Partly Cloudy and 76° F

Fifty-odd years ago a young boy sat in W. Syfrett’s store in Rowesville and listened to the turkey hunting stories that Mr. Syfrett and Watt Smith brought back from their Lowcountry jaunts near Jacksonboro. He was fascinated, and though there were no turkeys in the area to hunt, he decided then and there he was going to be a turkey hunter.

While the Rev. Zack Farmer was a student at Wofford in 1956, one his teachers disclosed that she knew Archibald Rutledge, who was also a resident of Spartanburg at the time. Zack asked if she could arrange an opportunity to meet him. He later called Dr. Rutledge and was invited over to start a friendship that would last until Archibald died in the 1970s.

After Zack graduated and received his calling as a Methodist minister in 1962, he decided to ask his love Lee to be his wife. They went to Charleston to pick out some things for the wedding and Zack slipped off while she wasn’t watching and purchased a Lynch box call (which he still carries afield for good luck). Soon Lee and Zack were appointed to three churches in the Jamestown area. This is in the middle of the Francis Marion and you might as well have thrown the rabbit in the briar patch.

Zack fell in with Benny Ackerman. Mr. Benny was a great turkey hunter but didn’t have a car. Zack wanted to learn to hunt turkeys and had a vehicle. It was a marriage made in turkey heaven. Zack still says to this day that Mr. Benny made him “fall into the fire.” Mr. Benny didn’t dress in camouflage and used two joints of bamboo cane to make his turkey calls. He also used a double-barrel Fox shotgun (which is another of Zack’s passions).

Several other villains that were involved in the conversion of Zack’s turkey-hunting soul were Henry Davis (the author of “The American Wild Turkey”), Howard Harlin and Parker Weden, the inventor of the spirit call. As a matter of fact, Zack’s acquaintances are a “who’s who” of legendary turkey hunters.

A fair hunt

Probably the single theme that kept coming up as Zack was recounting rubbing elbows with these giants was that most all believed that spring turkey hunting was an abomination. They thought it unfair to hunt turkeys when they are most vulnerable during mating season and much preferred the practice of “busting them up” in the fall, and then by call and woods craft bringing gobblers to the gun. The memories of turkeys being nearly wiped out of the state by baiting fishhooks with corn and trapping were fresh in the minds of many.

These men were the first to insist on hunting the bird on fair chase terms.

By 1980 the Rev. Farmer was charged with a congregation in Laurens County. He had made up his mind that he was going to make his own wind instrument call or “yelper.” He knew he was doing it wrong because the sound wasn’t right, but he really did not know how to improve his design. He read Tom Turpin’s book on call-making and then drilled a hole through a piece of mountain laurel and connected a piece of turkey wing-bone. He just “couldn’t make it work” trying to blow it the way Turpin described. By trial and error he developed his own way of manipulating the air and the way his hands held the call. He bought a small lathe and a parishioner gave him a motor to run it. He wanted to find a piece of coco bola wood to fashion his first call but settled for some rosewood that he salvaged from a hand musical instrument he was able to buy cheaply.

After he turned the trumpet down by hand, he had to make a mouthpiece. It was difficult to find turkey wing bones so he carved the mouthpieces out of deer horn.

He then set out for the ultimate test. He took his call to the woods and sat among wild turkeys picking fights with hens, and slowly tuned his call with a pocketknife until the sound was near perfect. He called in two gobblers with that call that season and he knew he was on to something. He still hunts with this call and has named her “Little Windy.” A lot of people who have purchased his calls thought theirs the same model and quite often they call theirs the same. Actually the newer model is The Woodwind caller, but I get ahead of the story.

The beginning

Zack took his call into a general store in Laurens and showed it to his friend the store-owner. The guy said, “I’d like to have one of those. As a matter of fact, I’d like to have five of them to give to friends.” This was the beginning. Zack turned five calls out of some coco bola wood he purchased and carved five mouthpieces out of antler and presented them to the storeowner. The man asked him how much he wanted for them and Zack responded that he just made them because his friends asked him too. He had no intention of charging him for them. The storeowner gave him $100 for all five. Zack was stunned. He said $100 was a lot of money back then for him.

Not long after that, Zack was visiting his friend and famous call-maker Neil Cost and showed him his yelper. Neil asked him to play it for him and as Zack sucked on the call, Neil “danced a little jig” in his yard and exclaimed, “Will you make one of those for me?” Zack did make a call for Cost and it showed up on the Internet after Cost’s death fetching almost $3,000 on Ebay. Anytime someone would ask Cost to make him a yelper (his specialty was friction and box calls) he would refer him to Zack. His notoriety soon spread and over the last 25 years Zack has made about 100 calls, one at a time. This includes the seven-year period when the Rev. Zack was transferring from Providence to Pacolet to Knightville when he didn’t have his equipment and made no calls.

Zack now has a five-year backlog. He is very quick to point out that he is not in the call-making business and “never has been.” He makes calls and sells them for about what he has in them as far as materials and time. Recent editions of Zack’s calls sell for about $300, but often pop up on Ebay for up to $4,800.

After Jim Casada did a feature on Zack in a 2003 Turkey Call magazine, the demand skyrocketed. Ever humble, Zack says he just doesn’t understand it. Even his instructional field guides that he gives away with his calls fetch up to $400 in collector circles.

In demand

Zack has been asked to give seminars on his calls at the National Wild Turkey Convention in Nashville. He was asked and delivered a caller that was presented to President Bush at the G-8 summit a couple of years ago. It was crafted from a piece of the walnut desk that the summit papers were signed on by the heads of state.

Above all things, the Rev. Farmer is a turkey hunter. He prefers his calls be used and not purchased for collector value. He tells people the reason they might want one of his callers is to be able to hunt turkeys in the purist form, much like carrying a Fox double shotgun vs. a new turkey magnum pump. He says his call is not for everybody. Indeed let me close this story by quoting from Zack’s flyer:

He says, “I do not make Callers for sale. I offer to craft my Woodwind only by request at a fair bargain compared to many expendable products utilized for sporting purposes or comfort and pleasure. Consideration must be given to the fact that my instruments are crafted from the finest materials, and many hours of careful work are required for the results I demand: namely, a high-quality and deadly turkey caller unlike any other, which will provide a lifetime of service and may be passed down to future generations.” He goes on to say, “Due to a long waiting list, all I can promise is to place your name there. I will then notify you prior to crafting your instrument.”

We in the turkey-hunting community and specifically in Orangeburg know what a jewel we have in the Rev. Zack. He has invested himself in the local as well as the national NWTF chapters, donating his time and craft to the welfare of the organization. He is a man of God, and God has blessed him. With the passing of Neil Cost, the box call mantel was passed on to Lamar Williams and Steve Mann. When Zack is gone, and hopefully that will be several decades from now, who will take over his craft? Who will make yelpers just for the sake of producing excellence? We need to appreciate him and his craft now while we have the poet available to read us his poem and interpret its meaning firsthand.

You must be logged in to comment.