Published: April 08, 2007 10:59 pm            

WILDLIFE: Newfane man a top turkey caller (WITH AUDIO)

Turkey calling takes both natural talent and masterful skill.

Newfane’s Arnie Jonathan has both.

Jonathan placed second this year in the grand national decorative call contest at the National Wild Turkey Federation’s 31st Annual Convention and Sport Show in Nashville, Tenn.

The calls are made from various animal bones and horns, often including turkey bones or dear antlers. Jonathan creates the calls — which often take over eight hours to make — in his home for use in competition, often selling them to collectors.

Jonathan said while turkey calling may seem like a more southern pastime, its popularity in New York is growing.

“New York has an incredible showing every year in the nationals in turkey call,” he said. “They take the majority of the awards.”

Jonathan will be putting his calls to good use when spring turkey hunting season in New York begins May 1.

•••

QUESTION: What first drew you to turkey calling?

ANSWER: Turkey hunting came first. And of course with turkey hunting, you need turkey calls, to call the turkey. ... I just had to basically be good at it. The Niagara County season opened in 1989, I believe. (The turkey season) wasn’t always open in this area. Basically, that’s when I really started hunting them.

•••

Q: What’s the secret behind a great turkey call?

A: Just sounding like a turkey. Just a really good turkey sound. There’s hundreds of different calls. There’s of course a mouth call, if you put a little diaphragm in your mouth. And then there’s a box call, a tube call. ... The ones that I make, the tube calls and the wingbone calls, are basically a very difficult call to master. You just can’t put it to your mouth and do it properly. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of years of using one. But once you master those two calls, the tube call and the wingbone call become probably the most proficient calls and the most natural-sounding calls in the woods.

•••

Q: What does the turkey hear when you sound the call?

A: Ultimately, what you want to sound like in the spring is a hen. The gobbler wants to come to the hen. Naturally, the gobbler doesn’t come to the hen in the woods, she goes to him, and that’s why he gobbles. So you are really going against nature in trying to call the male bird to the female bird. It’s completely backwards. So the more you sound like a hen, the better off you are, and sometimes that overcomes his natural instinct, and he will come to you. Probably three times out of 10, a male turkey will come to you, but other times they just gobble and wait for you to come to them.

•••

Q: What goes on at the National Wild Turkey Federation competition?

A: There’s a hunting call division, and there’s a decorative call division. What’s happening now is the decorative calls, like the ones that I make, are becoming more popular with collectors and with turkey folklore. A lot of them tell a story, and in a lot of them, the craftsmanship is unique to that callmaker and that callmaker only. That’s where I’m very fortunate, in making wingbone calls. My style was very unique to anybody else’s. The first contest that I entered was in 2003, and I took second place in it, in the nationals. Never thinking that that was where it would go. My friends kind of encouraged me. ... I made (the calls) more ornate, and I made them to sound more turkey-ish. I was helped by Dick Kirby of Quaker Boy Game Calls, and another friend of mine in South Carolina, Frank Hegler. Frank was very instrumental in understanding the inside mechanics of how the call works. ...In the hunting call division (the judges) actually work your call. ... And if it can do it easily, it scores better. I pride myself more on winning and placing in that category, because the average guy can use my call easily, while it is a very hard call to master.

•••

Q: What do turkey call collectors look for?

A: The ribbons, first-places and best of show, they all help with collectibility. The calls that win at nationals, they also go up for sale. Half the money, the callmaker gets, and half the money goes to the National Wild Turkey Federation for donation. The collectors then get a ribbon with that, so they have that to show that it placed in the nationals. ... I integrate a lot of different materials into my calls — different woods, wingbones, ivory. I’ve used walrus tusk, I’ve used elephant tusk, I’ve used warthog tusk, and I’ve used hippo tusk. Of course, those are very collectible and quite expensive sometimes.

•••

Q: How is a call made?

A: A basic hunting call takes me about four hours, but a good competition call is anywhere from eight to 15 hours from start to finish. That means boiling the bones, getting it all cleaned up, sanding and wrapping it.

•••

Q: Is turkey call-making growing in popularity?

A: The whole national competition started in 1993, where you barely had any calls at all. ... The calls now, it’s so saturated and so popular that the judges start at 6 a.m. judging the calls, and probably don’t get done with judging until about 10 p.m. That’s about sixteen hours of judging. If you go to the nationals and see it, you wouldn’t believe the grandeur of it. The turkey callmaking competition ... it’s the main attraction of the competition.

Contact reporter April Amadon at 439-9222, Ext. 6251.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.