Custom VS Massproduction?
Like many of my other fellow turkey hunters, when Istarted turkey hunting most of my calls came from Wal-Mart or other places that sold massproduction calls.
I would find myself buying five to ten calls a year, just to keep maybe one of them b/c the rests either lost their "sweet spot" or just didn't sound good.
So, I am sure I was like many others and started looking into custom calls, but was turned off by their prices. I just couldn't afford them. Then I started looking around on turkey hunting forums and gathering people's names who made custom calls for HUNTERS and not for show.
One of the first custom callsI got was a glass pot call made my Alex Williams. He actually sent me this call for my birthday as a surprise. After that, I don't think I have paid one penny for any massproduction calls.
After looking at it, I actually came out cheaper by buying custom calls instead of 100's of massproduction calls. Most of these guys only want enough money to cover the materials and shipping and a few pics of the turkeys you call in when their calls.
The same goes with mouth calls as well. I like Cain Creek mouth calls which are the same price and in a lot of cases cheaper than the big named mass produced calls.
If I were to give a new turkey hunter some advice on calls, it would be to leave the mass production stuff alone and invest in good custom calls. It may look more expensive up front, but in the end you will save a lot of money. Oh yeah, I am not bashing all mass production calls, my Knight & Hale alumi-strut goes with me everyday and is the first call I strike on just about every hunt. But man, the calls I have to go through to find that one good one.
This is just some of my thoughts. So, what do ya'll think?