STRUT

STRUT-N TURKEY CALLS

“PUT’N THE TURKEY IN THE CALL”

Scotty, Kristie and Yantci Maddux

I was born in Gadsden, Alabama and was raised in a little “Mayberry” type town in north east Alabama called Sardis City. I still reside there today. For as long as I can remember, my father, Joe Maddux, my brothers Tim and Barry Maddux, and myself were hunting anything that was huntable. We owe everything that we have accomplished in the outdoors to our father, who at times had to have extreme patience with us in our young inexperienced years. Hunting turkeys was no exception. I fell in love with this bird before I fell in love with girls! My dad had a M.L. Lynch model 102 box call that I would play with for hours. One day he bought me an instructional cassette tape that demonstrated all the turkey sounds. It had examples of the sounds recorded live in the wild then these two guys would try to imitate them with their calls. I soon found myself trying to make a yelp using only my voice. Driving everyone crazy with my yelps, clucks and purrs around town, I soon could do some pretty good calling by just using my voice which I still use today when I hunt.

I have been hunting turkeys now for 26 years, and to hear that longbeard sound off on a crisp, spring morning still gets my heart pounding; It just never gets old!. About 4 years ago I became interested in making my own turkey calls. I designed my first box call but putting it on paper was much easier than building the real thing. I had no tools to work with and thought of having it sourced out to someone else. I never did this but hung on to my drawings.

I decided to take a small 12’x12’ storage building and turn it into my call making shop. With the help from my brother-in-law, Tony Patton, our good friend, Bobby Hill, who are both also great hunting buddies of mine, and my daughter Yantci, we put it all together. I couldn’t have done it without them.

Greg Mills, a good friend of mine and a good call maker himself, once told me, “It doesn’t matter how flashy and impressive looking your calls are but how they sound.”, He said, “You got to experiment and try different combinations of wood types to perfect the sound your looking for. Scotty, you got to put the turkey in your calls.” I adopted this quote and use it under the title of my call company. Strut-n Turkey Calls...”Put-N the Turkey in the Call”. Keeping that in mind, and using more advice from Greg, I learned how to orient the grain of the wood to give my box calls the correct friction thus producing a great sound. With the help of my brother-in-law, Tony, I completed my first call, which was of the perfect size and sound and fits comfortably in the hunter’s hand. Since that first call I have made many others using the same design but with different wood combinations. All my calls are signed and dated and my daughter Yantci, always gets number 1 in every set made. My first series that was sold consisted of 31 calls total, and titled as model “Strut-N 31”. These calls consisted of a base and paddle made of cherry, the double sided sounding boards were cedar and the end blocks were maple. My brother Tim and my brother-in-law, Tony, helped me with these. My best friend David Dewberry got number 31 of 31 in this set. I also completed a set of 20 calls entitled “Strut-N Cut” These calls are constructed of a base and end block made from black walnut, the paddle is maple and the double sided sounding boards are cedar. I have also designed and built calls entitled “Double Strut” and the “Cope Call”. The “Double Strut” calls, which are my favorite calls to use while hunting, are box/slate combos. They have a 3” diameter slate inlayed in the back board of the box which is made of black walnut as well as the end blocks. The sounding board for the box is cedar and the paddle, maple. The “Cope Call” utilizes a Copenhagen snuff can with slate as the friction surface. Holes are located strategically underneath the can for proper sound production. It is a great finishing call to bring that old gobbler in for the shot when he is already in close range. It is also a good conversation piece. My newest call is the “Strike-A-Strut” call. These calls are very similar to Earnest Black’s “Success Calls”. They are a small box type call with a small piece of slate inside on the bottom of the box. The striking peg protrudes from the bottom of the paddle.

Making the calls was one thing, but the field test would prove to be the icing on the cake. Good friend and hunting buddy, Darron Rice and myself took a trip to Jackson County, Alabama to try out the calls on a hunt. We parked the 4-wheeler down by a creek and gave a howl hoot. Sounding off from a distance about 200 yards up the ridge on a bench, we heard the old boy sound off. We didn’t hesitate to move on him so we got on his level on the bench. We worked this old gobbler for about 30 minutes. He came right to our calls and Darron took him at about 20 yards. I think I will title my next set of calls “The Bench Warmer”…

I wish everyone the best of luck.....Thank you.

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