Wing Bone Turkey Call

This past spring I participated in my first Wild Turkey hunt and was successful in bagging a nice Jake. The breast meat is in the freezer and I saved many of the feathers for decorations. As well, I decided to save the bones from each wing to make a traditional turkey call.

The more original inhabitants of this region, the native tribes, have made this type of calls for thousands of years and used it to call in the Tom turkeys which they prized as an excellent meal.

Native legends/stories around Wild Turkey's include:

• Turkey helped create the world, showed humans how to raise corn and fight off evil spirits.
• The gobbler is shown outsmarting Owl and challenging Eagle in combat.
• According to Hopi creation myth, Tom Turkey was the first bird to try to raise the sun in the sky which is how he burnt his head.

After cleaning out, measuring and cutting the wing bones I assembled them into the basic call and then decorated them a bit with some simple engraving and leather work. Not very fancy, but considering my very limit abilities in arts/crafts I was very happy with the results.

Here are the two that I created:


and here is some detail on the turkey foot print engraving:


I have kept one and given another to a friend. To hear a very early attempt of my using this call click on this audio file.

Details on how to build this type of call can be found by clicking here or here.

I am very much looking forward to trying my homemade call during this springs turkey hunt.

Tom