Name/Title
Ken Mummert, Rivercane Yelpers by Ken Mummert (Kittrell Kallers)Entry/Object ID
CTC001B00020Description
Kenneth M. "Ken" Mummert, of Wake Forest, NC (having moved there from PA in 1989), is 63 as of May 2026. His primary occupation is sales for a national wholesale printing company. Mummert has been involved with printing and graphic arts/design ever since he was in high school. For a few years after high school, he was a freelance graphic designer doing promotional design and advertising for restaurants, nightclubs, and bands. Financial necessity found him back working full-time for a variety of printing companies later. He is now looking forward to retirement in the next year and a half.
Mummert has always had many interests and hobbies. He loves antiques in general, but growing up as a young boy with a WWII Navy veteran grandfather, he took a major interest in WWII. He began collecting uniforms, insignia, helmets, guns, bayonets, and everything he could find. As a "boomer" child, he also enjoyed going to the movies to watch science fiction and monsters on the big screen. This led to comic and monster magazine collecting. His taste in movies and comics also took him down the road to rather eclectic music tastes. He loves everything from jazz to punk to old-school country to heavy rock.
Naturally, his record collection was rather large as well. His main interest, above all, is his family and enjoying watching his kids grow and become successful.
His callmaking company name is Rivercane Yelpers by Ken Mummert (AKA: Kittrell Kallers). He began his call making journey in 2011 during a turkey hunt on leased property outside of the town of Kittrell, in Vance County, NC. While on that hunt, he was moving through a creek bottom and came upon a stand of wild river cane. He snapped off a few stalks and put them in his vest to bring home. He began experimenting with gluing together his version of a Jordan Yelper, experimenting with various section lengths (first as 2-piece calls, and later 3-piece). Since those early days, he has made well over 1,000 calls from his little shop area in the Mummert family's detached garage.
Some of his calls are stained to resemble a hardwood, but many of them are left in their natural cane color. He likes to use rifle brass as a transition on his calls, and whenever possible, a snow goose bone mouthpiece. He hand-turns rubber lipstops for his calls and makes his own lanyards. Some of Mummert's calls may be stamped with the name "Kittrell Kaller" on the barrel end. Ken Mummert shared that his first few calls were relatively crude in comparison to how they eventually evolved. In the early days, he just used a Sharpie and wrote "Kittrell Kaller" on the side of the call. Many calls were not marked at all since he really
didn't like his handwriting. Eventually, he had a rubber stamp made, and the appearance was much better. On occasion, he still makes calls with a wood-stained finish, but these calls are not stamped.
It is Mummert's family that he credits for his interest in hunting and the outdoors. His father, L. Kenneth Muumert, was an avid sportsman who began his own wholesale sporting goods company catering to the turkey hunting niche in the late 1970's. His company was LM Sporting Goods, out of Marysville, Pennsylvania. He, along with his brother Lee Mummert (who was a champion turkey caller in Pennsylvania), developed and marketed the "Uncle Lee's Diaphragm Call Kit", which enabled hunters to easily make their own mouth calls at home for a fraction of the price of store-bought pre-assembled calls. He also produced a plethora
of other specialty items targeted at turkey hunters. When Ken was in high school, his dad employed him and a few of his neighborhood friends to work in his warehouse, assembling call kits and packing orders for shipment. Lee was the first person to "officially" take Ken turkey hunting as a youth. He would learn much from him. Lee would later go on to make his own line of calls, called "Feather Touch Turkey Calls". He made mainly single-sided short boxes but also dabbled in pot calls and locator calls.
Lee retired from call making about 15 years ago
Ken Mummert has been an avid turkey call collector for over 30 years and maintains the largest turkey call collecting group on Facebook (Turkey Call Trader/Collector).Create Date
May 14, 2026Update Date
May 15, 2026
