On Call with … Dylan Bearden

When Dylan Bearden calls to a wild turkey, he doesn’t just want to see himself calling or hear the sounds. He wants to feel it.

There’s something within the sound, and in the fact that a mere human can replicate the vocalizations of a wild bird that has no defined dictionary. Bearden’s ability to get on stage or stand in the woods and speak the language with a pot call reached near perfection this year with a title in the NWTF Grand National Calling Championships Friction Division. He beat out 45 of the best friction callers in the country, the largest friction field ever assembled in Nashville.

“You’ve got to be able to feel it,” said Bearden, who calls with Hank’s Game Calls, Drake/Ol’ Tom and Mossy Oak. “Some callers get on stage and are just running a turkey call. When I’m calling, I hardly ever look at the call, but I’m imagining that turkey that I’m producing (usually a hen), and she is looking at me and talking to me, putting it through me and watching me spit it back out to her.”

Bearden, 32, comes from a region rooted in turkey hunting and calling. He calls it the “new Pennsylvania,” a reference to the astounding collection of great callers that have come out of pockets of Pennsylvania for years. From Reidsville, North Carolina, Bearden is joined by Josh Pruitt, reigning Grand National Calling Championships Gobbling Division champ, and Kimmy Hanks, a champion call maker and multiple-time D.D. Adams award winner for making one of the best pot calls in the country. There’s also Brandon “Tater” Rich, another quality caller just down the road in Pfafftown, plus Reidsville call maker Frank Cox. Then there’s former GNCC Senior Open champ Mitchell Johnston and Grand National caller Jon Miller less than two hours away.

While turkey hunting and calling tradition run deep in the region, it doesn’t win titles for you. That takes work and dedication, and Bearden punches the clock most days when he gets home from work as a roofer – picking up box calls first, not slate, glass or another pot surface, and listening to the sounds. Cadence is at the top of his list, he said, and through repetition and hours listening to live wild turkey sounds, he has tried to replicate the rhythmic siren of a hen.

It worked in Nashville, but it nearly didn’t happen if not for a few last-minute adjustments. Out of 45 callers in the Friction prelims, Bearden finished No. 12 (only the top 12 and the reigning champion advance to the finals). The judges had scored him between 16.5 to 17.5 on his tree call, a good score, but not good enough to win. He knew he had to improve those numbers in less than a day, and sure enough, the tree yelp was one of the calls in the finals. Bearden had heard veteran caller Steve Morgenstern’s custom tree yelper and liked the sound. He asked if he had any he could sell – the only problem, Morgenstern was also in the finals competing against Bearden.

“Well, I can sell you one after the finals tomorrow,” Morgenstern joked. In the end though, the two looked over Morgenstern’s hand-made calls, and Bearden found one that popped. His score on the call went up to 17.5-19 across five judges the next day, a difference of at least five points added to his score. First place to fifth place in the Friction Division finals was separated by just 4.5 points.

Another fortuitous decision came after the prelims as he was checking out box calls on the Sport Show floor. Bearden ran across Marlin Watkins’ booth and hit a one-sided box call that made the crowd stop for a second to listen. It was love at first sound, and Bearden decided to use that call for the finals for keekees and assembly yelps.

“That really separated me from the pack with the tone of that box and how I put it together,” he said.

When he heard his name announced as the winner, the emotions poured out. His mind raced back nearly 30 years when his dad, Dave Bearden, entered him in a JAKES Day calling contest in the mid-1990s. He didn’t win, or even place, but it opened a new world for him. To say thanks, Bearden drove the Friction championship trophy to his dad’s house on the way back from Nashville and gave it to him for his birthday. That same day, he found the old Knight and Hale box call he used in his first calling contest at age 5. He planned to use that call in the spring to try to connect the past.

“Just being able to hold that title and then give it to my dad because he did so much for me to be there,” Bearden said. “It’s our passion. I enjoy it and am competitive, but at the end of the day, it has opened so many doors for me and brought me friendships I thought I’d never have.”