There was (and is) a duck call company named Iverson that once made lovely, simple wood quail calls in the 1980s. All of my hunting friends used Iverson quail calls. Then I lost mine. I called to order another couple of calls, and to my dismay they had quit making them and didn't have plans to make them again. I had taken my call apart enough times to change out the rubber band reed to realize there was not a lot to it. I figured even a guy like me with virtually no woodworking experience could make one -- and I did. The only tools I had were a Dremel tool and some old files. My first calls were crude, but they sounded fine. After some 30-plus years of making calls, I've collected a few more basic tools to accomplish the simple tasks needed to make a good quail call: A band saw, a router, and a belt sander. Nothing fancy. Most of my friends' garages have more and better power equipment. I also refined the design to include a sound chamber -- although I still make a few chamber-less calls to honor the Iverson tradition. The chamber calls have a richer, fuller sound, but if I'm not sure it matters much to the birds.

What I learned was that I had a passion for pretty wood. Most of the wood I use for my calls today is collected in the field from native trees and shrubs, or I raid scrap piles of gunsmith friends who always have small pieces of gorgeous walnut. The stuff I collect is all from standing dead shrubs and plants, usually from a burn in the aftermath of a wildfire here in Southern California. I'm also known to haunt new construction sites or road way projects with hand saws to cut wood from what the bulldozers knock down.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me about the calls here. My office phone is 909-887-3444 and my e-mail is odwriter [!at] verizon.net