Featured Callmaker: Eric Rice

Rice, owner and founder of Shine Box Turkey Calls in Minneapolis, is a decorated call maker at the Grand National Custom Callmaking Competition held each year in Nashville, Tennessee, and has been making calls for more than 20 years.  

First learning to hunt turkeys in the ‘90s with friends from Minnesota who had moved to Sundance, Wyoming, Rice’s first experience with turkeys was in the Black Hills chasing Merriam’s turkeys. 

Years later, his first attempt at crafting a turkey call came in 2000 — the same year he finally first got to hunt his home state. The call was far from the calls he is known for crafting now.  

“It did not sound good at all,” he said. “It sounded terrible.” 

That first call Rice made was a simple scratch box design. And, he admits he didn’t really know where to start with the callmaking process because Minnesota in the early 2000s was a relatively young state for turkey hunters. While there were some seasons in the lower portion of the state, it took a long time to draw a permit. And due to the lack of turkey hunting opportunities, there were not many callmakers in the state for him to learn from. 

Rice’s displeasure with his first call was enough that he shelved the call and didn’t make another attempt at call making for another year or two. In that time, he had been spending time in the woods, hunting turkeys and listening to their vocalizations. By then, he had researched numerous scratch box call designs. All of this led to him picking up call making again and refining his calls. 

Though his calls were selling and he was making money, Rice felt as though his feelings of success were dependent on the ability for hunters to harvest turkeys with his calls. He enjoyed seeing photos of birds harvested with his calls.  

Rice won’t say he mastered the scratch box, though he does admit that he wanted to feel like he had gathered the techniques for the callmaking process and was making consistent calls enough that he felt like he was ready to take on the next challenge: the box call.  

After a few wins at the callmaking competition at the state-level, he entered contests at the regional and national levels, which allowed him to meet other talented call makers who shared the same passion for call making as he did.  

The lessons Rice learned from competing in the Grand National Custom Callmaking Competition were to start long in advance. The artistic calls take an entire year of planning to execute the project properly. For hunting calls, Rice believes that can begin in the summer and then the best sounding calls can be selected and taken to Nashville.  

He credits Kevin Lynch for being an inspiration with his wing bone calls. For box call inspiration, Rice named noted call makers Bob Fulcher and Mike Lapp.  

Rice recalled Fulcher reaching out after he had placed an eBay ad stating he would burn anything on a box call lid he was selling, even “your grandmother in a wheelchair holding a shotgun.”  

Fulcher wasn’t looking for that exact design; he just was interested in Rice’s style of art, and they later became great friends. Rice noted that he later got the opportunity to hunt with Fulcher at Fulcher’s ability hunts in Ohio. 

Lapp and Rice ended up competing together in the first collaboration category at the Grand National Custom Callmaking Competition, winning second place in their first year and later Rice noted they “dominated” that category.   

For artistic inspirations, Rice noted the work of Duane Worrely and Don Bald as venturing outside of just turkey art and never being repetitive. 

The Grand National Custom Callmaking Competition is an event that Rice credits with allowing call makers to show the humanitarian side of what they do, and he notes there is no better way to surround yourself with like-minded people.  

Many call makers are willing to help share their techniques with the younger generation. So, young call makers should not fear reaching out to those they consider legendary. 

For Rice’s entry to the Legacy Callmaker Collection Auction, he contributed a two-call set titled Odin’s Duo. The trough call had been entered into the callmaking contest at the recent Convention and Sport Show in Nashville, but Rice purchased his own call in the auction to ensure both calls in the set were available for this month’s auction.