Call Maker - John David Coats

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Name: John David Coats

City: Longwood

State: Florida

Country: USA

Company Name: Coats Calls

Born: 1949

Description

Growing up in Mountain Grove, Missouri I found it very easy to find a hunting partner if family wasn’t around.  But Dad and I hunted together when we could.   Mom used to send us to get dinner, usually quail, squirrel or rabbit when he was home.   Dad had a “410” single shot he let me shoot at a very early age.  We had fun times hunting.  My brother Lynn loved quail hunting over the dogs.  Neither Dad nor Lynn duck hunted but I sure did.  Getting up in the early hours on the water was the best of times.  

One of my close friends, Gregg Blount, invited me to the Reelfoot, Tennessee duck calling contest back in the early 80’s.   There I saw and heard every kind of duck call made.  One guy had a box of different calls he was selling.  Gregg and I rummaged through the box buying what looked good and all we could afford.  I was hooked.  I met Howard Harlan and bought his book.  I also met E. L. Quinn.  He invited us over to his house in Newborn, TN where he showed me his workshop.  He was a gunsmith first and a call maker second.  He gave me a quick lesson of how to make a call.   He even gave me a stump of walnut that had been laying under a tarp in his backyard.  It was a big aged stump of walnut packed full of burl.  E. L. and I met several more times over the years teaching me the art of making calls.   He was great at checkering, I just didn’t have the patience or aptitude to checker like he could.   His checkered calls are beautiful, especially the presentation sets.  It was painful hearing he passed last year.  He was known as the “Gun Man” to all his friends.   He will be missed by myself and many others.    

My Reelfoot style calls were very plain when I first started back in the 80’s.   I was lucky they even made a noise.   As I progressed, I began shaping my calls with the Hooker and Turpin calls in mind.   Today my calls are either carved or inlaid.  I do checker some of them.  My favorite wood is maple or walnut.  The reeds are mostly tempered stainless steel because that metal is easier to tune.  But I do use beryllium copper in some of them.  What separates my calls from others is the way I treat the wood.  The calls are soaked in linseed oil and other ingredients for days before drying.  This is the way callmakers like Quinn, White and others treated their wood.  They should never crack.

“Coats Calls” was first featured in a Ducks Unlimited magazine back in 1995.  Now I donate calls every year to various Ducks Unlimited functions.  I still collect and trade calls.  I still like hunting.  That and call making will always be in my blood.  

John Coats

 “Coats Calls”