Calling in a mature gobbler generates a special kind of excitement during spring turkey hunts. It’s guaranteed to jack up your heartrate, and make you come back for more.
To enjoy turkey hunting’s spring tradition, you don’t have to be an expert caller. You do, however, need the right tools and know how to use them.
One of turkey hunting’s most versatile calls—and the easiest one for beginners to learn—is the slate call, which is also known as a friction call or pot call. It produces every call, loud or subtle, for coaxing gobblers in close. Slate calls consist of a pot and striker. The pot is a wood or plastic body that holds a slate, crystal, glass or aluminum surface. Pots and strikers are available in various woods to customize the sounds.
You can choose your slate call at a nearby archery shop, which you can locate here.
Once you have your slate call, start practicing and learning how to make turkey sounds. Before starting, use sandpaper or a Scotch Brite pad to prep the slate’s surface. Most slate calls come with a small piece of sandpaper or scratchpad to get you started.
To prep your slated, don’t sand in a circular motion. Sand back and forth to create straight lines across the surface. You’ll stroke your striker against the grain you created to make realistic, consistent turkey sounds. Once you’ve prepped your call, you’re ready practice.
Turkey calling can be an extremely effective and exciting way to hunt wild turkeys. However, many beginners are intimidated by the high cost of purchasing custom-made turkey calls from professionals. The good news is you can easily make your own functional and great-sounding turkey slate calls right at home with minimal tools and materials. This DIY approach allows you to fully customize and tune your slate call to achieve authentic turkey sounds.
In this comprehensive guide, we will walk through the complete process for handcrafting your own high-quality slate turkey call using simple techniques and readily available supplies. We will cover choosing the right slate, preparing the surface, cutting a sound chamber, shaping a striker, perfecting friction call techniques, and more. With a bit of practice, you can quickly master various turkey vocalizations like excited yelps, loud cutting, keen kee-kees, and soft clucks.
Choosing a Slate Surface
The first step is selecting an appropriate slate material to use as the friction surface for your call The best slates are relatively soft, fine-grained rock that allows the striker to glide smoothly across the surface Good options include slate roofing tiles, chalkboard slate, or unfinished stone coasters. Avoid polished, coarse, or brittle slate materials. The size of your slate can vary based on personal preference, but aim for around 3-5 inches long and 2-3 inches wide to start. This provides enough surface area to master friction call techniques.
Preparing and Shaping the Slate
Once you have chosen a suitable slate tile the next step is preparing the surface. Use a flat metal file to gently smooth any rough edges or corners. Then use increasingly finer grit sandpaper (120 220, 400 grit) to polish the surface until it has a uniform matte finish. Avoid making the slate too smooth. Then wash the slate thoroughly to remove any residue.
Next, cut a half-circle sound chamber about 1-15 inches wide across one end of the slate using a hacksaw or rotary tool Smooth any sharp edges of the sound chamber. The exact shape is not critical, as you will tune it by trial and error. Just ensure the chamber is opened on both sides to allow sound projection.
Cutting and Shaping the Striker
The striker is the round wooden dowel or peg that you will drag across the slate to produce sound. Most strikers are 3/8 to 1/2 inch in diameter. Cut a striker to about 4-5 inches in length from a wood like cedar, cypress, oak, or pine. Avoid soft woods. One end should be cut on an angle to match the bevel of your slate’s sound chamber. The other end can be rounded off. Use sandpaper to further shape and smooth the striker.
Developing Friction Call Technique
The real skill in using a slate turkey call is mastering the friction call techniques that create authentic turkey sounds. This takes considerable practice. In general, you will use light downward pressure while dragging the striker across the slate at varying speeds and directions to mimic turkey vocals. Key tips:
- Hold the slate at a 45 degree angle with your off hand
- Grip the striker between thumb and index finger about 1/2 inch from the tip
- Keep your wrist rigid while using finger movements to drag the striker
- Start each call with light pressure applied to the outer edge
- Increase pressure and move the striker inward as you draw it toward you
- Use wrist rotation to create vibrato effects
- Alter striker pressure, speed, and slate angle to vary the sound
- Lift the striker off the surface at the end of each call to stop the sound
- Expose more of the striker length to create higher-pitched yelps
- Cover more of the striker to lower the tone for clucks and purrs
With experience, you will learn to control these variables to mimic excited hen yelps, contented clucks, alarm putts, and other turkey talk. Don’t get frustrated if it takes regular practice to sound realistic. Creating consistently great turkey calls is challenging. Stay patient, experiment often, and listen closely to actual turkey sounds to keep improving.
Troubleshooting Common Friction Call Problems
As you practice with your homemade slate call, you may encounter certain issues like squeaking, poor sound production, or inability to vary tones. Here are some quick troubleshooting tips:
-
Squeaking/Sticking: Add slate surface lubricants like chalk dust, talc powder, or anti-seize lubricant. Avoid over-sanding the slate.
-
Weak Sound: Hold the slate at a steeper angle, increase striker pressure, or open the sound chamber more.
-
Limited Range: Try varying the amount of striker exposed, chalking the surface, or changing your wrist movement.
-
No Vibrato: Use lighter pressure and work on keeping your wrist rigid while drawing the striker.
Don’t get discouraged. Even experienced turkey hunters still have trouble recreating the most realistic and nuanced turkey vocalizations. Stick with the fundamentals, keep practicing, and your homemade slate calls will be fooling lovesick gobblers in no time.
Advanced Slate Call Customization Tips
Once you have the basics down, there are several advanced tricks you can use to further customize and improve your homemade slate calls:
- Tune the sound chamber: Carefully widen or narrow the opening to change sound volume and tone. Find the sweet spot through trial and error.
- Change striker materials: Try using different wood species or man-made materials like Delrin or acrylic to alter sound. Heavier strikers lower the tone.
- Modify striker size/shape: Fabricate extra-large or small diameter strikers for unique effects. Or carve grooves and texture into the striker.
- Chalking the surface: Lightly rub high-quality blackboard or billiard chalk on the slate surface to act as a dry lubricant and produce a crisper tone. Re-apply between calls.
- Add slate surface texture: For an old hen sound, use a metal file to add light scratches or scuffing on your slate surface to soften and rasp the tone.
Don’t be afraid to experiment until you achieve your desired classic yelp, keen, cluck, or lost call. Every handcrafted slate call will have its own unique quirks and sound. That personal customization is part of the fun and satisfaction of making your own DIY turkey calls.
As you can see, making your own functional turkey slate call is relatively straightforward with minimal tools, cost, and effort. While mastering realistic turkey calling takes considerable practice, you will find the learning process highly engaging. Your homemade slate calls will provide endless hours of rewarding practice. Plus, successfully fooling a lovesick tom into range with your own customized call is an extremely gratifying experience.
The ability to recreate a wide range of convincing turkey vocalizations will give you a real edge when hunting wily old gobblers. Take your time to choose the right slate surface, finely tune the sound chamber, experiment with striker materials, and keep practicing those friction call techniques. Before you know it, you will have expert-level skills and your homemade slate calls will be producing deadly yelps, clucks, and purrs. So get out in the workshop, make some saw dust, and get ready for spring turkey season. Good luck tagging that old tom!
How to Hold the Call
Hold the pot with your nondominant hand, using the tips of your fingers on its outer rim. The sound comes from the bottom of the pot, so you’ll muffle the sound if you rest the pot in your palm.
Hold the striker as you would a pencil in your dominant hand, and angle it at about 45 degrees to the slate’s surface. If you grip the striker toward the tip you’ll produce higher-pitched sounds. If you hold the striker higher, you’ll produce deeper sounds. Most people find the sweet spot about 1½ inches from the striker’s tip.
Pro tip: Don’t lift your striker off the surface when calling. Keeping it pressed against the surface helps prevent unintentional sounds and produces better sounds.
How to Make 3 Common Turkey Sounds
The Yelp: This common sound is made by hens, the female turkeys. Hens yelp in spring to communicate with toms or gobblers, the male turkeys. To make a yelp, apply light pressure with the striker while making small, tight ovals with its tip. A larger oval produces sounds more like those of a jake or tom yelp.
The Cutt: If a yelp means “hello,” a cluck means, “HELLO!” Hens cluck to get a tom’s attention, which makes the cluck a great call when hunting. Hens usually make several clucks in quick succession. To make a cutt, apply pressure and snap the striker toward you. If you make unintentional squeaks don’t sweat it. Turkeys do the same thing when cutting.
The Purr: Just as cats purr when content, turkeys purr while feeding and feeling secure. This soft vocalization is great for coaxing skeptical toms. To complete the illusion of feeding turkeys, scratch nearby leaves with a stick in between your soft purrs. To make a purr, apply light pressure and drag the striker tip in a straight line. Once you master this call, make a sequence of purrs by changing the striker’s direction.
The best way to learn about turkey sounds is to listen to them. You can hear all of these calls and many others on the National Wild Turkey Federation’s website. Click here to listen. Share this…
How To Make Slate Turkey Calls Part 1
How do you make a Turkey mouth call?
This is for the person who wants to make their own turkey mouth calls using a special jig made for this. Hand Jig — the one in the video is a Feather Ridge Hand Jig. Three pieces of latex cut for a mouth call. Frame. Pliers. Scissors. Tape. Place your support on the jig and lay the latex between the two clamps.
How do you tape a turkey call?
Cut an oblong hole in the tape where it can wrap around the frame and give you a nice outside handhold to fit it to your mouth. Do not let the tape touch the latex. Slide your turkey call into the tape so the latex is exposed by the oblong hole you made. Fold the tape over and seal. Cut the tape to fit your mouth.
How do wild turkeys communicate with each other?
Wild turkeys communicate with each other using a language of gobbles, yelps, putts, purrs, and other sounds. Hunters use devices named turkey calls to mimic these sounds and thus lure turkeys within firing range. Stores and online vendors sell turkey calls, but many hunters choose to create their own. Buy a turkey call device.
How do you make a turkey call from a pill bottle?
Fit the cap over the bottle and stretch the latex square tightly over the hole you just cut, leaving ¼ inch gap on the flat part of the half-circle. Use a rubber band to fix it in place. You now have your very own pill bottle turkey call. To use, hold the cap with the latex to your mouth and blow.