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