Name/Title
Wendell Lancaster, Wendell Lancaster Custom CallsEntry/Object ID
CTC001B00019Description
While Wendell Lancaster of Travelers Rest, SC, doesn't have exact dates, he recounts his callmaking journey as best he can. Lancaster learned skills from other callmakers. Al Willis was an idea guy, and Phillip Mullinax had the cabinet shop and tools. Wills had an idea in his head for a slate box (a pushpin with a slate calling surface), and Mullinax helped bring the finished product to life. All this took place in the early 1980s. Willis was a friend that Lancaster knew from church, and Mullinax was his wife’s first cousin. The duo of Willis and Mullinax also made box calls. Their first were a walnut box with a walnut lid, a mahogany box with a cherry lid, and a one-sided box. They marketed their calls through Walmart and attended sports shows to sell them. The Southeastern Wildlife Show was held annually in Charleston each February. Phillips' wife and Lancaster's wife were close friends, and the couples would travel together to that Charleston show. While the ladies would hang out, Wendell would go with Al and Phillip to help sell calls.
At this time in my life, Lancaster was into bass fishing and deer hunting but had never turkey hunted. That didn't stop him from learning how to run a box call from his mentors, and he helped sell them. This went on for about four or five years, and in 1986, Willis talked him into taking a half-day of vacation on a Monday to introduce the younger man to turkey hunting. They went to a wildlife management property off Caesar’s Head in upstate South Carolina.
They walked in about 100 yards using an old logging road, and Willis pulled out a trumpet made by Charles Hudson and called. Hearing nothing, they walked another 100 yards, and Willis called again. Again, they heard nothing. So, they repeated the maneuver again; move 100 yards and call. That time Lancaster heard a faint gobble. He rapped Willis on the shoulder and pointed in the direction of the gobble. Willis didn't have the best hearing, and he said, "Come, boy, let’s go!" Lancaster figures they covered about 75 yds, after which Willis called again. This time, the turkey gobbled hard and was coming, so Willis urged, "Set down right here, boy." Lancaster obeyed, gun at the ready. The elder gent moved about ten yards, sat down, pulled out the slate box, and started purring and soft clucking...with no response. So he slid the trumpet under his mask and softly yelped. The gobble almost blew Lancaster's hat off. He swung the gun in the direction of the gobbler, which stepped out at thirty yards. "I had just killed my first turkey and was smitten by the disease!"
Lancaster recalls. "So then I wanted to learn how to run all the calls. Al and Phillip had taught me how to run boxes, pot calls, and mouth calls. Now enters Charles Hudson and his trumpet. I purchased my first one from Charles for $75. He let me hang around in his garage almost every night, learning how to play it. He also helped teach me to fine-tune my calling on a box and other calls."
Lancaster was sucked down the rabbit hole and developed the desire to make his own calls. He asked if Willis would teach him how. The answer was, "I’ll call you." On a Saturday morning in 1991, Lancaster got the call. He ran down to Willis' shop and was given the bare minimum of information: length, height, and width, and was told to go home and make one. "The first one was ok on one side and terrible on the other side," Lancaster said. "I took it to him, and he looks at it and says, "One side is higher than the other." Of course, he was right. "So I go home and make a jig to correct this problem." The next attempt was the same result. One side worked, but the other was not so good. Lancaster remembers, "I take it to him, he plays it, looks at it, and says, 'Your screw is crooked." So off Lancaster went to correct this new problem.
"The third attempt was pretty darn good," said Lancaster. "So when I took it to him, he played it, smiled, and said, "Boy, I believe you got it!" It was about this time that Mullinax was so busy with the cabinet business that he backed out of participation in the call business. This is when Lancaster started making more calls and going to shows with Willis. They sold Willis' Keowee-brand game calls, Al Willis Custom Calls, and Wendell Lancaster Custom Calls. Lancaster shared, "We did about four shows a year, and I used this money to pay for my turkey hunting addiction." Circa 2004-2005, Al's wife became ill and passed away about a year later. Then, in 2007, Lancaster's wife became ill, passing away in 2010. Lancaster said, "By then, Willis' age had caught up with him, and I believe he passed in 2011. So I got out of making calls until the Unicoi Call Show started back up. Now I make about fifteen a year for the show. I’ll add this: the year of Covid, I received a call from the NWTF asking if I could come to Edgefield to judge the call competition, and I did. Since then, I have judged every year.Create Date
May 10, 2026Update Date
May 11, 2026
