Welcome Home to Pontotoc 2021

A batch of Speckle Belly Goose calls nears completion.

Wild Fowl Customs offers craftsmanship with a personal touch BY

Steven and Marlana Huffstatler stand outside the Wild Fowl Customs shop on their property.

72 | Welcome Home to Pontotoc

JONATHAN WISE

A

passion for the outdoors morphed into a hobby and then a hunting call-making business for Steven Huffstatler of Pontotoc, owner and operator of Wild Fowl Customs.

“I’ve been duck hunting since I was in high school, so that got me interested in game calls; I started learning how to blow duck calls,” Huffstatler said.

However, the journey into producing the hunting instruments was unexpected.

“I worked in pool table store that had a lathe,” Huffstatler said. “I was just playing around one night after hours.

There was a scrap pool cue, and I just turned a duck call out of that. It sounded kind of like a duck. I was like, ‘Hey, this is pretty cool; I can probably do that.’

That got him started. He purchased a lathe and started practicing and experimenting with the craft.

Huffstatler originally started Hardwoods Waterfowl Calls with a friend. After a while the partner stopped building calls due to a career change, and Huffstatler got out of it for a while as well, other than as a hobby. Eventually, however, the urge returned and he began Wild Fowl Customs.

“I’ve progressed with equipment over the years,” Huffstatler said. “I bought a metal lathe and was learning it, but I really wanted to learn CNC. So I got a degree from ICC in the tool and die department, learning how to program machines and all that.”