, like you blow
Speaker 1: that thing and he like he wasn't answering good, and
Speaker 1: then you blow that external and they just he just
Speaker 1: fires up and now he's coming. That's all it takes.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with turkeys, they think, and
Speaker 1: I think it's adding that realism and that different sound
Speaker 1: in that different voice that might remind him of that
Speaker 1: that old Turkey and Mary Lou from last year that
Speaker 1: you know they made some babies with same with the elk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think Turkey calls in general. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm a first I'm a pot call guy, pot caller
Speaker 4: and a box call. But there's been times where I
Speaker 4: can't get him to answer anything I've got and I'll
Speaker 4: throw grab a tube call or a mouth call. And
Speaker 4: trust me when I say, I'm terrible on a mouth
Speaker 4: different rhythm wise, but hit a mouth call and he
Speaker 4: flips out. You know, it just starts pounding and coming,
Speaker 4: and I'm thinking, well, that's not home. But I'm going
Speaker 4: to go with it because that's what's working at that
Speaker 4: particular time, you know. And and it's just it's it's
Speaker 4: crazy sometimes what a guy can do with different sounds
Speaker 4: of different same call, different striker mouth call, but a
Speaker 4: different read configuration or cut.
Speaker 2: Oh I can I can even do one farther on
Speaker 2: you're talking about the calls. Everybody like I run an
Speaker 2: ou houter, you run an out houter. We take the
Speaker 2: same out hooter and passed around, you'll have three different owls.
Speaker 1: Because everybody runs a different same.
Speaker 2: Way the mouth calls, the friction calls. Steve runs his
Speaker 2: fiction call great, it sounds like a real turkey. I
Speaker 2: run it, and it sounds like a dying turkey.
Speaker 3: But it kills turkey, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean it's not that bad.
Speaker 3: It's pretty bad.
Speaker 4: It's got some issues.
Speaker 3: I'm working on it.
Speaker 4: It's got some but there's some turkey in it, very little, and.
Speaker 3: So it's a weed. It's a turkey, but it's it's what.
Speaker 3: That's the thing though.
Speaker 2: Everybody can grab those calls and they're gonna have a
Speaker 2: different sound to them, and that's that's a good thing
Speaker 2: about it, you know. And you can grab a call
Speaker 2: and run it, and everybody's gonna run it just a
Speaker 2: little bit different. It's gonna sound like a different turkey,
Speaker 2: but it's got as much turkey in as possible.
Speaker 1: That just like diaphragms. So there's a handful of Western guys,
Speaker 1: I know, they're just like, Oh, I just use my
Speaker 1: elk read to call in turkeys. And it's not the
Speaker 1: least bit a rasp there. It's not as perfect sound
Speaker 1: a turkey, but it kind of sounds like a turkey.
Speaker 1: Dam They call in turkeys with him until that quits working,
Speaker 1: I guess run it. But if you're if you're trying
Speaker 1: to be serious, then I think you need to have
Speaker 1: like a your quiver full of arrows, so to speak.
Speaker 1: You need to have a few different call options, different
Speaker 1: sound profiles that way, because you never know. You don't
Speaker 1: go fishing with just one bluer, right, take a whole
Speaker 1: box of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's the thing, you know, it's not I'm
Speaker 4: not saying a person has to pack fourteen pot calls,
Speaker 4: three box calls, and twenty mouth calls. You know, you
Speaker 4: can do, like James said, with an illuminum call. If
Speaker 4: you put a luminum call and a slate call and
Speaker 4: a glass call would be all. You would never need
Speaker 4: change them up, you know, if you got more of
Speaker 4: them at home or whatever, you want to change sounds
Speaker 4: or what have you. But put different pegs with it,
Speaker 4: you know, different strikers, you know, get a get a
Speaker 4: striker that runs greater on that aluminum. Well, when that
Speaker 4: doesn't work, maybe you pick up a a hickory striker
Speaker 4: versus a diamond wood striker versus a carbon striker. You know,
Speaker 4: get three different variations on a couple of different calls.
Speaker 4: I mean you've got a mirage. Yeah, you've got You've
Speaker 4: got a tremendous amount, you know, and the mouth calls.
Speaker 4: Mouthcalls don't take that much room. It put your put
Speaker 4: you a combo cut or a bat wing or a
Speaker 4: you know, a cutter style or or even just a
Speaker 4: clear double read you know, something like that that that
Speaker 4: you could that you could put in. That's where the
Speaker 4: triple locator call comes in too. It gives you a
Speaker 4: variance of if you can't get him to gobble with one,
Speaker 4: try something different. And that's the thing, man, don't I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, you can't be afraid to try something right,
Speaker 4: And that's why you have and you have all of
Speaker 4: these tools in this little space. Yeah, and you're not
Speaker 4: walking by turkeys that didn't want to hear that one
Speaker 4: mouthful you had, right.
Speaker 1: Well, that can be one of the frustrations of turkey
Speaker 1: on it is just you can't get him to gobble, right.
Speaker 1: That's so then you're hunting them like deer. Right, You're
Speaker 1: going to try to find where they're they're crossing, or
Speaker 1: they're going to a place to feed, or where they're
Speaker 1: going to go strut or whatever. And I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's okay, but it's not as fun as calling him in.
Speaker 1: Calling him in, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: That's where you want to see him gobble and the
Speaker 2: strut and come in and stuff like that. And I
Speaker 2: tell everybody, the more's time you can spend scouting, the
Speaker 2: better off you're going to be. But a lot of
Speaker 2: times we don't get a chance to scout, so we
Speaker 2: rely a lot on our calls to get them birds going.
Speaker 2: And like we got some public ground below me that
Speaker 2: I hunt, it's ninety eight thousand acres. Well, dude, if
Speaker 2: them birds don't want to gobble that day, go try
Speaker 2: to find a turkey in that it's I mean, it's impossible.
Speaker 2: So the more opportunity you present, if he just gobbles
Speaker 2: one time, it's just like an oak. You if he
Speaker 2: it's at one time, at least I got a game
Speaker 2: started and then and then we can go from there.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: And you know there's times where there's times where I've
Speaker 4: had no luck at all getting anything to gobble and find.
Speaker 4: You find you a point high point, you know, to
Speaker 4: where you can hear a long ways. Just go up
Speaker 4: there and sit down, don't make a sound, don't do anything,
Speaker 4: and at some point something you're going to fire off,
Speaker 4: whether he means to or not. I mean he's you know,
Speaker 4: he gobbles. Then you can make a little like he said,
Speaker 4: you've got the game starting to make a little move.
Speaker 4: Then you can go and and find what he wants.
Speaker 4: You know he's there, so you're not just completely blind
Speaker 4: to the oblivious to the whole thing. He just you've
Speaker 4: got a little bit of a deal. But then you
Speaker 4: start be it whatever whatever call it is.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if it's like day three and they've
Speaker 2: been hard headed, I'm gonna go fishing. So you're talking
Speaker 2: about the bass I fished for them.
Speaker 3: It's like bass pro. He's got a lot of lures.
Speaker 2: It's like I don't even have to take anything because
Speaker 2: it's like he's got me covered.
Speaker 1: You probably hang up a lot of them on stumps
Speaker 1: and stuff too, and like oh sorry starts step.
Speaker 3: No, No, he make you go get him, So I
Speaker 3: make sure I do my stuff right. But no, I mean,
Speaker 3: and that's that's we do that a lot.
Speaker 2: You know, we'll go if we ain't got nothing happening,
Speaker 2: we just find a spot where we can hear. And
Speaker 2: you know, another good thing, and I'm sure I mean
Speaker 2: deer hunters do it. Elk hunters do it. Check the
Speaker 2: wind direction, that winds blown a certain way. You know
Speaker 2: you're gonna be able to hear farther if it's you know,
Speaker 2: how are you at? So make sure you put yourself
Speaker 2: in a position where you can hear. You know, you
Speaker 2: get the best advantage. You know, if it's going to
Speaker 2: be a super windy day like today, the winds gusting
Speaker 2: out there, we've got a cold front comes through, you
Speaker 2: want to be down them low areas. You know, them
Speaker 2: birds are gonna get out of that wind and they're
Speaker 2: gonna be in them low areas, just like if it's
Speaker 2: coming out of a hard you know, you got a
Speaker 2: storm coming up that night, and you know that wind's
Speaker 2: coming out of the west, Well, them turkeys are going
Speaker 2: to be on the back sides of them ridges out
Speaker 2: of that as much as possible. So, I mean, there's
Speaker 2: there's advantage of that. And that's more of the woodsmanship
Speaker 2: than the calls. But when you combine, when you know,
Speaker 2: and combine all that together, that's when you you know, that's.
Speaker 3: When you're killing turkeys and you're on turkeys.
Speaker 2: Consistency is the key, you know, I mean, you I
Speaker 2: don't judge a hunt by if I kill a turkey
Speaker 2: or not. I just want to make sure I play
Speaker 2: the game, you know, And I think that's all you
Speaker 2: can ask for when you get out there, is you
Speaker 2: just want to have a day where you get birds
Speaker 2: to gobble and you're actually in the game chasing. Because
Speaker 2: we've had those days where you don't get nothing fired
Speaker 2: of them. You just do a whole bunch of walking
Speaker 2: and get in some good exercise. But I'd definitely rather
Speaker 2: get one on the ground and get him working, whether
Speaker 2: I get him killed or not, because every one of
Speaker 2: them is learning experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fun to play with.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: So I talked a little earlier about small batch calls.
Speaker 1: I'm down here video and some stuff, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to pick your guys' brains. Maybe some of our followers
Speaker 1: they don't know about our small batch calls. So last year,
Speaker 1: I'll get kind of give the long and short story.
Speaker 1: Last year, twenty twenty three was our first year doing
Speaker 1: small batch calls. So small batch Calls was the Harrison Hooter,
Speaker 1: the Harrison Hooter, pro yep Alt Hooters, and then we
Speaker 1: had Steve's O Sage and Aluminum s aluminum and what
Speaker 1: was it like green slight the teak and a green slate,
Speaker 1: so we had exotic domestic woods had some kind of
Speaker 1: cool cool surfaces. I mean, the aluminum is not super uncommon,
Speaker 1: but the green slate's kind of an uncommon slate to
Speaker 1: put on a turkey call. And then this year you've
Speaker 1: got you've got babinga, which is fun to say.
Speaker 4: It is fun to say inga.
Speaker 5: Binga.
Speaker 1: I think somebody's going to start a game called binga,
Speaker 1: kind of like YACHTSI. I mean, everybody wants to say YATSI. Anyway, sorry, binga,
Speaker 1: the binga. What was the other one?
Speaker 4: Mulberry?
Speaker 1: Mulberry. So the binga is from the congo in Africa,
Speaker 1: and mulberry is a domestic.
Speaker 4: From everybody's backyard. Everybody's got a mulberry tree. Yea, yeah, mulberries.
Speaker 1: I got several. And then you put pair of red
Speaker 1: slate with because the binga is kind of reddish colored wood.
Speaker 4: It's a reddish colored wood, and they, I mean number one,
Speaker 4: they look good together. But then we you know, we
Speaker 4: make it work. Make it make that pair of work.
Speaker 4: You know, if that's what you want to do, you
Speaker 4: you get the red slate and you cut diments until
Speaker 4: it does what you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So what Steve saying is you don't have this like
Speaker 1: pre thought out dimensional pot and you're just gonna slap
Speaker 1: slay it in. They both have to pair, right, So
Speaker 1: you may have to change some dimensions internal stuff, may
Speaker 1: have to overall dimension. You have to do some cool
Speaker 1: little tweaks or make it sound optimal. Right, you're optimizing
Speaker 1: the wood and the slaves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and here's this is the thing with the small
Speaker 4: batch of doing. It's a small batch way and these
Speaker 4: are done basically they're cut on a C and ce meal.
Speaker 4: They're not hand turned. But when they get to that
Speaker 4: sea and ce mil I've went through and hand turned
Speaker 4: them and got all those dimensions right and tweaked it.
Speaker 4: And the small batch theory or thought behind it was
Speaker 4: we can do all of this stuff and then with
Speaker 4: some of the equipment available, make it, you know, get
Speaker 4: it down to where you can get the tolerance is
Speaker 4: a lot tighter. So what I'll do is go through
Speaker 4: and we've got boubinga and red slate. That's what we
Speaker 4: want to make run. So I've got to generalized starting
Speaker 4: spot with it. And I try that, okay, and if
Speaker 4: it's too tight or if it's too loose what I mean,
Speaker 4: like really high pitch and pinging, it's too tight. If
Speaker 4: it's really sounds like it's rattley or something, maybe it's
Speaker 4: too loose. So you start adjusting those dimensions and then
Speaker 4: end result when you get it where you want it
Speaker 4: and the sound that you want and the playability. Now
Speaker 4: the red slate versus some of the other stuff is
Speaker 4: a little pitchy at times, but that's just the nature
Speaker 4: of the beach with red slate. But once you get
Speaker 4: it to where you want it, then you take it
Speaker 4: to this machine and you put those dimensions in. Now,
Speaker 4: granted you test it before you run five hundred of
Speaker 4: them to make sure that's going to be right, and
Speaker 4: if you have any tweets there, then you make those
Speaker 4: tweets then. But as a result, then you have as
Speaker 4: consistent as you could possibly be with the exception of
Speaker 4: like the natural wood or the natural red slate or
Speaker 4: something like that. And it you know, it really works
Speaker 4: and it and it flows out good, and I mean
Speaker 4: I think the results. You know, last year we had
Speaker 4: the O Sage illuminum which were phenomenal the tea green slate,
Speaker 4: you know, the good ole throaty sound. I mean, but
Speaker 4: when we came back this year with them being in
Speaker 4: the mulberry, we changed changed dimensions up to make that
Speaker 4: combination work. And that's a cool thing about it, you know,
Speaker 4: because a lot of these guys when they're when they're
Speaker 4: doing this, like you said, they'll take one pot and
Speaker 4: they'll put a glass surface, the slate surface, the red
Speaker 4: slate or illuminum. That doesn't that doesn't necessarily work because
Speaker 4: those combos, you know, and depending on what, regardless of what,
Speaker 4: would you know, they got all these different combos and
Speaker 4: then they wonder, how come it doesn't play like it
Speaker 4: like they want or to. Right, That's when the dimension
Speaker 4: thing goes in and again you start to changing things
Speaker 4: to match what you want to do. And it's absolutely possible.
Speaker 4: I mean, we've done it, you know.
Speaker 1: Now, what about James, you talked about your Hickory hooters
Speaker 1: and your the Hooter pro It's made from a trillic, right,
Speaker 1: But why Hickory? Why did you pick? Well, we went
Speaker 1: with a maple and.
Speaker 2: The maple is just a solid tone wood. So the
Speaker 2: maple's got us. It's just it's tough. First off, we
Speaker 2: wanted a wood that was gonna was staying, you know,
Speaker 2: holding it and packing it and rolling around on it
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So we and maple's a great tone wood.
Speaker 2: So it just has a good mellow sound. It's smooth,
Speaker 2: and it's really consistent. When you work with the maple,
Speaker 2: you're you can get a batch in and it's all
Speaker 2: gonna be about the same hardness and consistency all the time.
Speaker 2: And all these small batches, like Steve was talking about,
Speaker 2: he had like five hundred of them, we hand tune
Speaker 2: every one of those.
Speaker 3: We get him and we put like he's doing his podcalls.
Speaker 2: I know, on the out hooters, I'm shaving the tone boards,
Speaker 2: I'm setting the reeds. I'm doing them, and I run mine.
Speaker 2: I go through twelve steps to get the insert right,
Speaker 2: and then another five times running them before they ever
Speaker 2: go out to phelps. So I mean, these are hands
Speaker 2: on we're building. So the Maples a good tone wood.
Speaker 2: It's light, it looks good. The acrylic with the adjustable,
Speaker 2: the adjustable's got so many moving parts.
Speaker 3: We needed a.
Speaker 2: Tougher material, so that's why we want the cryllic. The
Speaker 2: sound of acrylic is second and none. It's got a
Speaker 2: good high pitched sharp sound and with the al hooter
Speaker 2: in there, you know, with the insert in there like that,
Speaker 2: we it just it came together great on that as
Speaker 2: far as sound wise.
Speaker 1: Right, So this year your small batch call is a locator.
Speaker 1: It's a triple triple triple look it. So give us
Speaker 1: the rundown on that. Why did you build it like that?
Speaker 1: Why did you put three three calls in one? What? What?
Speaker 1: Why would you want that many locators?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's kind of like we was talking about,
Speaker 2: the more you're out there of your hunting and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, and the more more animal noises you can make,
Speaker 2: the better chance you got that turkey to gobble. So
Speaker 2: when I started working on it, originally on the owl Screamer,
Speaker 2: I was doing it for you know, the reason I
Speaker 2: started to develop it was for competition calling, and I
Speaker 2: built for a couple of years, getting the bugs tweaked out,
Speaker 2: and then from there and then when me and Jason
Speaker 2: got talking about it and we started playing with a
Speaker 2: little bit we I knew I could do appeliate a
Speaker 2: woodpecker call on it, but the hawk call was lacking.
Speaker 3: A little bit. So I was like, man, if we
Speaker 3: work on that a little bit, we can tweak that
Speaker 3: to get that hawk call in right there.
Speaker 2: And I said, then we'll have three calls and you know,
Speaker 2: three animals and one call.
Speaker 3: I said, how cool would that be?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean we all work for our for
Speaker 2: a living. So I mean, if I can go buy
Speaker 2: a call that has you know, three things in it
Speaker 2: instead of buying three individual calls, that's that's a win
Speaker 2: for me. You know, I'm going to use that. So
Speaker 2: that's what we did. So then it came down to
Speaker 2: the art of I listened to hawks. I went out
Speaker 2: and videoed hawks and listened to them and listen to
Speaker 2: them on YouTube and everything else. And then I took
Speaker 2: my call and was matching it to try to get
Speaker 2: that sound exactly right, same way with the awl scream.
Speaker 3: Doing the same thing, and then the pleated woodpecker. So that's,
Speaker 3: you know, that's how that all came out on there.
Speaker 2: I would have got foreign there if I could have
Speaker 2: found another animal to put in there.
Speaker 3: It'll kind of do a good peacock call. We were
Speaker 3: playing with it.
Speaker 1: It'll what about a chupacabra.
Speaker 2: It will do a little bit of a cheep of cabre.
Speaker 2: You drop that overing all the way down. I'll make
Speaker 2: some crazy noises. It'll almost duck call, like could do
Speaker 2: a do a duck whistle?
Speaker 3: Good? I mean a h what what was we doing earlier?
Speaker 2: We was doing a a wood duck and then you
Speaker 2: can almost drop her down.
Speaker 3: I was doing the Uh. We can do a short
Speaker 3: regoose on it.
Speaker 2: You know, you can play with it. You can get
Speaker 2: some interesting sounds out of this low call and uh.
Speaker 2: And that's the same way we set every one of them.
Speaker 2: Make sure there's no birds on the tone boards. I mean,
Speaker 2: these get these are not a mass produced call. That's
Speaker 2: one thing I want you know when they hear the
Speaker 2: words small badges is not a mass produced you know,
Speaker 2: nobody's just assemble on them and out the door. These
Speaker 2: things are getting attention all the way through the whole process.
Speaker 1: Well, I know last year when we had those out
Speaker 1: hooters come out and they sold out like fast, like
Speaker 1: they still like pancakes, right, And we're like, man, we
Speaker 1: can need to get some more of those done right away.
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, it just takes time to make them.
Speaker 1: It just takes time to make them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm a one man shop, I mean, same
Speaker 2: as Steve. So when I do my inserts, I'll sit
Speaker 2: down and work on inserts, and you know what I
Speaker 2: do first is I glue everything together. I want I
Speaker 2: cut the over ring grooves because there's you know, here's
Speaker 2: a deal. You're putting over ring grooves and over rings
Speaker 2: on an now hooter insert, well dimensions on that matter.
Speaker 2: I've got them set for a certain dimension because you
Speaker 2: don't want them too tight. You don't want them to loose.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of we're just not slapping stuff
Speaker 2: together and putting it in. You know, there's there's thoughts
Speaker 2: behind every bit of this process and it's all and
Speaker 2: at the end result is you get a great sound
Speaker 2: and out hooter. And if it doesn't sound good, it
Speaker 2: doesn't go out the door right. We will literally I've
Speaker 2: got a pile over there of ouhooter inserts that don't
Speaker 2: don't make the cut right, so they just don't go out.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: One thing, you know, like you were talking before, and
Speaker 4: that's something on this small batch. I mean, people have
Speaker 4: to realize what James and I go through as far
Speaker 4: as as doing this. You know, when Jason had me
Speaker 4: do that pot call to begin with, he was like,
Speaker 4: you know what, how much of this do you want
Speaker 4: to do? And whatever. Well, the capabilities of some of
Speaker 4: the machines are way above what I'm capable of doing
Speaker 4: or what James is capable of doing. But the end
Speaker 4: result when it comes back down, every out hooter that
Speaker 4: comes out of Phelps has had James's hands on it.
Speaker 4: Every pot call that comes out of this small batch
Speaker 4: Phelps is my had my hands on him. He runs them,
Speaker 4: I run him, you know, before they ever walk out.
Speaker 4: I mean I've I've pulled calls. James has pulled calls
Speaker 4: because they don't they don't make the grade. And that's
Speaker 4: that's something else that maybe not everybody gets, you know,
Speaker 4: and understands right well.
Speaker 1: And one thing, you know, like James kind of alluded
Speaker 1: to is you guys got a small shop, Like we've
Speaker 1: been videoing in it, and I've seen videos from last year.
Speaker 1: I'm thought, oh yeah, James shop is a little probably
Speaker 1: twice as size, but it's a very small space. So
Speaker 1: to make any amount of alt hooters for to where
Speaker 1: a lot of people could buy them is just out
Speaker 1: of the question. I mean, you'd have to work day and night.
Speaker 1: It turned out enough barrels for ol hooters and same
Speaker 1: with you, Like you can you can make those one
Speaker 1: at a time pots at your house, Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: can't like make enough to where it's like, well, you
Speaker 1: know several people like to try them. Well, it's just
Speaker 1: not that kind of an option. So that's why we've
Speaker 1: we we have them to our shop and we have
Speaker 1: them made their te your specs, and then like you know,
Speaker 1: you're constantly working to it with them too. You're working
Speaker 1: with them like, hey, guys, we have to make sure
Speaker 1: this spec is Matt, I noticed this. I noticed that
Speaker 1: we need to fix this. We need to fix that,
Speaker 1: just to make sure that your recipe is in the
Speaker 1: end products right.
Speaker 3: And it works out good.
Speaker 2: Because I've been a machinist for since in high school,
Speaker 2: so I run all the c and cs, so I
Speaker 2: know what they're talking about. So when we talked to
Speaker 2: you guys about, hey, we need to open this up
Speaker 2: five thousands or me and Steve's talking, we're explaining it
Speaker 2: to each other.
Speaker 3: I don't build friction calls.
Speaker 2: But when Steve says, hey, this is a little tight,
Speaker 2: we need to open it up, you know we we're
Speaker 2: not just guessing at this stuff. I mean, we've got
Speaker 2: this stuff down pad as far as like we know
Speaker 2: what we're talking about on the dimensions. And the cool
Speaker 2: thing is when we call and and this has happened
Speaker 2: several times the last year. On the first match, I said, hey,
Speaker 2: we need to open this up like five thousands, and
Speaker 2: now she had papers three thousands, So you're almost just
Speaker 2: like two sheets of paper open up and I need
Speaker 2: to cham for down in the bottom a whole.
Speaker 3: And man, they came back.
Speaker 2: And I mean out of all the out hooters I built, literally,
Speaker 2: there's only been five or six that I've actually called
Speaker 2: because of a machining issue or anything like that. I
Speaker 2: mean that's where you're hand turning them or something like that.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna you can't keep that kind of quality
Speaker 2: of right, you know. So I mean it's cool on
Speaker 2: that fact that everybody from Jason all the way through
Speaker 2: it is just as educated on the product as we
Speaker 2: are doing it. So that makes it flow so much better.
Speaker 2: I mean, I couldn't ask for a better relationship with
Speaker 2: how it all works.
Speaker 3: Out and flows. I mean, it flows really well and quality.
Speaker 2: You know, it ain't about it ain't about the money
Speaker 2: on mind, it's about the quality of it. You know,
Speaker 2: you're making a product. It's made in America. I mean
Speaker 2: when you this ain't coming from China. This is coming
Speaker 2: Mine's coming from Hillsboro, Missouri. This is coming from Kirksville, Missouri.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, that's it's as words.
Speaker 1: And the machine shops in Washington.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that needs the mesh of the whole thing
Speaker 4: is we can take the cush the world to the
Speaker 4: production world, make a mash and have a have an
Speaker 4: outstanding product and do it in a manner that works
Speaker 4: for everybody to where we can we can do a
Speaker 4: little bigger number. I'm not talking mass produced, you know,
Speaker 4: thousands at a time, but we can do a bigger number,
Speaker 4: more so than what James and I can do in
Speaker 4: our little one man shops. But we can still keep
Speaker 4: our one man shop feel behind it, right and it well.
Speaker 2: I'll have people call me and say I want a
Speaker 2: custom outhuter And then I explained to them, hey, this
Speaker 2: is what I do with Phelps all the ways running
Speaker 2: there so like, and they'll ask me, They're like, so
Speaker 2: it's a custom outitter. I said, well, we call it
Speaker 2: small bash, but I mean it's I mean, I hand
Speaker 2: I from the time that eggs, they're all the way
Speaker 2: to I hatch that out out. I said, it's it's
Speaker 2: customers you're going to get. I mean, it's a I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's hands on and same way as the pot calls,
Speaker 2: I mean L calls. I know, it is the same thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's all about the sound and quality. That's
Speaker 2: and that's what's cool about it.
Speaker 4: But that stuff, you get the parts together, and it's
Speaker 4: and it's what you do with it with those parts
Speaker 4: to make to make that sound right, you know. I
Speaker 4: mean there's a lot of stuff that you know, dimension
Speaker 4: wise and piece wise and all of that. But then
Speaker 4: once you get it, it's still like you know, me
Speaker 4: sending pot calls or jameson and you know them doing
Speaker 4: all the parts. It's still us making them make sound.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Okay, So you could go through and put an out
Speaker 4: hooter together, Well what happens, Well, what happens if you
Speaker 4: put it together and it doesn't sound like an owl?
Speaker 4: What are you going to do? You don't know, because
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, You've never You've never done it.
Speaker 4: That's where the custom part from our side comes in.
Speaker 4: You know. Now the out hoooter is probably way more
Speaker 4: than even the pot call, because once I get that
Speaker 4: pot call dimensions to a deal. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 4: really kind of a simple process, but it's a matter
Speaker 4: of you know, this is how much blue I use,
Speaker 4: and you know, this is how I go to process.
Speaker 4: There's some secret sauce to it, you know, So I mean,
Speaker 4: end result, there's things that maybe I do with a
Speaker 4: pot call, put it together that if you look on
Speaker 4: Facebook or some of them and hear these guys and oh,
Speaker 4: you've got to do it this way, well not necessarily,
Speaker 4: you know, and it's just like, I mean, that's that's
Speaker 4: our deal, you know, that's we do that. You know,
Speaker 4: you they can do it however they want to. This
Speaker 4: is how we do it, and there's there is something
Speaker 4: to it. There is a secret sauce.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And with and with any call, whether it be el deer, turkey, squirrel,
Speaker 2: I don't care what it is. You can build twenty
Speaker 2: of them in a row and they're all going to
Speaker 2: sound just a little bit different. That's where the hand
Speaker 2: tuning comes in. And then sometimes you'll get something that
Speaker 2: just slaps together and it just don't work, even though
Speaker 2: it's the same.
Speaker 3: And that's where we come in.
Speaker 2: I'll be doing our Hooter inserts, and I'll have, man,
Speaker 2: I got hit it, hit it.
Speaker 3: That one don't sound right.
Speaker 2: I'll pull that insert out and I'd go through it
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. Look at head bottom, check all my dimensions,
Speaker 2: make sure I didn't screw something up, put all back in,
Speaker 2: and that just you know what is we're working with materials, right,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't work.
Speaker 3: So what do we do? In the trash can?
Speaker 2: Round filing cabinet, Grab the next one, keep on going
Speaker 2: from there. So that's that's that's the cool side of
Speaker 2: the small batches. I mean, it's it's we spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time on those those things. Man, we don't
Speaker 2: we don't cut no shortcuts on them. I take my
Speaker 2: time saying them, you know, whatever we need to do
Speaker 2: to make them right. I'm not going to ship anything
Speaker 2: out that ain't right because it's got my name.
Speaker 3: On it, absolutely, and and and the.
Speaker 2: Big thing with our Hooters is is owls only you know,
Speaker 2: bart Owl's only that tall foot and half tall.
Speaker 3: They are only so loud, right.
Speaker 2: The biggest thing for me and I struggle with is
Speaker 2: teaching guys. It's just to blow it easy and and
Speaker 2: as I'm sure it's like l call, same way. Teach
Speaker 2: them just how to run the call and spend time
Speaker 2: with it. I mean, a locator call really, if it's
Speaker 2: good and everything works right, you should literally grab it
Speaker 2: in the morning, put it back in your best you're
Speaker 2: going from there. You're using your turkeys a lot more
Speaker 2: using a locator call. Hopefully, where guys don't practice the
Speaker 2: locator calls as much, that's where I'm always out there
Speaker 2: doing videos and trying to help them to get get
Speaker 2: to that level because the more you practice it, the
Speaker 2: better you get with it and understand the call.
Speaker 3: Because the way I look at it as a custom
Speaker 3: call builder, they're musical instruments. They're not.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're they're a tool, but it's a musical
Speaker 2: I mean we're making sounds with them calls, and it's
Speaker 2: just like a banjo or anything like that.
Speaker 3: It's a musical instrument, right.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I think i'd like to wrap things up here,
Speaker 1: but before we go, uh, Steve, give us give our
Speaker 1: listeners your your your best advice on running pot call calls.
Speaker 1: If they're if they've never ran one before and they're
Speaker 1: trying to get into it. What's your best advice to uh,
Speaker 1: to run one and kind of kind of shorten the learning.
Speaker 4: Curve probably probably just the fact of h relax, don't
Speaker 4: try and snap the striker in your hand. Just relax,
Speaker 4: put your striker on there, start easy, and adjust as
Speaker 4: as you go if you need a little higher pitch.
Speaker 4: I mean basically you're looking to begin with to get
Speaker 4: a high and a low note on a yell and
Speaker 4: pop it on a on a cluck or a cut
Speaker 4: and just relax, be smooth with it, and be honest
Speaker 4: with yourself when when you know you know it doesn't
Speaker 4: sound right, you know you need to need to fix it.
Speaker 4: Just be smooth and confident.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna practice that because my friction can is not
Speaker 2: up to par, so I'm gonna keep practicing.
Speaker 4: That practice makes perfect My.
Speaker 2: Security guard dogs out there marking, I'm sure you guys
Speaker 2: are probably picking that up to tude.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if if you don't even know where to
Speaker 1: start on you know how to hold the call to
Speaker 1: how to move the striker across the surface, check it
Speaker 1: out on Phelps Game Call's YouTube channel. We have a
Speaker 1: video James shows you walks you through step by step
Speaker 1: on how to run that call. Get you started on it.
Speaker 1: So and then James, what do you think, Well, what's
Speaker 1: what's some some helpful hit Kents on the hooter and
Speaker 1: your locator.
Speaker 3: Call man on the hooter. Just grab it.
Speaker 2: And the biggest thing I get with guys is they're
Speaker 2: they're almost like, oh, I don't want to run it
Speaker 2: around you and stuff like that because it sounds funny.
Speaker 2: The only way you're gonna get better is practice. So
Speaker 2: just grab it and start practicing. Listen to the owls,
Speaker 2: and just have fun with it. That's what I tell
Speaker 2: I mean, go outside when you're barbecuing in the evening,
Speaker 2: grab that thing up and run it a little bit
Speaker 2: and practice it. And that's and on the locator call,
Speaker 2: I mean, just watch the videos and just you know,
Speaker 2: the triple locator is.
Speaker 3: Man, We've made that thing.
Speaker 2: As easy as possible. You just got to blow air
Speaker 2: into it. You don't have to do any hand in
Speaker 2: it pipulation, right, just let it eat. So, you know,
Speaker 2: biggest thing I always say, just practice, just have fun
Speaker 2: with it, you know, enjoy it.
Speaker 3: That's like Turkey calls.
Speaker 2: I video mine a lot, you know, and then I
Speaker 2: listen back to it. Yeah, it's because that is a
Speaker 2: man that makes a world of difference. I can think
Speaker 2: I'm sounding great until I listen to the video and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that's like this podcast. I'm gonna listen back.
Speaker 1: And be like, I should just stick to just being quiet.
Speaker 1: My voice sounds weird. Yeah. No, I say the same
Speaker 1: thing about elk calling. If you want to get better
Speaker 1: about elk calling, is film yourself. Not only you listen.
Speaker 1: You're listening back. It's almost like doing a cartwheel, right.
Speaker 1: If you're doing a cartwheel, you're like, yeah, I did it,
Speaker 1: and like your feet came two feet off the ground,
Speaker 1: you didn't do it. If somebody shows you the video,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, I didn't do it. The same
Speaker 1: as ELK calling turkey calling. Record yourself, but also record
Speaker 1: so you can see your face. That way, you can
Speaker 1: look and see any kind of facial expressions that you're doing,
Speaker 1: or maybe the way that you're manipulating the call that
Speaker 1: will affect the sound. And a lot of times when
Speaker 1: you see it, you can identify like, oh, I've been
Speaker 1: getting this weird sounding. I see why I'm I'm doing
Speaker 1: this weird thing with my jaw or whatever, or the
Speaker 1: weird thing with the striker or whatever the case is.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a great a great hint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, video and it's it's good. And then big thing
Speaker 2: I always do is just go to the woods. That's
Speaker 2: where you're gonna get your volume and your tones ride.
Speaker 2: Just go to the woods and practice in the woods
Speaker 2: if you can.
Speaker 1: Yep, No, I really appreciate it, guys. This has been
Speaker 1: a great, great talk. Appreciate you guys having me down.
Speaker 1: I had fun today out of lots of laughs filming
Speaker 1: this stuff. I don't know if we got all the
Speaker 1: funny stuff, but we had a heck of a good time.
Speaker 4: And appreciate we have one side back.
Speaker 2: Yea, what was our what was our fun word for
Speaker 2: the day?
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll catch you on
Speaker 1: the next week.
Speaker 5: More than a