For the uninitiated, a wingbone turkey call is a call made from three parts of a turkey’s wingbone.
They’ve been made and used by turkey hunters for decades to mimic the calls that wild turkeys make when communicating with each other. Hunters generally use them to mimic hens in the spring when gobblers are looking for that next member of his harem.
Wingbone calls are just one type of turkey call in a world that includes box calls, pot calls, scratchers, push pins, reeds, various “mouth” calls, and the list goes on. All, with the idea of getting the right sound— the right variation that will prompt an old gobbler to come running (or at least to slip within range of a shotgun).
Calls are a serious part of the turkey hunting tradition, just as making all those kinds of custom calls is considered a folk art tradition.
For Michael Pauley, a Botetourt County turkey hunter since he was old enough to carry a shotgun, wingbone calls were an outlier— until just a few short years ago.
That’s when he became interested in making a wingbone call on his own.
That turned into another, then a few more. Then, just over two years ago he decided he was going to make wingbone calls he thought would compete against the “big boys” in a national callmakers contest.
He reached that point this winter when he entered four of his wingbone calls in the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWFT) Callmaking Competition at the organization’s national convention in February.
His goal, get in the top five in one of the categories.
He did better than that. One of his calls is a national champion, and another was No. 5 in its category as well. Not bad for an amateur with just a couple of years of experimenting in making calls up against longtime professional callmakers.
Pauley entered his four calls in Division II, a hunting division that is judged based on sound.
That division is broken down into different classes, and inside each class is a category.
Pauley entered all four calls in Class IV, with two in Category 13, the Open Amateur category for air-operated yelpers. Entries in the division were wingbone design or a turned-barrel or Jordan Style yelpers.
His two others were entered in the Wingbone Open. The third category in the class was Jordan Style Yelpers. These two categories were filled primarily by professional callmakers from around the country.
His ocellated feather call won Category 13, and his other call in the category, a University of Richmond (UR) call, placed fifth. The latter was one he made as a gift to Steve Taylor, a UR coach who was Virginia Tech’s cross country coach when Pauley was a student there.
By the way, an ocellated feather comes off an ocellated turkey, one of the two species of turkeys found in the Americas and only in a 50,000 square mile area on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, northern Belize and northern Guatemala. The other species is the wild turkey, which has five subspecies— Eastern, Oceola, Goulds, Merriam and Rio Grande.
The top five calls in each of the three Class IV categories were then judged for best in class.
That put Pauley’s ocellated feather call up against the professionals from the other two classes in the final round when the calls are judged again.
“There my ocellated feather wingbone wiped everybody out to become the Grand National Champion in Class IV,” Pauley said. “And I was awarded the Charles L. Jordan Award for Outstanding Cane/Wingbone Callmaker Best of Class IV.”
While callmaking is a new calling for Pauley, his 30-plus years as a turkey hunter and call enthusiast provide a background that even some professionals would find hard to match. He’s recorded the World Slam of turkey hunting by harvesting all five subspecies of the wild turkey and an ocellated turkey.
Plus, he’s been called on to judge turkey calling contests. The judging actually led him to making wingbone calls.
“What got me started, I was asked to judge the Virginia State Open callmakers competition. My first year, I was not as strong in the air operated calls such as wingbone, cane, trumpet calls,” he explained. “So I figured I’d make some to get better and in return be a better judge.
“I had no issues working all the other calls, so I studied the wingbone calls entered and scratched my head how they were put together. Well, I figured that out pretty quickly,” he continued. “I caught on really quick on changing the tone and pitch. In my first few calls I had pretty good sounding calls, so I thought.
“The following year, I was really paying attention to the wingbone calls at the contests. As I judged the calls of all the pros across the country I told myself mine sound just as good as these. I had made five calls at this time. My issue was how to dress up the call.”
To get ideas on the latter, he went to Facebook and friended some of the professionals, and he started picking brains at calling contests and shows— as he related, “staying under the radar…. From there I just followed comments on pictures that the pros would post of their calls.”
Plus, he decided he wasn’t’ entering the National Competition until he was ready.
He said it took two years to gather the information he needed to get really going. “One of the main things I was after, I wanted to be different on dressing the call. I never had seen a call with ocellated feathers,” so that’s the route he took with what became his national champion call.
“Weeks, man, weeks.” That’s what he said it can take to finish a call the way he wants it. Of course, that’s adding the time chasing spring-time gobblers to get the wingbones.
The judging criteria in the division Michael Pauley entered his calls in is based on five criteria:
- Ability to produce turkey-like sounds. Examples include but are not limited to, yelp, cluck, kee-kee, cackle, cutting of the hen, purr, putt, gobble, tree call.
- Ease of use to produce turkey-like sounds— i.e., how simple or user-friendly the call is to use
- Tone, pitch and sound quality.
- Break over or roll over
- Versatility: the ability to obtain a vast range of turkey-like sounds— i.e., both spring or ball type call, gobbler or hen sounds, including the ability to sound like more than one turkey
Still, 30 or 40 hours working on a call isn’t that unusual for him.
The actual wingbone call is made up the humerus, radius and ulina bone part of a turkey’s wing.
After collecting the wing, it has to be cleaned and put those three bones together to make a wingbone call. He gave two tips give you two tips— first, bones go from small to biggest when making the call. Second, blow, don’t suck when making the call.
He said in his early stages he wanted to see how a call might sound while making it. Working a wingbone call requires sucking air through it. “Well, I sucked up debris and whatever else was in that call. So, blow out debris first then suck or you’ll learn the hard way like me.”
Oh, and that time making a call. “I just did a call that I had over 50 hours on. This call was to be my best one yet. Then I broke it. Total gut-wrenching experience and I named that call ‘Humpty Dumpty’ because I glued it back together.”
In dressing the calls, Pauley started doing different thread wraps, and he started ordering the items the pros use to dress the calls.
He noted many professional callmakers use rubber mouthpieces. They’re used to help trap the air flow on the call.
“Well, I used a piece of deer antler that I cut and molded to fit each call. It just that takes a few hours. Once again, I wanted to be different.”
While the ocellated feather call won the national title, he’s just as proud of the RU call he made for Taylor.
It was the 11th call Pauley had made and he said he knew he’d figured out how to get the sound he wanted with that call. “When I gave him the call I gave it to him on the condition I could get it back to enter in Nationals because I said it’s the best sounding call I had made at that time…. That call took fifth.
“This call was the call that I knew I had turned the corner. I used my mom’s sewing thread and cheap epoxy to finish out the call. The other calls I entered on national level for looks. Taylor’s call I hand wrapped by hand. Since then I made a jig to keep the thread in tension as it is being wrapped. This not only makes the call look so much better it sped up the time it took me to thread wrap. I made another jig for the epoxy part. All this I learned from research and picking the brains of the guys I was about to go head to head against.”
Pauley was at the NWTF convention for the national contest. “I was a little shocked when I found out I won,” he said. He saw that Coach Taylor’s call had placed fifth in the category.
“I just said I knew it. I knew that call could compete,” he continued. “I was proud that call had one comment mentioning ‘great tone.’ Then I got to the ocelatted feather call. Well, every judge had commented on the call and I won Category 13. National Champion in Category 13. ‘Nooooo way!’ Then I noticed I won Best of Class IV.”
It was two years worth of work to get there. So it’s something that didn’t happen over night, he said. “I only told close friends that I was going to enter. I just didn’t want to be on the radar. I guess you can say I’m on the radar now.”
So what’s a national champion turkey callmaker do during spring gobbler season?
Michael Pauley is spending most of it turkey hunting— rather mostly taking people turkey hunting. That, too, has become a passion.
On Youth/Apprentice Weekend he spent the morning of April 7 with his father and nephew trying to entice a Botetourt County gobbler into range. That afternoon, he took two other youngsters hunting— in the snow.
As the regular season gets into full swing, he’s pretty booked up taking and teaching, sharing his passion. And, if things go well, collecting a few more wingbones.