Editor’s Note: Chris Kirby, the president of Quaker Boy Calls, has won every major turkey-calling championship in the nation including the U.S. Open, the World-National and Grand National Turkey Calling Championship, and is the creator of the Mossy Oak Turkey Thugs line of calls.
There’s more to the Turkey Thugs line than the unusual name. The word THUG is an acronym for “Today’s Hunters Uniting for Good.” The turkey hunters who buy the Turkey Thug products are hunters who want to help support men and women of the Armed Forces who come back to this country injured. People who buy Turkey Thug products love to turkey hunt, love this country and love the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces. Mossy Oak donates a portion of the proceeds from Turkey Thug and Deer Thug products to the Outdoor Recreation Heritage Fund that supports paralyzed veterans and their families.
This year, Quaker Boy is offering a new Half Moon Pro Pack, a three-pack of diaphragm calls. Most backer reeds on the back of a diaphragm call are straight, but my dad, the late Dick Kirby, came up with the idea of the half-backer reed several years ago. The idea of the half-back reed is to keep your tongue in the middle of the call and force air down the center of the call, making it easier to use than other diaphragm calls. The Half Moon reed rests on your tongue. You really want to blow the call on the middle portion of the reed to produce the best sound. By channeling the air down the middle of the call, the call turns over easier to produce the basic yelp.
In the Half Moon Pro Pack, we have the Ghost, the V-Cut and the Nasty Old Hen calls in the Half Moon design. The Ghost has the half center cut out of the longest reed to allow the hunter to put a lot of rasp in his turkey calling. The V-Cut is a traditional cut where three-different parts of the diaphragm come together in the middle, producing plenty of rasp. The Nasty Old Hen is the raspiest of the three calls. It has two notches cut out of it. The Half Moon Pro Pack calls are some of the raspiest-sounding calls Quaker Boy ever has produced.
The Thug line also contains friction calls. The new Glass is a fiberglass call with a carbon striker, making the call waterproof. This call gives you the high-pitched ringing sound of a hen turkey that will pierce dense cover and reach-out and touch a gobbler at long ranges. There’s also the Box, a basic compact turkey call that has new lids heavier than they were a year ago and produces a better tone quality as the call turns over to make a hen yelp. We also offer the Little Friend, a push-button call made of oak that every hunter needs to carry. I’ve been hunting my entire life and can use all the different styles of turkey calls, but I still carry the Little Friend with me every turkey season.
Tomorrow: Quaker Boy’s Chris Kirby on the Turkey Thug Little Friend
