"A Day with Darrell Gibson CCD
(Crow Call Doctor)"
by Staff Advisor Skip Woody

"I never thought of a crow call as a musical instrument, but it is. The finest sounding musical instruments are made from certain woods that have special "acoustical" characteristics ("musical" wood, if you will) and this is equally true for crow calls. A correctly crafted crow call has a certain rhythm, a certain pitch and clarity�that when you "let off" of it, it sounds like a piece of canvass tearing producing that guttural sound so instrumental to an effective crow call. In order for a call to "play" consistently and be reliable year after year, it must be built to very close tolerances. Otherwise, with massed produced calls, you are lucky to find one in twenty that sounds like it should.� As a "mouth caller" all my life, I quickly realized these "truths" took my understanding of how to view a crow call to a new level.

Crow Busters, care to guess where this sage advice comes from? He does not use a personal computer and, unfortunately, is never on our bulletin board. I say that because he has a wealth of knowledge about the history and design of crow calls that we would all enjoy hearing. He guides crow hunts and has killed well over 15,000 crows but I bet few of us know of whom I am speaking. He is Darrell Gibson, of Gibson Custom Calls and one of our own Staff Advisors at Crow Busters!

Darrell's comments in the first paragraph were, to me, very educational. It made me think a lot about what is important to a crow hunter. As a "mouth caller" for 45 years, I realized I had never given enough thought to the call itself. I focused on important stuff... like shot size, chokes, camouflage, blind, TBC, etc. We all know the importance of our equipment, but I doubt many of us have given much consideration to the pros/cons of selecting a good non-electronic call. We go to the store, buy the cheapest or the one someone else uses or the only one the store happens to carry (just so you know, Gibson calls are not sold in retail stores).

In June of this year, I had the opportunity to spend most of a day with Darrell. He is a fellow North Carolinian from the western part of our State and very easy to talk "crow" with. Spending time with another experienced crow hunter for the first time is a genuine treat. Darrell was quite comfortable sharing his "wealth" of information/techniques with me and for that I am grateful. Here is most of what I learned, but I hasten to add there is no order of importance. Heck, it might not even be important to some folks but I am a better crow hunter post-Gibson vs. pre-Gibson. Thank you again, Mr. Gibson.

When "tuning" your call, a slightly higher pitched sound will enable crows to hear you at greater distances vs. using a deeper pitch though I like the lower more guttural sound when the birds are close. Sounds like a case for using two calls doesn't"t it? Yep.

Every single one of his calls is hand made. No two are exactly the same but each is a precision product. He tests every call for the sound quality he expects. There are no substandard Gibson calls that leave his machine shop. No other crow call available today is remotely hand made to this degree. They are not the cheapest, but "pride in ownership� in his craftsmanship more than makes up the difference. He is equally at home behind his mini-lathe as he is behind a crow call. I fancy myself a decent caller, but Darrell is terrific. His command of the "crow language" we all strive to master is superb.

Gibson prides himself in his precision and attention to detail. By precision, tolerances of each call is held to .001 or less of an inch. He is adamant over the fact, that without these precise tolerances in ALL aspects of the fit of the mouth piece, the reed (he uses a 5X visor to finish each reed), barrel and the overall length, the sound will suffer. Mass produced calls simply cannot and do not meet such specs. Hence, we often hear " if you find a good call, hang on to it...� or "I had to go through a dozen of those calls before finding one that sounded good.� There are certainly several good calls in the marketplace today, just none the product of a genuine crow hunter and craftsman like Darrell. He has been making and improving crow calls for 25 years and has made and sold over 5,000.

Darrell was kind enough to actually make, as I stood there watching, three calls for me. It was like being in the maternity ward seeing the final product "delivered�. The experience was, to say the least, special, as are the calls. At my request, he used some very fancy (read "musical") wood that included English Boxwood, Nicaragua Rosewood and Amboyna burl. The latter is very similar to Briar; the highly figured wood fine smoking pipes are made of. The final products are truly magnificent looking calls that sound as good as they look. I smiled when he said "I enjoy making a call for someone who appreciates what I do�. Imagine that. After 25 years of making calls, this bearded 62 year old still "enjoys" making a call for a fellow crow hunter on a 90-degree Saturday afternoon. I can tell you this; my pride in ownership certainly equals his "enjoyment"!!

When he gave me the finished calls, he said, "I hope you enjoy these. They were made by a crow hunter for a crow hunter.� In addition to THANK YOU, all I could think of at the time was� Wow, I have 3 Stradivarius crow calls!! All I need to do now is turn these "virgin" calls into veteran calls. A tough job but somebody has to do it. I am sure the crows will like the "music� if I can just play the instrument.

The calls I got were Deluxe Long Range models. He makes several others including Standard Long Range, Standard Short Magnum, Screamer Call and Chambered Call. Add to this list, several versions of turkey, deer and varmint calls and you have something for just about everybody.

Some (perhaps ALL of his crow calls by the time this is printed) of his calls can be purchased through Crow Mart. For specific questions or custom work, Darrell can be reached at 828-287-9277 or via mail at Darrell Gibson, 742 Baber Rd., Rutherfordton, N.C. 28139. Finally, and I suspect this is imminently true, he will be quite happy and take just as much pride in making ANY Crow Buster member a call as he did me.