GOOSE CALLS: OLIVE BRANCH CRAFTSMAN CALLS IN WATERFOWL, COLLECTORS

OLIVE BRANCH, Ill. -- In a cramped, unassuming workshop here, Ken Martin turns out some of the nation's finest goose and duck calls.

In a similar unassuming manner, the craftsman describes his process of making calls and his rise to fame in the goose-calling world.

Martin's wife, Alberta, shakes her head and smiles. "He's so shy," she whispers.

Truth be told, Martin, 71, likely holds a record in wildlife calling circles.

"I've probably made more calls than any man living or dead," Martin admits. "And I've made them all by myself. If you bring someone in and train them, you've made yourself a competitor."

In the nearly half-century Martin has been making goose and duck calls, he's developed quite a following.

Martin was featured in the April issue of Midwest Living magazine in a story about the "Illinois Ozarks."

He has also been featured in several other national magazines. But he said the stories haven't been quite accurate. Most have described him as retired. He is not.

"Every time an article comes out, I get calls from people who want to buy some calls before I quit," he says.

Martin regularly receives fan mail from satisfied customers who say they wouldn't go hunting without their Martin calls. The Canadian goose calling champion uses one of his calls.

A friend has designed a Ken Martin museum in his home with a collection of calls, letters and even Martin's retired hunting vest.

But Martin never really thought about the calls becoming collectors items, until 1986 or 1987 when a couple of young men came to his workshop and asked if he had any old calls he would be willing to part with. Martin obliged, giving them a handful of calls he had laying around the workshop.

"It turns out that the calls really had become collectors items," Martin says. "The older the better. Or if they were one of a kind, that was good too."

Some of his older calls are valued by collectors over $1,000. Quite a change from the youngster with a pocket knife who started carving calls.

"I grew up on a hunting club here in Olive Branch," Martin recalls. "Being on a hunting club, I had a chance to hear and see the geese and learn what they sounded like.

"But I couldn't buy a call that would do what I wanted it to do. As a boy I loved to whittle, so I made one. I whittled many a call with a pocket knife."

Working as a hunting guide, Martin would take his hunting parties out into the field with a block of wood and his pocket knife. In the day's time, he would finish a call.

"Next thing you know hunters were asking me, `How about making me one.'"

He bought a lathe and then a saw and taught himself to turn out the calls. The business grew.

By the 1950s, the demand for Ken Martin's calls was so great that he went into the production business full-time. He moved to Lemont, Ill. "I made thousands," he said.

He met well-known trap shooter Charlie Hinkly, who introduced Martin and his calls to hunters around the country.

The Martins moved to Salmon, Idaho, and then to Idaho Falls. "They always managed to find me wherever I went," he says.

In the 1960s, Martin calls were featured in all the big outdoor outfitters magazines L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer and so on.

"Some years, I made 3,000 or 4,000 calls," Martin says.

The Martins moved back to Olive Branch in 1983, but the people still ferret him out. Martin regularly gets visitors and admits he doesn't have a sign near his workshop because he's afraid he wouldn't be able to get any work done.

Goose and duck calls all work on basically the same principal: a reed assembly makes the honking noise. But Martin says he perfected the pitch for the call.

"The sound is what's important," he explains. "It was always my desire to sound like the goose on the ground. Others try to sound like a flock of geese flying over."

Included with every call is an instruction booklet explaining exactly how to hold the call and how to bring in geese and ducks. It also offers an invitation to return older calls for a tune-up.

"The pitch of the call is very important," he said. If the call has been taken apart, it's quite difficult for a hunter to properly re-tune it.

"Most people want to pitch their call too low. I guess it is more pleasing to the human ear," he says. But Martin is more interested in imitating geese.

The shape and design of the outside of the call doesn't really affect the sound, he says. But that's what makes the calls attractive and collectors items.

Martin has carved calls out of almost every type of wood and even Teflon and acrylic, but his favorite is walnut.

Some of the calls he hand turns on a lathe with a chisel. He also owns a turn-of-the-century Pringle and Brody production lathe, which turns out calls much faster.

He now makes about 500 calls a year. Most are sold through direct mail. He rarely advertises.

The standard call costs $20, and the top-of-the-line version costs $50.

Before moving back to Olive Branch, Martin used to guide every day of the goose hunting season, proving the calls work. "I used to get complaints though, that I got the geese too close," Martin says.

"I never send out a call unless it's perfect," he said. "It's the quality I would take to the field."