The Art Of Game Call Building

By Bees O’Brien

My normal outdoor stories usually relate to actually activities relating to the outdoors. This week’s story has to do with an indoor activities that leads to a lot of outdoor fun.

They’ve been referred to by many monikers. Game calls, hand calls, hunting calls, mouth calls or custom calls pretty much covers all the names they go by. It can be a fun thing to get into and at times even profitable. It’s a challenging skill to learn but over time it can be mastered, but never fully mastered. It’s a trade that continues to teach you every single time you go to build a call.

I first started making calls about 20 years ago. I was out calling coyotes and didn’t exactly like the sound that was coming out of my commercially purchased call. When I got home I ended up pulling out the sound reed with a pair of needle nose pliers and did a quick online search on how to tune your own calls. Soon I had that call sounding exactly the way I wanted it to.

That then inspired my thinking. I wondered if I could make my own calls, but at the time I had no exact shop space. I brainstormed and just happened to have some arrow shaft cut offs . I then inserted a reed and reed insert into the arrow shaft and just like that my call making had begun.

I sold a lot of those arrow shaft distress calls through online auction sites and message boards for just $10 each and the popularity soared, but eventually everybody that had interest had already purchased their calls and the well ran dry.

My next venture brought me to the world of cow horns. Cow horn coyote howlers are still a very popular call and I do occasionally make them during warmer weather. The smell of sanding and polishing horns can be absolutely terrible even with proper masks and ventilation equipment. My wife says it’s the smell of going to the dentist and getting a tooth drilled. Whatever it smells like, it’s not good at all.

These particular calls look and sound great when they are finished, but the time they take always outweighs what you can sell them for.

Eventually I’d have some shop space to work with and that meant it was time to purchase a lathe. I started off with a cheaper model and then the addiction began.

After a long lurning curve, I eventually developed my own techniques that worked for me and made it possible for me to reach my quotas once I started to sell the calls. Eventually that first lathe burned up, but I got more than it’s money’s worth.

My wife would go on to purchase me a more expensive professional grade lathe to continue making calls. I now have to working lathes and my wife Lori now has begun turning calls on occasion too.

Start up for taking up this hobby can be expensive. A decent lathe can set you back $500 or more. You’ll also need a band saw, drill press, belt sander, a lot of different sizes of drill bits and of course materials to build the calls.

I use a large variety of woods. Most is exotic woods from all over the world that can carry with it a steep price tag. Cheaper domestic woods like walnut, cherry, maple and oak also do work well for calls. I also get various stabilized woods, dyed laminated blanks in a huge variety of colors and occasionally acrylic. Acrylic turning is a bit more difficult and does take time learning the ins and outs of the material.

You’ll also need to do an internet search and find a decent supplier of game call parts. Reeds, inserts, toneboards, mylar and even packaging for your calls can be found online. Your best bet is to shop around and find the best deals for materials.

I currently make a huge variety of calls ranging from predator calls, turkey calls and waterfowl calls. Crow and squirrel calls are also popular and I’ve occasionally made deer grunt calls.

My calls used to be available in over a dozen retail stores and regularly online. Lately I’ve stepped back and got back into doing them as more of a hobby. It’s something I very much enjoy and they can be very useful in the field.

I’ve also made bottle stoppers, ice cream scoops, ring stands and other turned projects.

That’s all for now! Be safe out there!