Best snow and spec caller in the country

[Rick Hall]

Big appreciation to @speckiller1957 and @Rick Hall for sharing their wealth of background knowledge.

Fun to think back on some of that, but bittersweet, as well.

@speckiller1957 I love the read, out of curiosity where does James Meyer fit into speck call making with the above mentioned.

Know you weren't addressing me, but speckiller1957 hasn't shown, and James was guiding with us when he started making calls.

Might be sticking my foot in my mouth with only one half of the story to go on, but it's my understanding he and Nathan Wright had guided for the same outfit, become friends (James passed me a mighty sweet hedge Short Barrel duck call Nathan had passed him, which I eventually passed to a young fellow working with he and Bill at Riceland) and it was James' understanding they were going into business making 5/8" gutted calls together. That didn't happen, and Redbone and James Meyers Calls resulted. Don't know Nathan and only spoke with him briefly the day he won a state speck contest on a Gaston, so I've not heard his take. (Never was a contest caller or follower, but believe Nathan's won with a number of calls. Fellow could wring a speck out of a tube sock.)

Anyway, James' personality could be something of an acquired taste, and one of his hunters was the first I heard the term "goose Nazi" from. But he was good hearted and reputed by his call customers to spend hours on the phone getting them up and running. And he was my friend.

Blessed me with the hedge early James Meyers that's remained my favorite until this day, albeit with guts self-shaped from the handful of blanks he gave me and "customized" by careless grandchildren (who turned themselves in and made it more dear):

James was also good enough to reshape one of their somewhat larger bored, appreciably louder and fatter handled micarta Ricelands (also with guts I, not they, am to blame for) to that James Meyers profile that better fits my hand:

Not at all sure what James and Bill's history was, other than both guiding with us for a time, but remember being asked what I thought and approving of "Riceland" when they were teaming up. What I'll sum up as James' "medical issues" eventually left Riceland in Bill's hands, and the shop couldn't be in better ones.

While browsing through photos for the above, I ran across my personal favorite from the predator/speck call era, a Thomas I ran 18 every-open-day seasons through:

Speck calls have come a long way, but "those were the days..."

 

[laughing mallard]

This has turned about to be a pretty interesting thread about the early years of speck calling as we know it today. Thank you!

 

[Nocalhonker]

Fun to think back on some of that, but bittersweet, as well.


Know you weren't addressing me, but speckiller1957 hasn't shown, and James was guiding with us when he started making calls.

Might be sticking my foot in my mouth with only one half of the story to go on, but it's my understanding he and Nathan Wright had guided for the same outfit, become friends (James passed me a mighty sweet hedge Short Barrel duck call Nathan had passed him, which I eventually passed to a young fellow working with he and Bill at Riceland) and it was James' understanding they were going into business making 5/8" gutted calls together. That didn't happen, and Redbone and James Meyers Calls resulted. Don't know Nathan and only spoke with him briefly the day he won a state speck contest on a Gaston, so I've not heard his take. (Never was a contest caller or follower, but believe Nathan's won with a number of calls. Fellow could wring a speck out of a tube sock.)

Anyway, James' personality could be something of an acquired taste, and one of his hunters was the first I heard the term "goose Nazi" from. But he was good hearted and reputed by his call customers to spend hours on the phone getting them up and running. And he was my friend.

Blessed me with the hedge early James Meyers that's remained my favorite until this day, albeit with guts self-shaped from the handful of blanks he gave me and "customized" by careless grandchildren (who turned themselves in and made it more dear):
View attachment 381621

James was also good enough to reshape one of their somewhat larger bored, appreciably louder and fatter handled micarta Ricelands (also with guts I, not they, am to blame for) to that James Meyers profile that better fits my hand:
View attachment 381623

Not at all sure what James and Bill's history was, other than both guiding with us for a time, but remember being asked what I thought and approving of "Riceland" when they were teaming up. What I'll sum up as James' "medical issues" eventually left Riceland in Bill's hands, and the shop couldn't be in better ones.

While browsing through photos for the above, I ran across my personal favorite from the predator/speck call era, a Thomas I ran 18 every-open-day seasons through:
View attachment 381630

Speck calls have come a long way, but "those were the days..."

Thanks for the info it is awesome hearing some of the history, I had an old James Meyer’s but the guts fell out it brought tears to my eye’s. It wasn’t my everyday call but was one I turned to when times where tough. I did find another all black acrylic Meyer’s and bought it but I haven’t used it in the field. Speck hunting seems to growing and living in California there are a lot of them and they are both fun and frustrating to hunt. Maybe some time someone will put type to screen and write the evolution of speck calls and hunting before its history is lost. I was probably about 8 or 9 when I saw my first specks that my dad and uncle shot, in hind sight they may have been Tule geese. They seemed huge but that could have simply been my youth.

 

[Dan Mallia]

Great knowledge and experiences everyone, thanks for sharing them.

It was fun when the speck calling (and hunting) craze really started up. For years I’d used a Big River Squeaker and then the Primos Shaved Reed Speck.

I remember hearing a killer speck call during the 2003 Colusa Waterfowl Show. I found the booth and it was this company I’d never heard of, Basin Abomination.

I started chatting with Dave and he gave me a quick tutorial on the “Barbelly” and I was soon making some decent speck sounds with it. I liked the way it sounded and it was easy to operate so I bought two.

Called and killed so many birds with those original BA barbelly calls, and then the Speck 2 when they rolled that out, and then the Basin Calls Ricer, and the Crusher……

In my opinion, here in the Sacramento Valley, the golden age of speck hunting was when the limit was four and for a short time when it was six, before people really went crazy after them and put a bunch of pressure on them.

We were so successful with 4 dozen DSD specks (custom ordered and painted), good calling and a solid hide. Things the birds really hadn’t seen a lot of before in the valley and we really got after them.

I’d hunted cacklers a few times with the DSD guys in the Willamette Valley and they targeted those birds by hunting off the edges of fields. We implemented that on the specks here and it was a killer.

It’s fun looking back at the pics in the hard-drive of all the specks we were killing back then.

Great times with family and friends.

 

[blackdog58]

Had the pleasure of hunting with Nathan, few times. Enjoyed it tremendously. Still have one of his early delrin and hedge calls.

With the increase of regs, increase of bag limit, its certainly changed the landscape of speck hunting.