Written by Michele Roldán-Shaw
Photography by Donna Huffman
urkey hunting is an affliction. So say the proselytes of this redneck rite, this ancient sport that has fascinated Americans since the days of the Indians. Each spring, the afflicted are compelled to make pre-dawn pilgrimages to a woodland chapel, where in place of stained glass windows there are the first rays of sun filtering down through new leaves; instead of hymnals and holy communion hosts there are shotguns and a thermos of coffee; in place of a sermon there is only a rustle of brush and the eerie call of wild birds.
Just as Catholics need their rosaries and Tibetan Buddhists need their prayer wheels, a turkey hunter needs a turkey call. Or, as is the case with Jay Walea of the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy, many turkey calls. Many, many turkey calls.
“You never know what’s going to tickle his fancy and make him come in,” said Walea, who estimates he has at least $2500 invested in his collection of signed, custom turkey calls. “You’re trying to make him do something he don’t normally do in the wild. Normally, the hen goes to the gobbler; the gobbler don’t go to the hen.”
Here we come to the crux of the issue: turkey hunting revolves around luring prey to the predator. Because shooting a turkey from a hundred yards out with a high-powered rifle would ruin the sport of it—not to mention be potentially devastating to wild stocks—turkey hunters must rely on their ability to bring the bird in as close as possible. This requires much patience, as well as a convincing turkey call. As Walea explains, Nature does not normally impel the male to go in search of the female, so the hunter’s false call must be beyond enticing...it must be absolutely irresistible.
Enter Richard Coffield, broker at May River Realty and inventor of the Co-Caller. He belongs to the legions of the afflicted, a Bluffton resident who says he was a happy man before he became a turkey hunter. Though he’s been making turkey calls for a long time—as a boy, he watched his grandfather show his father how to do it, giving him a deep appreciation for what he calls “an American folk art”—he didn’t start hunting the birds until college.
“Turkey hunting is a lot like golf,” said Coffield. “If you take it too seriously, it can be very frustrating.” In an on-going quest to improve his odds, Coffield invented a clever new call that essentially combines two different devices: a scratch box and a slate call, all in one handy unit which he named the Co-Caller. So instead of having to fish around in your pack or pocket, a complete arsenal is right at your fingertips. While such 2-in-1 calls have been made before, never has anybody designed one with a single striker.
Alright, hold up. Those readers unfamiliar with the vast world of turkey calls are sure to be confused right now, and understandably so. Here is a little tutorial: there are three basic types of turkey calls—friction, suction and diaphragm. Friction calls work by passing a striker over a slate or wooden surface, emitting high, clipped sounds. An example of a suction call would be a “wing-bone yelper,” such as the one Walea made out of an actual turkey wing bone, from which he coaxed an impressive call by somehow blowing into it. Supposedly, Native American hunters could call turkeys using such wing-bone yelpers, or even with a piece of grass. Diaphragm calls, on the other hand, are a relatively recent innovation. These small latex mouthpieces work by huffing air over them while manipulating the mouth and tongue to get the desired sound.
Walea called in and killed his first turkey alone at age 13. He has been a hunting guide for twenty years and won his fair share of turkey call competitions. As he demonstrated the use of different types of calls, he produced a wide range of haunting sounds, pausing now and again to talk in his thick Georgia drawl about “yelpin’, cluckin’, purrin’, a little kee kee”—mysterious talk all but lost on the uninitiated. When he managed to tease a certain effect out of the Co-Caller wherein two tones emerged simultaneously from the box at a rather plaintive interval, Walea nodded appreciatively and said, “Hear that double note? Gobblers can’t stand that.”
After coming up with the concept for his new call, Coffield began fine-tuning the design, creating dozens of prototypes to find the best sound. He teamed up with local woodworker Hank Carroll—whom Coffield calls a “serious craftsman”—and now Carroll custom makes and signs every Co-Caller as part of their business, the Turning Turkey Call Company. These beautiful boxes are built much like miniature musical instruments, from resonant woods such as mahogany, cherry, black walnut and cedar, while the strikers heart. Then long time friend and sign maker, Nancy Howes, designed the logo from a couple of stick drawings he had made on a cocktail napkin.
Co-Callers are sold at Lowcountry Outfitter’s in Bluffton and The Outpost in Ridgeland; Coffield says they have been “field-testing” for the last couple years and are now getting ready to expand. In fact, the Co-Caller was recently picked as a featured product for Midwest Turkey Calls, a company that specializes in custom calls.
Of course, Walea has also been a big part of the process, lending his expertise in turkey sounds to Coffield. The two men have known each other since Walea was 18 and they started hunting together on Coffield’s family property in Georgia. What does Walea think of the Co-Caller?
“I love it,” he said. “It’s death to all gobblers.” Coffield describes the ultimate excitement, the thrill that every turkey hunter seeks, as a moment in the early morning when the birds are just starting to come alive. Patiently, the hunter sits in quiet wood and plots his deceit according to the habits of the hen, who starts each day with a song.
“That first call is what’s known as a tree yelp, a soft call that says ‘here I am,’ explains Coffield. “The turkeys have been asleep and they want to find out where everybody is. You do that tree yelp and when the gobbler answers with a thunderous, leaf-shaking gobble from 100 yards away, it will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
This then, perhaps even more than the fatal shot, is what keeps people coming back. It’s the bite that infects the afflicted, the religious experience that converts the heathen sinner.
“Turkey hunting gets in your blood,” concludes Walea. “I’ve set out in the woods and listened to turkeys when turkey season wasn’t in. I’ve got a turkey call in my pocket 365 days a year. If you’re going to do something, I believe you
should go all out with it.”
Need an affordable gift for that special father in your life? Check out the selection of Co-Callers at Lowcountry Outfitters, located in Moss Creek Village off Highway 278.
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