Turkey Call Art

[dhaverstick]

Back in 2020, my friend, David Ferguson, and I were in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula hunting Ocellated turkeys. I killed one on the first morning and when I got back to the house we were staying in, I turned my phone on to let my wife know I had been successful. Instead, my phone lit up with all kinds of messages for me to have David call home immediately. His 10-year old granddaughter had passed away that morning so we needed to get back home ASAP. That began an arduous 2-day journey that I don't think we would have completed successfully had it not been for the kindness of strangers. Fast forward to last week...

I got a text message from David last week that he would be in Springfield on Friday. We made plans to meet up at Grizzly Tool and when I got there he had this call for me. It was his way of saying "Thank you". David has been making calls for a while, and even won 1st place in one of the call divisions at the annual NWTF convention. I have a "field grade" call of his that is always in my turkey vest but this one is definitely a step up. To say I was pleased would be an understatement.

The body of the call is made from a piece of flaming box elder that came off of David's place. What's really cool about that is that his place used to be the home place of my great uncle Otho Haverstick. The lid is made from a piece of cedar that came from a 540 year old snag found on the upper Jack's Fork River.

The photo he used as a guide for my likeness was taken by Missouri Department of Conservation photographer, Noppadol Paothong, for a piece I wrote for their magazine a few years ago. David did a good job!

The other side of the call.

The famous mill at Alley Spring near Eminence, MO, for reference. The boy's got some skills!

A note on the bottom

I can hardly wait for next spring so I can use this call to lure a Shannon County gobbler to his demise. It certainly has a lot of good mojo built into it!

Darren

 

[CoHiCntry]

Wow… that is a beautiful call!

 

[snakebit]

Beautiful. All the history in that call, waiting to make more.

 

[Jim K]

Great story Darren and a beautiful call. Can’t wait to hear of a big gobbler you called in with it!

 

[longcruise]

It's extraordinary. I'd be afraid to take it out of the house!

 

[Polecat_Tom]

That is a beautiful call. It is too bad that the story had to have the passing of his granddaughter.

 

[2 shots]

were you trying to kill it or COOK IT or both with that flame thrower??

 

[Oldbloke]

Wow.

 

[dhaverstick]

were you trying to kill it or COOK IT or both with that flame thrower??

Several years ago, I wrote an article for a magazine about hunting squirrels with trad muzzleloaders. They assigned a professional photographer to the story so he followed me around one morning in the woods to get photos. He wanted to get one of me shooting so he had me sit down while he backed off, adjusted his camera settings, and said "Shoot!". After the first shot, he looked at what he'd captured and was giddy over the long column of fire appearing to come out of the barrel. Since he knew what to expect now, he looked at me and asked, "Can you shoot again?" I was like, "Dude, I can do this all day." so I loaded Ole Betsy up again and repeated the performance. The photo I have shown here is from the second set of pictures.

Darren

 

[ChuckJonesWagon]

 

[rkg1]

I have made and given a bunch of calls away over the years but none were ever as beautiful as that one. I'm jealous.

 

[Daryl Crawford]

Great call and a better story. That call has some history even before it's been used.