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I grew up just west of Little Rock. My best friend, Philip, had a father who was a trapper/game warden for the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission and was a hell of a woodsman. Bob took the first bird out of that flock during the fall season, a big old hen. After that, Bob got me interested in turkey calls although neither one of us knew a whole lot. At the time, Arkansas had a spring squirrel season that was open the same time as the turkey season. Hunting turkeys was secondary, just something to do while squirrel hunting. But I remember walking into the woods one morning and hearing my first wild turkey gobble. That’s when things changed. I had no call and a single shot 16 gauge. I tried to sneak up on the bird while he gobbled his head off on top of a pine ridge. I got too close, and watched the bird fly off the side of the hill. That one encounter with the wild turkey got me started! The next day I built my first turkey call. It was a scratch box-type call made from the panel of an old hollow-core mahogany door. Not a very good call, but it did make a turkey-kind of noise. I shot my first turkey the next spring, a small jake, at age 16. I called the bird in with a Lynch’s “Jet” Slate Call and took him with my 16 gauge single-shot. When the bird stopped flopping, I picked him up and started down the ridge. I had only gotten about 25 or 30 yards when the turkey started flopping (while on my back), and I dropped both the bird and my shotgun, breaking the stock of the gun. I’ve never forgotten that first bird, and I’ve still got that gun.
When I got settled, I found myself living in one of the best hunting states in the country. Deer and turkeys are found here just about everywhere in the state. The deer season runs from August 15th to January 1st, and the turkey season is from March 15th till May 1st. The limit on deer is a lot and turkeys up to five gobblers in some parts of the state. Here where I live is known as the “Upstate” which is in the northern part of the state. The upstate has a lot of turkeys and a five gobbler limit. A turkey hunter can have a lot of fun here! After I got out of the USMC and started getting back into turkey hunting, I found that a lot of changes had taken place. I guess some of the biggest changes to me were the turkey calls. The market was full of all kinds of calls, some good, but most were junk. Back in the early to mid 70’s there were still a lot of good-quality, mass produced and handmade calls on the market. Today, most calls are cookie-cutter plastic, carbon and whatever – junk! This might be what a new turkey hunter might be buying, but serious turkey hunters are looking for serious calls.
And now, after what seems to be 4000 board feet of black walnut lumber later, I have “Bud & Betty” Turkey Calls. “Bud” being my son, Mitch’s nickname since birth, and “Betty” being my daughter Lacy. I’ll know and admit I have not re-invented the wheel with the design of my calls, but they are unique, high-quality and do duplicate most of the calls of the wild turkey. (Just ask the National Wild Turkey Federation - they've awarded me FIVE Grand National Championship Titles in the Hunting Calls Divisions). I have brought back some old-time craftsmanship and a pride in making a quality turkey call. I work hard on producing these calls and I’m proud of each one. It’s a lot of fun to build a call, take it to the woods and call in birds. It’s as much fun to have hunters who own my calls to tell me stories about their use of my calls!
As for Bud & Betty Hunting Calls, I just can't tell you how I appreciate all of our wonderful customers who have made us the company we are today, growing more popular and more well-known each year! I am committed to building the highest-quality, best sounding calls I possibly can. I am also dedicated to my philosphy of always promoting hunting and woodsmanship skills and techniques to correspond with all our products. All our website text, dvd & video dialog and trade show conversations will always be intertwined with guidelines and methods to be a good hunter and the Tag TeamTM and I will always promote the sharing of all woodsmanship skills and tips between all employees, volunteers, customers and potential customers. Thanks for reading about us and learning how I started turkey hunting and making calls.
I hope you enjoyed getting to know me and my company. |
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Hello! I'm Russell Lynch and thanks for visiting this page to learn more about me, my family,
and my company.
Since that time, things have
changed. About the time I got started getting good at turkey hunting, I got married. Most people would think this would
slow things down, but not with Kathy. We camped all over Arkansas, turkey hunting and fishing with Philip. After being
married a few years, Kathy and I joined the United States Marine Corps which did slow down the turkey (and deer) hunting.
However, Camp LeJeune, North Carolina has some of the best of both I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there very much.
When I got out of the Corps, Kathy and I moved our family to South Carolina in 1988, where I took a job as Deputy Sheriff. We’ve been in South Carolina ever since!
After a few years of buying junk,
I started making my own calls. I have never been able to use a diaphragm call, so I’m a friction call man. I had built
some calls during my teenage years and liked doing it, so what the heck! I started building calls for myself and a few
friends, and they started doing better and better.
Well, the real little "Bud" and baby "Betty" are all grown up now. Mitch is married to a lovely young woman named Marcie and they have a beautiful daughter named Amelia born in November 2006 in Sudan, Africa. They now live in Washington DC where Mitch is a Contractor for the State Department and is a Project Manager for the ongoing peace process in Khartoum, Sudan. Lacy is also married, and she resides in Steubenville, OH with her husband Mark, a Computer Engineering major at Franciscan University. They are the proud parents of our first grandbaby, Lydia Marie, born in February 2006.