Ducks Unlimited Podcast

00:00 Katie Burke Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. This is your host, Katie Burke. And on the show today, I have a very special guest, Mark Warmath. He is a Tennessee call collector, outdoorsman, enthusiast, all things. Yeah. Yeah. That describes it pretty good, I think. Welcome to the show, Mark. Well, thank you. So we are at, and I just had another interview, so I'm not sure what order these will come in, but we were at the Call of Palooza in Stuttgart.

00:27 Mark Warmath This is my first visit to Call of Palooza. I think this is my fourth. I think they've been done it five years and somebody informed me that I missed the first year. Okay. So how has it changed in four years? It has grown dramatically and for the better and it's a great time. This is one I don't want to miss. Yeah. It's changed times of year, right? Or is it always been? He has adjusted it just slightly here this way and that. And so far it's worked out with my hunting schedule and I'm able to come play. Yeah, that's awesome. Reunion with my friends and stuff like that. Yeah. Did you bring calls to collect or trade? Ryan Graves and I are in charge of the vintage call contest every year. So we kind of come and help and do that. And then we bring calls to put in and try to entice other people into bringing their calls and displaying and just teaching people and answering questions about old duck calls. Oh, that's cool. So are there different categories and then how many entries? Through the years, we've done different things. Like this year, we're doing states, plain calls, no checkering, no carving or anything like that. And we're just doing individual states who's got the best smooth call. Oh, cool. Yeah. So we're doing Tennessee, Illinois, Louisiana, Arkansas, and maybe Missouri. Okay. So people will bring in their calls and we'll display them out there and then we'll let the folks vote as to which is their favorite call. So it'll be like a public vote? Yeah, it'll be a public vote. Oh, that's cool. So we've done it in the past with checkered calls and carved calls and unknown, best unknown calls. And there's been some great calls show up here. Yeah. Anything exciting that you hadn't seen before? Tom Rosemary showed up here this week. So that's a pretty special call. That's an Illinois call. Very, very nice call. And in the past, we've had Ira Ferguson, which is probably my favorite of all calls. They come from unexpected places? Really, they do. A lot of times locals will show up and say, hey, this was my granddad's call and it's been in a box and I just found it. We're like, John, Ryan and I are going, oh my gosh. That is exciting. Yeah. That doesn't happen with decoys like it used to, but calls, it's still out there. They're still coming out of the closet. And that's the neat thing about it. You think you've seen it all and then somebody shows up with something really special and we're all like, oh my gosh. Do they even know what they have? A lot of times they don't. A lot of times they don't know anything about it. I picked up, which is one of my holy grails and duck calls, a really nice checkered Tom Turpin call. I was at duck camp and typically when somebody says, oh, my grandmama's got some calls and you think, well, okay. I explained to them, I said, hey, give me a picture of it. I said, nine times out of 10, it's going to be something that's production. And this fellow told me, he said, hey, my mom's got this call. Let me get a picture of it. He sent it and he opened up the phone. I looked at it and I went, oh my goodness. I mean, this is a $10,000 duck call. Yeah, that's amazing. It was a checkered Tom Turpin from Memphis, Tennessee. And I was like, oh wow. My jaw hit the floor. You hit the floor. Yeah, your jaw. Yeah. I was like, and I told him, I said, I just bought one of these. I bought one of these two or three weeks ago. And he couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Did he sell it? Yes, he did. Do you have it? I do have it.

04:10 Katie Burke It'll be at my house for a long time. That's amazing. I love stories like that. And I feel like we hear them more in calls than we do in decoys. I mean, you have old stories of decoys, but- It's neat that this stuff keeps popping up. It's nice that you'll have, like John has put this on and we get to have a little more opportunity for it. There's not a lot of opportunity for these

04:33 Mark Warmath things. Yeah. And he's been changing in and out the displays in there. Ryan had his in here first, I think. And I've had mine, Mike Lewis has had his here. And it's kind of like in Memphis,

04:44 Katie Burke what Dee is doing, switching out collections. And that's so cool to come see. It's a nice thing. I get asked that a lot, like, if I want more of a permanent thing. And I prefer to be able to showcase all the collectors and what they got doing. Because I mean, a lot of the people coming

05:02 Mark Warmath through don't have any, they don't know what this stuff is. Right. And I like that. But I'd also like to see a place where calls can live. Where instead of my call sitting in my living room and me being the only one that looks at them, take them down somewhere that everybody can enjoy them

05:20 Katie Burke and learn about them. Oh yeah. I mean, I guess the dream would be like, have a museum with all the, a permanent collection of great calls. And then like a residency where you could teach people to make them, to blow them, like, the full gamut of the art of calling. And that'd be, I mean, that's the dream. But yeah, that's kind of my, you're kind of doing what my dream is. Yeah. We just need a funder. How are we going to find this money, Mark? I keep thinking about that. I've got ideas. Oh, you let me know and I'll help you out. Yeah, that would be amazing. I know I've talked to, I actually just on the opposite for decoys. I was talking, I just interviewed Jerry Tolton in North Carolina and he has this dream of a retreat where he would house decoy carvers in the core sound area and teach them to like the tradition of carving a core sound decoy. And he would come, like carvers could come in and stay for a week, a month, however long, like they'd have a whole place to stay. Oh, that'd be nice. Oh, I know. Yeah. So now I'm repeating his dream. So he has

06:25 Mark Warmath to make it happen because I've said it to me. I'm thinking right down that line is what on the duck call side. Think about, you know, a display museum in the prairie overlooking a duck marsh that you

06:36 Katie Burke can take clients out and or friends out and go duck hunting and come play calls all night. Yeah. And then go out there and use them to hunt with and see if they actually bring a duck in. Can you call a duck? That would be cool. All right. Well, we went off on a tangent. So let's, we're going to do that a lot. So just to be aware, it's always, tangents are good things. So I like them. So we'll probably do that a few times, but let's get back and kind of introduce the audience to you and how you got into hunting and kind of your background in the outdoors and what they're

07:11 Mark Warmath like. Well, I attribute it all to my dad. You know, he started me when I was young. He was a hunter. I was thinking about it earlier today. How did I start? And I can remember, you know, you start with a BB gun out of the backyard at grandmama's house or great grandma's house, whatever. But he was a quail hunter in Kentucky and a rabbit hunter and a squirrel hunter. And I remember walking with him quail hunting, but I wasn't hunting then. And then we went into squirrel hunting and then I got a 22 and got to shoot a few squirrels. And then we kind of got away from hunting and life and growing up and work and all that. And his best friend was from South Dakota. And he went one Thanksgiving and left me at home when I was, you know, pre-teens, I guess. And he went out and pheasant hunted with Colonel Bacon, my dad's best friend in South Dakota. And when he got home, he said, I'll never do that again. I said, we'll never do what? He said, I'll never leave you at home from that again. And he took me and that's where I started was pheasant hunting in South Dakota. That's a pretty good start. Oh, it was wonderful. And then, you know, while I was there, you know, we'd be hunting on the Missouri River, you know, edge of the Missouri River up on the corn flats. And these geese would come off the Missouri River and come up and just thousands and thousands. I said, Dad, I want to try that. And he was like, okay. So a couple years later, when we went back out, I got into goose hunting. That was my first experience with waterfowl. Wow, that's different. So I mean, I've been doing it my whole life. I fell into turkey hunting. Well, you live in West Tennessee, right? Well, central, north central Tennessee. Turkey, yeah, dominant area. Yeah. Right. But we've got good duck hunting there too. So we got into the duck hunting thing. You know, I've been doing that. I don't know how many years. I've got it written down, but like 40 years. And this is my 35th year turkey hunt. So I've been doing it all the way. And for a while, I chased them pretty hard. I've got a wife that understands it. So she lets me get away with a lot of things. I'm very blessed with my home and family.

09:25 Katie Burke And that's awesome. Yeah. Those turkeys, they're maddening. The audience very much knows my anger at the turkeys. So they were a few times. But yeah, they're maddening. I'm trying to eradicate them for you. Well, I'll help you. I'll help you in Mississippi area. So when do you start? Do you were hunting with your father waterfowling in Tennessee?

09:48 Mark Warmath He never really waterfowl hunted. And a friend of mine at church took me duck hunting for the first time and got me just the day one I was hooked. Yeah. Were you doing private or public? It was public land. It was, you know, TWRA has a wildlife management areas in Tennessee, which I'm sure you're aware of. So we hunt typically I grew up hunting on end over bottoms, but you know, I've migrated to California and Canada and Colorado and wherever my wife will let me get away with. Where's your favorite place? I like it all. Yeah. I mean, there's such special, you take it all in and I take it all in no matter where I go. Southern Missouri or I can't say that I've hunted Illinois, even though that's a strong fold for waterfowling. But so I just collect duck calls from there. Yeah. There you go. And duck calls are an extension of duck hunting to me. Okay. And that lets me chase ducks all year long. 365. I'm playing duck calls for turkey hunting. Yeah. I do do turkey calls as well. By default. If you're a turkey hunter, you end up with calls, you know, you'll buy an owing him before long. You look in the corner and you're going, oops. Yeah. That's interesting. So when do you start getting interested in the old calls? I guess I've had the collecting mentality ever since I was little. You start out with match boxes and then stamps and match books and all that kind of stuff. And it just, I remember going to Real Foot Lake with my dad. They used to go down, his family, four generations of us would go to Real Foot Lake fishing for bread. And we would eat at a famous restaurant called Boyettes. You've probably been there. I haven't been there, but I know of it. Well, Red Boyette was a duck call maker. And actually I've got one that I entered in the show here. But we would go to the restaurant and have fish. And they'd have displays of calls down in the bottom and sell them to the hunter and fishermen that come in. So I saw one, it's like, you know, little kids are, daddy, buy me one, daddy, buy me one. That's where my first call came from. Oh really? Yeah. And so finally after three or four years, he's like to shut me up here. Give me one of those duck calls. So what was it? It was Earl Denison. And Earl Denison was your first. Do you still have it? Oh yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't get rid of it. That was your first call. When was that? How old was it? Oh my gosh. I don't even know. It was before I started duck hunting. It was before I started hunting. Yeah. So you were really young. We were really young. And we would go in there and every year they were there. And I was like, dad. Did you blow it? Yeah, I did. I mean, I've got teeth marks on it. Yeah. I was just like, probably didn't treat it very well at that age. No. And you look at it now and it's special

12:52 Katie Burke because it's what started this whole addiction, I guess. Yeah. So how long, when did you realize what you had had? When did it come like aware that you had an Earl Denison and who Earl Denison was?

13:08 Mark Warmath I had no idea about it. It was just a duck call from Real Foot Lake. And until I got into duck hunting, and it was probably three or four years, Real Foot Lake has the CCAA call collectors show. And I missed that the first few years. And my buddies from home were like, hey, you need to go to this. And man, when I went the first year, I didn't have a lot of money and I bought, I thought $100 was a lot and I bought three $40 duck calls. I know the math doesn't work, but so I kept it small. And the next year it was like, I had a little extra, it was 10 duck calls. Before long, it was like 40 duck calls. Just going, just spending everything you got. Save up and then go buy them. Were you just buying anything and everything? Bought anything. To me, there's no better use of a stick of wood than to turn it into a duck call. I don't care where it's from. If I could, I'd own one, everyone, or I'd own them all. And then everybody could just come look at them. So it's been a while and that's how I got started. And then these different shows have started popping up and going to those shows, the internet and talking to people that are friends of mine who are guides or old duck hunters. And a lot of time, they call them leads. You get a lead on somebody and you go talk to them about it. Well, they're not ready to sell their calls. And well, someday if you do, I'm interested and I'll put them on the shelf and build a call collection. So I started with all states, all calls. And then I realized I really couldn't afford to do that. And people had told me before they would concentrate on a state. Okay, well, you're from Tennessee. Why don't you just collect Tennessee calls? And at one point I had probably over a hundred different Arkansas makers. And I thought, well, I could take that money and put it into Tennessee. So I've kind of weeded out, not that I don't love them, but I've weeded out other states to make my Tennessee collection grow. Yeah, that makes sense. And as a call collector, you buy what you want. I buy what I want. I evolve. I'm over here looking at Joe Buker's carve calls. They're unbelievable. And he's not Tennessee. But I mean, I'm addicted to great stuff. And I'm like, okay, that one, that one, that one, that one.

15:31 Katie Burke So when did the Real Foot show start? Oh my goodness. We've been going for 25 or 30 years. So is it the oldest call show? Yes. Well, call specific, I guess. Yep. Yep. Yep. So yeah, how has that changed?

15:46 Mark Warmath It was really organized at the beginning. They would shut down the town. The town would support it. They put tents up all the way downtown and vendors would come just like they're doing here at John's and set up down the street. It has gotten away from that. It's kind of separated to two parts of the little town and all the contemporary guys are down at the boat dock, standing cabins down there. And we've tried to integrate the old with the new. Right. Old guys are up front collecting. So it has gotten smaller. But I say it's gotten smaller. It's just changed. It's evolved in something totally different because the organizers, they're not doing as much anymore.

16:36 Katie Burke Is it also like an aging situation as well?

16:40 Mark Warmath It is. And Brian and Brian Byers and Ryan and several of us have tried to do events there to pull everybody together. Like call identification. And we've done that here. We'll put a bunch of calls out. We'll put a case of calls out with 20 calls in it. And we'll give a prize to the guy that can name most of the calls. And that teaches new guys about

17:03 Katie Burke what you have. Yeah. That's really cool. I never thought of that. That's a good idea.

17:08 Mark Warmath And we had some guys that you wouldn't have expected if they got them all. I mean, that's really cool. And people walk by and go, I don't know what any of that is. Guess. And then come back and look and see how many you got right. Right. So we'll give you a list of names and then you can just match them with the guys. I'd be scared to do it if I got too many wrong. We found that happened. I don't want to do that because I don't want to look dumb. No. It's about educating people.

17:35 Katie Burke I found this job in a lot of ways. I've talked about this a thousand times and the audience is probably sick of hearing me talk about it, but I grew up in Mississippi Delta. We just don't have a historical… We have a historical hunting tradition, but we don't have calls to pull on or decoys to pull on. So that was kind of void of my childhood. I didn't know about it. The only thing I knew is my dad blew an alt and he was the only person who ever blew an alt. He still blows one. That's the only thing I knew is my dad blew this weird black call that I can't get to make a sound because it's given you so much air. So when I came in, I got a history degree or history degree and I went to museums and then I got this job. And I knew a lot about ducks and limanets history, but this was so new to me. And one of the things that I have found difficult with my position is instead of like, I guess, not to call someone out, but like, you know, if certain like the core sound museum or something like that, they are just focusing on the core sound area decoys. But with ducks and limanets, I have to focus on everything. And because I have to focus on everything, I keep just getting a cursory knowledge, a surface level knowledge of things. It's hard to really learn it because I keep having to like learn just the surface level of everything. And I almost wish I was like at like a more specific area that I could

19:02 Mark Warmath just get the meat out of it. I think that comes with time though. Because as I was listening to you, y'all talk last night, I was like, wow, she knows about that. She knows about this. I was impressed. That makes me feel better. Yeah. I mean, I was like, that's my insecurity with all of this is that I don't get to dive into things the way I would like to. And it's, it just takes time. And it's like, you know, people, how do you know, how do you know this about these duck calls? Well, it's because I'm full with them all the time. And, you know, I've got a passion for it. Right. And so do these decoy guys. They've got a passion for what they do. And, you know, I've got a friend in California that delves into all of it. And he knows more about all of it than I know about

19:47 Katie Burke one little piece. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. So it just comes with time. It's true. I mean, what it reminds me of is like my husband who's from Massachusetts, but he gets tickled when we drive through the Delta and he'll be like, what crop is that, Katie? And I'm like, I'll tell him. And he's like, how do you know? I'm like, I don't know. I just know. Well, people with trees. Just

20:07 Mark Warmath osmosis. It's like people that can tell you, just look at the bark of a tree and say,

20:12 Katie Burke I'm like, I'm envious of that. Yeah. I do get envious of that too. I can only be like, I know it's an oak tree. I have no idea what kind. Yeah. It's, it does kind of like soak in and you don't even realize you're learning things. Well, it's soaking in because I listened to it. I was like, I was impressed. You know, when you spend all your days looking at calls and looking at decoys, you do eventually. And honestly, this, doing this podcast, talking to y'all, listening to your stories, I get to learn so much through it. And it's so nice. I love it. Yeah. It's a great, I can't. Yeah. I'm jealous. I think what you're doing is really cool. It's really nice. Since we went off on another tangent, let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back in and get a little more into it. Let's kind of go back in and you mentioned a little bit about the Call Collectors Association and I know you've been active and all that. So two questions, I guess. Let's go with when you start collecting and you meet other collectors, it's pretty common with other collectors that they meet another collector that is influential in what they're doing and that sort of thing. Is that similar in your story? Did you kind of meet other collectors that you were able to learn

21:34 Mark Warmath from and kind of shape what you were doing? Yeah. I felt like I was very fortunate because I was a whole lot younger than the guys that were really seriously collecting. Yeah. Some of those guys took me under their wing and taught me and showed me I was very fortunate to get to see a lot of the major collections around the country because we shared the interests of hunting and collecting in waterfowl hunting or different aspects. Ross Destefano has been a big influence to me and he's a great collector. I got to see Howard Harlan's stuff early on. This is really close to you. Yeah. And so I've been blessed to have the doors open to many of these different things and our age gap was 20 years or better. And here I'm this kid that's not got any money. And I can only buy one or two calls at a time, but people took me in. So with that, because you're so much younger and you're going these things, did they take you seriously at first or how did that go? That's a good point. There's a famous guide on Realfoot Lake, John Cochran. Are you familiar with the Cochran family? Yes, I am very familiar. Wow, good. Well, I used to hunt with family and he's got two sons, Joe and Johnny. Joe's still living, but I would hunt the opening. Tennessee had an open split, so I'd go to Realfoot to get two opening days because they would open, then they would shut down, and then reopen. So I took advantage of that to have two opening day hunts while hunting with Cochran's. And so when I would go hunt with them, I'd put a group together and take them up there every year. And I was young doing this. This is right out of high schools. So John Cochran was the callmaker. And I'd go to the house and I'd buy a call every time I went. And so I went in one day and he had a cabinet of calls and he had this really neat old unknown call sitting on the cabinet shelf. And I looked at it and I said, Mr. Cochran, what about that call right there? I'd be interested in buying. Is it for sale? He goes, son, that's a collector's call. And I said, well, I'd like to have it. That was my first unknown antique duck call that I bought. It's what you said kind of gives a story back to that. What was that like hunting with the Cochran? It was wild. It was neat to hunt on the historic firing line and Johnny and Joe feuded a lot. These are two brothers shooting ducks off of each other, fighting each other. Realfoot has a lot of rivalry history. It's a lot of tension in that area. Yeah. But I did never hunt with Mr. Cochran because he had kind of quit by the time I started. So I'd hunt with Joe and then Joe probably stayed at it the longest.

24:54 Katie Burke They have their own blinds?

24:55 Mark Warmath Like did they have? Yeah. Yeah. They were on the refuge border and they sat within 200 yards of each other. Shooting each other out.

25:03 Katie Burke Shooting at each other, cussing each other, fighting with each other. I mean, it was a treat. Watching a duck work their blind and shooting just to make it.

25:11 Mark Warmath And a lot of times those old guys on the lake the night before would go out and get blasted. So they'd bring us to the blind, drop us off and we'd do our own thing and he'd go back rest for a while.

25:26 Katie Burke So at that point you didn't have to draw for blinds or anything like that at that point. When did that? I don't even know when that started.

25:33 Mark Warmath Those were, they're changing that now. Yeah. It's all very complicated. Yeah. They called them grandfathered blinds.

25:43 Katie Burke Yeah. Those are grandfathered blinds.

25:44 Mark Warmath Yeah. And somebody started saying, well, hey, this isn't fair. It's on public ground. So they came up with a plan that if you didn't register blind, it went back into the public draw. Or if you passed away and hadn't signed your blind off to one of your children. So at some point in the future, all those blinds will become public draw blinds. Right. Yeah. So what happened to the Cochran blinds? Are they public now? Because that's really cool that you can be in the… Mark Pierce still has one of them. I don't think he had his own blind and he's one of the grandchildren. Johnny Cochran, he's a callmaker. Yep. The young Johnny Cochran. Yeah. Young Johnny Cochran. Yeah. I don't know if he kept his father's blind or not, but I think one of them has gone back to the state and I'm not sure about the other one. That's really cool. Yeah. I wouldn't even think about them still hunting and being out there at that time and making calls. But there's so many callmakers that came from real foot. You got Nashville great, Johnny Marsh, his blinds still famous

26:50 Katie Burke out on the lake, the Cochrans. It's just rich history of waterfowling and duck calls. Yeah. We're working on, I mean, this is a separate conversation, but we're working on Discovery Park of America. We're helping them with a big waterfowl exhibit that's going to be permanent. It's going to be really cool. Yeah. It's going to be really nice. It's geared at a younger age group because that's their museum. But it's like an education thing. They're going to build a real foot blind and you'll be able to go in a real foot blind and yeah, it'll be pretty neat. It's interesting. And I don't know what your thoughts are about this, but when we built the museum, I've said this before, but Johnny Morris was like, here's the space. I want you to build a ducks limit history waterfowling museum. And we had never really thought about our history in that way. Like, oh, people would be interested and we didn't collect our own history. And then since I've had this job between us, Discovery Park, Peoria Museum in Illinois, there's still a few that were doing it elsewhere, but at one point there was talk of something that was going to happen in California. This acknowledgement of waterfowling as a significant part of American history has been really interesting. It's really like blown up. And I don't know your thoughts

28:11 Mark Warmath about that, but I think it's amazing. I think it's really cool. I think it's wonderful. And Johnny Morris, he played a big part in that. And like on the duck call sides, he's one of the first people. The Bass Pro Shop in Louisiana, I'm not sure which place it is, but they bought the Darren Fontenot collection out. Are you familiar with that? So Darren Fontenot was a young fellow. He's about my age and he collected Louisiana duck calls and he put together and wrote the Louisiana duck call book. Okay. Yeah. I know. And then once he got done with it and did everything he was going to do, at that time Bass Pro was going around buying decoys up and stuff to decorate their shops. They bought Darren Fontenot's collection and it's on display maybe in Shreveport. I mean, that's a really, there's a really nice collection down there. And that kind of started

29:06 Katie Burke the purchasing of duck call collections. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's been really interesting how it's just like, and it is, it's a very, I don't think people realize like the art of call making and decoys. It is American specific. It's our culture. It's our folk art. There's, it's really not a lot of tradition that especially, definitely call making. There's not, it doesn't extend past us. No, it doesn't. Not at all. It's very interesting. And I like that it's kind of getting its recognition. You know, I mean, the, like the major museums in New York are putting decoys on display. That's cool. It's so cool. Yeah. It's really neat. Like they're being credited as artists, which I find to be funny. Like these guys out here would not call themselves artists. Like that are out here like selling calls that they have, especially the guy you mentioned earlier that you want to buy a call from. Like that is art. No, it is. But he won't even probably refer to himself in that way. Yeah. He's pretty humble, but he's man, that guy's talented. Oh yeah. It's, I don't know why, what it is about carvers, but they are, they don't like the word artist. So anyway, so yeah, you told me about kind of, the how they got in and if they were serious and you know, if you had any inspiration, but what was it like, when did you start getting involved in the Call Collectors Association? And let's kind of go into that and like, I want to talk about, yeah, the competition and with NWTF and how you got involved in all of that part of it as well. Cause that's a whole different, I don't think, I'm pretty sure I had, we've maybe had cursory mentions of like the carving, like the NWTF competition. I don't think we've really talked about it on the podcast. So I'd like you to kind

30:53 Mark Warmath of walk us through what that's like. Sure. My wife and I, when we were young, we just, the national convention was held in Nashville. We started a local chapter, me and some friends in our town and the chapter paid for she and I to go check the convention out. And that was our first and we've not missed one since. And that was like 30 years ago, been to been all over the country doing this. And you know, I'm a turkey hunter, but I'm a waterfowler too. And if they happened at the same time, I don't know what I do. And somebody asked me, which one would you give up if you have to give up? I just didn't answer him because I wouldn't. It's like choosing a favorite child. Yeah. Just can't do it. No. But so that's how I got to go into the NWTF. Well, the first banquet I walked in, they had a silent auction set up. I thought, well, this is cool. And I'm walking down the aisle and there's a Kent Freeman carved and painted duck call. And he's a carver out of Missouri. He's world famous. He's won all kinds of decoy carving contests. And I mean, this is just, it blew my mind to walk into a place like this, see a duck call and I'm like, that's cool. I'm bidding on it. Well, I got to bid against this guy. And you mentioned Olt the other day. Well, it was Olt's grandson, Skylar Olt. And he and I were bidding against this call. And I said, man, I'm not going to stop. He goes, he wrote a number down and I wrote another number down. And he goes, all right, I quit. And I ended up, you know, I got my first car, fancy duck call. Okay. Tell the difference. I don't even know if our listeners would know the difference between like a fancy duck call and like a- Just a working duck call. Yeah. A working duck call would be just like Olt you said, or you know, what these guys out here making. And they've evolved over time because, you know, people get up and play no wallet to call and duck up with it. A fancy call would be something that was painted or checkered or carved. Backing up to old times, Glodo was given the name of being the guy that made the first fancy duck call, Checkered. So Glodo making these checkered duck calls, that's where the fancy came into it. He added a little more because- Yeah, why? Why would he do that? Because they would sell better. Okay. That's simply that. Why was Glodo adding, like you said, he made the first fancy call. So why would he add the checkering? You know, I don't really know the answer to that, but my assumption would be to put a different flare on what other people are doing. Just for marketing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, nowadays, it used to be a plain old wallet call without a band. Then they added bands to fancy them up a little bit. And now they're doing all these exotic woods and, you know, dyed woods and different- Yeah, the dyed woods are really interesting. Yeah. Had different shapes. And so, you know, a fancy call is something that's adorned

33:48 Katie Burke and, you know, plain hunting calls, just a plain hunting call. Okay. So, okay, let's go back to, you mentioned like with an NWTF, like, so how does that eventually become the-

33:58 Mark Warmath So how that became a competition back then at the convention, they had all these different competitions just to bring something different to the show. They did, you know, kids art contest, they did sculpting. It wasn't just turkey calls, you know, then they did turkey calls and they added duck calls one year. And the year they added duck calls, you know, you're looking around the room and I'm the duck call guy, hey, you had this up. And so basically, that's how I got into it, was just, yeah, I took that piece of the contest. Location, location. Yeah. You know, taxidermy, paintings, decoy carving, they did it all. And basically over the years, interest dwindled on some of these things. So they kind of dropped off and what was left was the turkey calls and the duck calls and the taxidermy. Okay. And so this year, we actually added art back into it. Okay. And we added four categories and yeah, I think it was a brilliant idea. And we had painters come, we had people do feather art, just all different kinds of stuff, trying to revive some of the old stuff. Oh, that's amazing. And so we took some of the turkey call judges and duck call judges and let them judge the art contest. Oh, that's amazing. To bring it back. Yeah. So what are, so yeah, you said feather art, but like, what are the categories for art? Painting, feather art, open category. You could bring anything you want. Some people did wood burning. Some people did- Bronzes in that area or something like that? Nobody did any bronzes this year, but I can see that coming. Yeah. They just kind of broadly opened the door to bring other craft folks in. Yeah, that's really neat. And then, over the years, the duck and the turkey call grew so much. What we did is we took categories. We made divisions and categories because there's multiple kinds of duck calls. There's multiple kinds of turkey calls. And I can, so we probably in the turkey call side have 30, 40 divisions of different type turkey calling products, yelpers or box calls or slate calls or anything. And then we have hunting categories and we have decorative categories. Yeah. So yeah, you have one of each. Yeah. So we have decorative hunting turkey, decorative hunting or working turkey, decorative duck, working duck. And then amongst the decoratives, we'll do like on the duck call side, I can speak to that pretty well, would be laminated category, a checkered category, a matchset category, a duckhead category, just all these different things that you walk around and see these guys creating. We added a category for that. And you can enter as many categories as you want with as many calls as you want on the duck call side, turkey call limits. But this year, this last year, I never know how it's going to turn out participation-wise, but we're doing something right because we had over 500 duck calls in it last year at the Turkey Show. Yeah. So, turkey guys are going, why are you here? So this is an explanation of why the duck calls are here because some dummy that liked to get his head bashed in all the time took it over and ran away.

37:24 Katie Burke So I wonder, do you think, I mean, it makes me think that the reason, I asked this question all the time because the working decoy carvers, there are not many. There are decorative decoys carvers and that I assume is attributed to the ward competition. There is a competition that supports them and encourages them. Well, I'm guessing the reason that, and I always ask, I wonder why carved calls stay that way, but I guess it's the competition. I mean, you have a place that encourages them to continue to make and create and compete and reward to them for their competition. So I'm guessing that's why they have also sustained and grown. Honestly, they're growing.

38:08 Mark Warmath These competitions have done several things. They've pushed these call makers to become better. And that's the big thing. And the calls that are being made and produced right now are just astronomically great. And in my eyes, to keep this craft and this hobby going, the more shows we have, the better. So Brian Byers heads up the CCAA show in Chicago area. And then several of us work on the Real Foot Show, and then several of us work at NWTF. And then Easton put on a show and we have the show here. So they're all different. They're not meant to be the same, but they're meant to help this hobby and this craft continue. It's a historic thing that we don't want to end. And so the guys making them are kind of, and that's why I do it. It's just to keep our craft going.

39:11 Katie Burke With that, what's your advice for people coming into collecting and how to get started and where to kind of go, who to talk to, that sort of thing?

39:22 Mark Warmath Find somebody that you trust their opinion, value their opinion, use those guys because they're always willing to help. There's a lot of guys out there that will help mentor you. Buy what you like. What I tell a lot of people is buy all the duck call books you find and read them and get to know what's available as far as historically or contemporary because there's both

39:44 Katie Burke books. Buy books first, read them, find out what you like and go chase a few of them. And see what happens. See where it goes. See where it takes you. You may not know where it's going to take you. You may have to head to the NWTF Call Competition.

39:58 Mark Warmath Yeah. I mean, I go in circles. It's like, okay, I'm only going to do this. Well, wait a minute. You said you were only doing that. This is my wife talking. Why did you do that?

40:10 Katie Burke Well, this has been great and we've had a lot of, I've taken a lot of your time. So I'm going to let you enjoy the show. But if you were going to go to one of these shows,

40:18 Mark Warmath which one would you go to? Oh my gosh. I'd go to all of them. I go to all of them. There's a lot of people willing to help. If you want to be a callmaker, these guys will help you get started. That's very different than it has been historically. It is. It is. But today, I mean, I could name you 15 people out there. I mean, Brian Byers, look what he does. He teaches people how to check. Joe Buecher and his daughter came and put on a painting demonstration. So, the help's out there. If you want to be a maker, yeah. And if you want to be a collector, there are several of us that are, I mean, start small. Start in your own state. That's probably the best advice I could give you. Or buy what you like. But if you're in Arkansas, pick up some Arkansas calls, read about them, learn about them, see if you like them. You may not. Us collectors, we're going to do it. Hoarders, collectors, I don't know.

41:17 Katie Burke It depends on who you're talking to. Well, all right. Thank you, Mark, for coming on the show. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Mark, for coming on the show. Thanks to our producer, Chris Isaac. And thanks to you, our listeners for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.