Web posted
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Thoughts of Kansas hunts help soldier pass time
By MICHAEL PEARCE
The Wichita Eagle
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- Forward Observation Base Falcon, a U.S. military installation that's home to 9,000 outside Baghdad, is never silent. But sometimes amid the sounds of man and machines, the sounds of a hen turkey call can be heard.
And if those yelps, clucks and purrs aren't perfect, they'll be followed by the sound of sanding or an electric drill.
''I just sand a little bit off or drill a little and try it again,'' said Capt. Ron Henely. ''They usually end up sounding pretty good.''
Henely's military duties as a preventative medical officer have kept him from his beloved spring turkey calling and hunting at Fort Riley. It's not kept him from getting ready for when he returns home later this spring.
''I missed last season, so I'm really anxious to get back,'' Henely said.
As well as his own hunts, he'll be calling for plenty of others. All six of his children want to go along as hunters or tag-along observers.
His desert-based efforts have given him calls he knows will work in the woods, and more.
''Making them also gives me something to do with my hands,'' Henely said in a telephone interview last week. ''The boredom will kill you over here. It helps to have something to do.''
Henely first experienced spring turkey hunting at Fort Leavenworth about five years ago and decided to try his hand at making box calls.
He had a lot to learn.
''I'd call my first (box calls) attempts more than calls,'' Henely said. ''I could get sounds out of them but they were a long way from perfection.''
Henely eventually made a box call of mahogany and walnut in 2004 that since has called eight birds well enough to be shot.
Stationed at Fort Riley in the spring of 2006, he used the homemade call to shoot trophy-class toms on his lunch hours.
Unable to hunt last spring because of a deployment, Henely took the tools and materials to again try his hand at making calls.
''I basically just brought over some boards, like some two-inch walnut I had, and a small (plastic) box of hand tools,'' he said. ''It's not much -- a chisel, a little Dremel tool and some sandpaper. One of the guys has a drill I use for a lot of the hollowing.''
He also brought some wing bones from turkeys he'd shot in the past, and glued and trimmed them to make traditional wing-bone calls. Sucking on the call makes realistic yelps and clucks.
Henely likes mixes of types of wood for his box calls.
''I made one from a chunk of machine gun stock. It looks like mahogany,'' he said. ''I put a cedar top on it.''
During the interview, Henely demonstrated several of his box calls.
Some had smooth-sounding yelps. Another carried a high-pitched ring that should be ideal for cutting through strong spring winds.
Using free-hand sketches, then a soldering iron, Henely burned the images of a tail feather on call lids and turkey scenes on the sides of the boxes.
He said he's had many offers to buy his works, but he's not selling.
''You put so much time in them it would be really hard to charge enough,'' he said. ''All along I've been thinking how I'd really like to give one to each of my kids. That's why I've made six.''
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