A contest to howl about

Ernie Wilson thinks he just might be the best coyote howler in the world.

As Pennsylvania's newly crowned state champion predator caller, the Conestoga resident will get a chance to prove it this weekend in Kansas City at the World Predator Calling Competition.

Using mouth calls he lovingly crafts himself out of wood and plastic, the 55-year-old electrician will imitate the widely ranging vocalizations of a coyote as well as the slightly unsettling distress sounds of a rabbit, mouse, bird, fawn deer and others.

(For the uninitiated, predator hunters blow into mouth calls that imitate wounded or scared prey animals to draw into shooting range foxes, coyotes and other furbearers. Photographers and animal watchers also use calls or recordings for close encounters.)

A panel of judges hidden from view from contestants will crown world champion callers in four categories.

The promotional information for the event says the overall predator-calling champ will be a household name. Certainly, there's no question Wilson would get some lucrative endorsements for his calls, which already are bestsellers in the industry.


       A contest to howl about


And he'd be the toast of the world of predator calling, a sport with a long tradition but far-flung. if ardent, participants.

Predator calling's heydey was the 1950s and 1960s, but thanks to the communal power of the Internet and cheerleaders like Wilson, the sport has moved beyond its southwestern roots and is undergoing a surge in popularity.

Like most who find their way to calling in predators — mostly foxes and sometimes coyotes in these parts — Wilson began as a trapper. Starting in his teens, he ran a trap line near Safe Harbor, where he has spent his entire life.

When Wilson would bring his furs to his uncle, a local buyer, there it seemed there always was a few more pelts hanging than what he could pick up in his traps. He asked how they got them.

Went out Friday and Saturday night, called, waited for them to come in and shot them, was the reply.

That intrigued the young Wilson. And it sounded easy. The first night, he lugged a battery-operated cassette player into a field and hooked up a big speaker. He turned on a bright light to counteract an incoming animal's keen night vision, punched a button and the eerie sound of an injured rabbit filled the night.

Even though it was a recorded call by Johnny Stewart of Texas, the dean of predator calling at the time, no foxes came running in in search of an easy meal that night. Nor the next. Nor the 13 or so times after that.

Eventually, Wilson learned that the guys, to protect themselves from competition, didn't tell him the intricacies of the sport — when to turn the light on, how you must first know where the foxes are likely to be, how loud to play the distress sounds and so on.

Wilson, hunting alone at night, learned the tricks of the trade soon enough and became very successful.

These days, he spends about 15 nights a year trying to call in foxes, bobcats and coyotes at his camp in Clinton County, as well as in Bradford, Clearfield, Centre and several other counties. Sometimes, bears come in, looking for a meal.

He usually hunts by himself, calling until about midnight, sleeps in his car for an hour or two, then hunts again until dawn. It's a solitary sport but he loves the peacefulness of the world after dark.

"At night, when everyone else is afraid to be out, I'm in my glory," he says.

His take last winter: one coyote and several foxes. "I'm not in it for the killing; I've killed enough," Wilson says, noting he has largely given up hunting for bears, deer, ducks and turkeys. "I'm in it because I love the sport.

 "To shoot one in fair-chase conditions is the biggest challenge in hunting in Pennsylvania," Wilson declares, noting a predator's better-than-human senses of smell, eyesight and hearing.

"To shoot one on sight is one thing, but to get them in is another."

To advance the sport, he and a half-dozen or so predator callers who met on-line formed the Pennsylvania Predator Hunters Association (www.ppha.us).

The nonprofit group with about 150 members has successfully lobbied state legislators and the Pennsylvania Game Commission through the years to change regulations that have advanced the sport.

Wilson and the group also hold seminars to introduce youths to the predator calling.

In 2005, unhappy with the manufactured predator calls on the market, Wilson began making and selling his own calls. From sewing and hobby shops, he assembled parts. He learned how to make voice channel barrels and to tune the reeds that make the sound.

His calls are turned from beautiful exotic woods such as Brazilian rosewood, cocobolo, mahogany and figured walnut.

"It's a big synchronous thing," he says.

The calls have become highly sought and sell for about $55. Wilson's Web site for the calls (www.ewcalls.com) attracted 11,373 visitors and 215,000 hits in 2007.

Wilson can make two calls a day but he has a habit of giving them away to neophytes to seal their conversion. He just can't help himself.

In Kansas this weekend, he'll use 14 of his calls behind that curtain, including one he's fashioned just for the world stage.

As his T-shirt says, "I'm taking all calls."

E-mail:acrable@lnpnews.com