Fowl language: Meet the nation's top turkey caller, a North Carolina man ornithologically 'obsessed'

REIDSVILLE, N.C. — Josh Pruitt talks turkey all day long.  

And now Pruitt, 36, had a special strut in his stride having recently claimed first place in the Gobbling Division of the National Wild Turkey Federation's annual Grand National Calling Championship in Nashville.

Pruitt's fluency in mimicking the proverbial "thunder chicken" alone was spellbinding and it gave him a victory over 27 other competitors at the event.

With a metal-and-latex mouth call — a thin half-circle chip that you maneuver with your breath and tongue — Pruitt can churn up a guttural baritone gobble or trills. The sounds just seem to percolate from the custom turkey call devices he makes here and sells as the Struttin' Carolina brand. 

For something known as a "friction call," Pruitt draws a wooden stick called a "striker" across a chalk-dusted slate disc. Tiny strokes render a cluck, then a purr.

Next, Pruitt pushes his striker hard to make a sharp sound called a "cutt."

Such words necessitate a gobbler's glossary and make up a fowl stalker's vocabulary. Indeed, they are the finely tuned scratches and muted chirps hunters employ to lure big toms — male turkeys — to their deaths. 

Ornithologists calculate that turkeys have roughly 20 different vocalizations.

Sounds a preening Pruitt will no doubt try to imitate.

'Turkey obsessed'

A slow-talking, gentle guy who likes to post videos demonstrating calls, Pruitt is ''turkey obsessed,'' his friends say.

"He's so passionate,'' said Cole Carr of Sandy Ridge, a fellow competition caller. "Josh is all the time trying new things to get the best sounds he can. The boy might as well poop feathers 'cause turkeys are all he studies! When he won, we was all cryin'.''

The turkey world has needed an infusion of youthful callers like Pruitt for awhile, said Matt Stewart, an organizer of the national contest.

"Josh comes onstage with dark sunglasses and has this cool vibe,'' Stewart said of the main event, livestreamed to nearly a quarter-million folks from the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. "He’s got a connection ... He can reach a younger audience, and we need that next generation because a lot of our callers are older. Josh is passing on that heritage.''

For Pruitt, wild turkey hunting is as much about the art of conversation as bagging the ample birds.

"There's something about the interaction, calling out to one and the vocal response they give,'' explained Pruitt, who will craft about 21,000 turkey calls from exotic wood, glass, slate, metal and latex in his workshop this year. "And then they come struttin' and gobblin.' It's amazing 'cause you're really communicating with them.''

A detail man with sandpaper in hand, Pruitt seems to pick up sonic nuances outside of most people's range.

For box calls, he builds hinged covers a hunter can drag slowly across the chalk-covered upper edges of a hollow rectangular box to create squawks.

Unhappy with one box call's tone, Pruitt sands down its wooden wall until it delivers a rich sound.

Raised on the family farm by his grandparents, Robert Potter and the late Orene Potter, Pruitt treasured VHS instructional hunting tapes his aunt and uncle brought him each Christmas.

"When I was six, they gave me one about turkey hunting and that was it.''

From there, he was committed to the call of the wild.

"I used to get $2 a week for my chores around the house,'' Pruitt explained. "Well, my granddaddy and I went to Walmart one day, right before spring (turkey hunting) season, and they had lots of turkey hunting stuff. I remember seeing mouth calls, little box calls and mouth yelpers.''

The six-year-old chose a mouth call to buy, but was short on cash by a dollar and change.

"'Well, I'll spot you the rest,' my granddaddy said, 'but you have to pay me back next week.' And I sure did.''

For "quite a few weeks,'' Pruitt spent all of his playtime sitting in front of the family TV in his grandparents' living room.

"I watched those turkey tapes over and over and tried to replicate what I was hearing,'' Pruitt recalled with a chuckle. "Looking back on it, my grandparents, having to listen to me make this awful racket day in and day out ... they were wonderful ... never said a thing to me or made me stop.'' 

Robert Potter took pride in his little grandson's uncommon dedication.

"I let him go on with it because he was so devoted to it, and I thought one day he'll succeed, and he sure did,'' said Potter, 85, who lives next door to Pruitt and his turkey-calling great-grandkids, Levi and Willow Pruitt.

While a national gobbling title is a pretty heady accolade, Pruitt also claims the rank of the world's fourth-best friction caller on the turkey circuit. He won the title in Mobile, Ala., in 2023.

And contests are a regular pastime for Pruitt and his children.

Levi, 9, and Willow, 10, hop in their dad's black Tahoe to travel the country to turkey-calling events. They pack foam-lined cases, a mainstay of competitors, with an array of their dad's creations. The kids also craft some calls of their own in Pruitt's workshop.

So far, Pruitt's garnered about 80 top-three finishes at competitions across the Deep South and along the East Coast.

Tuning up 

Mouth yelpers and regular mouth calls are favorites because they're versatile, Pruitt explained.

"With a mouth call you can change the tone and the pitch,'' Pruitt said of the hands-free option. "One mouth call can make sounds like three or four different turkeys, and with a couple of mouth calls you can sound like 10 to 15 different birds. That's a whole daggum flock, depending on how you work it!'' Pruitt said. 

Neighbors inevitably know when competitions are coming up.

"I'll be out in the backyard, blast yelling, owl hooting and gobbling," Pruitt explained. "I might throw a bard owl or a coyote howl in every now and then. My only hope is that they are enjoying it.''

In their free time, Levi and his dad "tinker'' in the call workshop. "We try a lot of different things to see if they work,'' explained Levi, who innovated his dad's "pot call" architecture by adding a fourth engraved ring around it's perimeter. The minor adaptation rendered a crisp sound his dad has used in competition.

About the size of a can of Copenhagen, the pot calls feature catchy names like "100 Proof'' (a tribute to a late moonshine-making grandpa), "Oreo'' (turned from zebra wood) and other calls, customized with decals for hunting clubs and special events. Wooden calls sell for between $60 and $139.

'Everything I had'

At the national competition, Pruitt primed his lungs with forceful duck calls before giving a complex performance even veteran callers thought was high risk, he said.

Meanwhile, seven judges sat ready in a pit below the stage, blinded from seeing contestants. 

Pruitt took the stage and delivered a series of gobbles with a sharp flourish. 

"That was everything I had in me that I laid out on that stage,'' said Pruitt, still emotional recalling his knees weaken when he made the top five. "It wasn’t me just gobbling. It was everything I had to give.''