26 Mississippi Sportsman^ | April 2015
Mouth calls
Beginner’sluck
Preston Pittman’s expertise in calling
has made him a regular on late-night
talk shows.The science and art of mouth diaphragm
calls are a whole different ball game.
“I got started making calls out of my
barbershop in Sumrall, too long ago to
remember,” said world champion caller
and call maker Preston Pittman. “I made
all kinds of calls, but I think my talent
was in stretching synthetic latex materi-
als into reeds fixed onto metal frames
that could be held in the mouth.
“Breathing air across the reed or mul-
tiple reeds created the sounds of a hen
yelp, cluck, or other turkey calls.”
Today, mouth calls are extremely popu-
lar especially among the turkey hunters
that know how to “run” them. It takes a
lot of practice and finesse to get the air
pressure just right to create a variety of
turkey hen calls from the mouth.
The marketplace is flush with numer-
ous brands of mouth calls. It is hard to
determine what a good mouth call is,
and what is not. Sometimes you just
have to buy one to find out by trial and
error. The good part is that they are not
particularly expensive. Once in a while
you find a really good one. If you do, take
good care of it.
I counted 125 different mouth calls
in just one box-store catalog offering.
They went by some pretty wild names
such as Killer, Raspy Cut, Hyper Cut,
Ghost, Hacked Off, Hook Hunter, Wicked
Lady, Preacher, Terminator, Warlock,
Raspy Old Hen, Freak Mama, Ho’Down,
Lil’Nasty, Last Dance, Seek and Destroy,
Black Wasp, and Anthrax. Of course,
none of the names really mean much of
anything and are just marketing ploys to
sell calls.
The one big obvious advantage of a
mouth call is that they are easy to tote
in the shirt pocket or call case, and don’t
require tying up hands to get them to
make calls. That can be a huge plus when
a gobbler is standing on the doorstep
just yards away from the kill zone when
no overt movements will escape their
sharp eyes.Tube calls ... page 32 >