Local Turkey Hunter’s Award Winning Box Calls

By Dave Freeman

I first heard about J.D. “Peck” Martin in the mid-1990s when I was reading a turkey hunting magazine and glanced at a picture of the most attractive turkey box call I had ever seen. I learned that the maker of this call was from my neck of the woods just south of Wheeling, W.Va. in a town called McMecon W.Va.

I immediately contacted Peck and found that he had gotten into the box call business in the late1980s, after going to Atlanta Ga. to enter the first taxidermy contest at the National Wild Turkey Federation. Peck had built his first box call in 1988. He made calls in those days in a carpentry shop where he worked because he did not have tools of his own at home.

In the beginning he tinkered around making calls for family and friends. And then, around 1991, he started selling a few of them.

To date, Peck has won 44 ribbons in the NWTF competition for turkey calls, starting in 1994 and continuing through this year.

Peck told me that 1994 was the first call competition at the NWTF. That year there were 32 calls in that competition. This year there were around 350 calls. He has won awards for box calls, strikers, terrapin shells, and presentation category (how you present the calls). They have 14 different categories and he has won six of them. In 2001 they had sound competitions where they judged calls in regards to sound. Peck’s scratchbox took first and third place in that category. In 1993/94 Peck also got into the diaphragm call business.

Peck’s decorative box call is what has gotten him the most acclaim and the most press coverage. They are made of select woods and inlaid with pewter turkey tracks and turkey gobbler heads. Now Peck explains that he is even making calls with the statehood quarters inlaid in them.

Peck hasn’t only made calls but has used them. He completed his world slam in 2001 in the Yucatan jungle where he got his ocealated turkey. He harvested his gould the year before that.

Some of Peck’s claim to fame comes from what he makes his box calls out of. Some of the chestnut wood he is using right now came from a log cabin built in 1850. The beams were 11 inches square and 16 feet long, all hand-hewed. Moreover, since the cabin was erected in 1850, the trees could have been standing in the 1700s. Some of the other wood he uses is butternut, which is his better field–grade boxes. As to the woods Peck says that he just looks around and uses what he can get. In his taxidermy work he has traded a few deer head mounts for a truckload of wood. Peck says that he is a horse trader from way back.

One of the first things I heard from local people about him was that if someone would like to have a piece of his dwelling or some type of wood from that family homestead made into a boxcall, Peck would be the man to do it.

Nowadays Peck’s two boys are in the business with him. His son Scott has won awards for his turkey mounts at the NWTF conventions. In fact, in Columbus he got the People’s Choice award and Best of Show for turkey and bobcat. Peck’s other son Jay is like his business manager. “He’s my computer guy and mounts deer heads,” said Peck.

Peck has kept the Martin Brothers name but Peck is the only brother that owns the company. Peck’s brother/partner, John, was killed in 1994 by another hunter while fall turkey hunting. The local NWTF chapter is named after John -- or should I say, after John’s nickname Mutt. It is called the Mutt Martin Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation.

Prior to starting his box call business, Peck had done a lot of wood working in regards to restructuring his home. “However, as far as calls, I had the desire to do it so that is how it got started and the rest is history.”

I asked Peck if a novice wanted to make his own call could he do that. “Sure, he said. “ You just have the want to do it and have the tools available.”

What lies ahead for Peck and Martin Brothers turkey calls? He tells me that Cabelas has just placed a large order with him for a variety of his calls and that should keep him and his sons busy for some time. However, not too busy, Peck points out, to keep them out of the woods come this turkey season.