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Turkey Call Craftsmanship: Legacy of Neil D. Cost and Lessons from a Modern Callmaker

NWTF is back after a two-year hiatus, and the 2022 convention is proving one for the books. One of the best talks so far has come courtesy of Shadetree Callers proprietor Bob Fulcher. Fulcher holds an NWTF 1st place winning Trough Call design, alongside his NWTF Grand National Championship award-sweeping Stepside turkey calls. And there’s no better hunter to learn the history of the turkey call trade from.

Learning from Fulcher, one name you’ll hear pop up often is Neil Cost. Donna Branch of the National Wild Turkey Federation described him best, citing “No call maker has had more influence on the craft then Neil D. Cost.”

A veteran U.S. Sergeant of both World War II and the Korean Conflict, Cost honed the art of call making over a 70-year career. He would become famous for perfecting the boat paddle turkey call, a single box known today for its ability to mimic every single call of the North American wild turkey. But to Cost himself, it was simply known as the ultimate “work of deceit.”

Cost was a sensational woodworker, too. “Neil Cost found that down in Eminence, Missouri, in the Ozarks, the black walnut that grew along the Jack Forks river was the density, consistency that he preferred. And he bought 90-percent of his wood from a man in Eminence, Sweeny Rayfield.

“You can learn about Sweeny Rayfield in Earl Mickel’s books,” Fulcher cites as another name to research. Earl Mickel has written numerous texts that many callmakers hold as gospel to this day.

As for Rayfield, “He wasn’t a callmaker, per se, but was instrumental in what we call the ‘Imminent School of Callmaking,’” Bob adds. “Which includes a group of guys including Walter Winterbottom, Cecil Frye, Jack Burress, Danny Searcy, among a few others.”

NWTF 2022: The Wisdom of Neil Cost

But keys for modern callmakers lie within the legacy of Neil Cost, Fulcher emphasizes. And Sweeny Rayfield was instrumental in his success.

“For 20 years, he bought every bit of his walnut from Sweeny. So now, almost every Neil Cost turkey call you’ll see that’s made from walnut – you flip it over and you’ll see ‘This walnut came from along the banks of the Jacks Fork River.”

Because of this, Bob Fulcher now labels every piece of walnut he has, all in an attempt to find something comparable to the craftsmanship Cost was able to achieve through Rayfield’s wood. And he’s doing so because our warming climate has altered all walnut trees considerably.

A warmer climate makes for faster growing trees, which softens the wood within. So much so, in fact, that Bob recommends that all new callmakers stay away from walnut woods entirely. “If you end up with the wrong wood, you’re just going to end up frustrated. You’ll be running in circles trying to tune and build a call that, because of the wood, was never really physically capable of doing what you need it to do.”

Trial and Error Through Changing Times

Much of what Bob Fulcher teaches comes from Cost’s own trial and error. But our climate has changed so much since Cost began crafting nearly a century ago, that a lot of what he held as gospel isn’t part of our reality today.

(Bob Fulcher educates NWTF 2022 guests on longbox construction, history, and science. Photo: Jon D. B., Outsider.)

“Neil Cost once said that you can only put cedar on top of a longbox,” Bob cites. “And he insisted that you can not use an exotic wood for the lid on a longbox. Well, what we’ve found out in the time since is it’s really the opposite. You can hardly ever get a cedar lid to work proper. And the reason that is is because cedar has become a very inconsistent wood.”

In our lifetime, Bob says, everything has changed for callmakers. “When you were a boy and you went and cut a cedar tree, it would be tight grain, dense wood. But nowadays if you go cut a cedar tree, they’re a very fast-growing tree. And the reason they’re fast growing is because the environment is changing.”

Fulcher is careful not to cite any political agendas concerning climate change. Instead, he relies on climate science and the cyclical changes it shows.

“It’s a fact of nature, he says. “This world has gone through cyclical climate change since the beginning of time. And we’re in one of those periods where we’re getting a warm-up. And this warm-up is causing our trees to grow at a faster rate. When they grow at a faster rate, the grain changes and the wood is not as hard.”

This leads into a list of woods to both avoid and choose for crafting turkey calls from Bob Fulcher’s talk at NWTF 2022, which you can find right here on Outsider. And a hearty thanks to Bob for his willingness to share the tips and tricks of the trade as we continue to cover NWTF at Nashville, TN’s Opryland Resort.