My name is Joe Bradshaw. I am 53 years old, and a retired Arkansas state trooper. I spent all of my 25 years on the highway, with the exception of about 3 years in the early 80’s working undercover narcotics. I spent the last 18 years as a member of our SRT, (Special Response Team) as a sniper/counter sniper. I guess I would still be there had an injury not intervened. 3 neck surgeries, five consecutively fused vertebra and a long titanium plate pretty much preclude my doing that stuff anymore

I owned/ran a commercial reloading business, back in the day, to support my addiction to IPSC, where I shot to “A” class, just off the “Master” designation when I retired from the sport…

I married my childhood sweetheart over 34 years ago, and we were blessed with 3 wonderful children. Jody is a 27 year old orthopedic surgeon, in his second year of residence. Dustin is a 23 year old police officer, about to follow in his dad’s footsteps as a trooper. JoBeth is 22 years old, and finishing her last year in college as a Registered Nurse, then on to CRNA school, ( Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist ). My wonderful wife is a school librarian.

I was very lucky to be raised here in these beautiful mountains, in western Arkansas. It is still very rural, and was even more so 50 years ago…heck, we didn’t even lock the screen doors at night. We lived near the end of a long dirt road, and our closest neighbor was about ¾ mile up the road. I have hunted most all my life…started out hunting rabbits as a child of 7, and was hunting alone before I was 10. As I grew older I hunted small game, turkey, deer, elk (in Colorado), and avidly hunted waterfowl while away for my 4 years of college.

In the days of my youth, everybody trapped…so bobcats were few and far between. Coyotes were also very few in number here. We did have some fox. As the years went by, we would occasionally see a coyote, and shot them as we could make opportunity to do so. I guess I killed my first one around 20-30 years ago.

I didn’t begin to hunt predators exclusively until about 4 years ago. I called in my first one with a little closed reed call made by Gonehuntin…I still have that call…

At any rate, shortly after that, I began to try to make calls. I had never seen a lathe until I bought one that was made in the 30’s. I taught myself to run it by trial and error. I think I hold the distinction of having made some of the ugliest calls known to mankind. They were terrible looking, but they worked. Having the luxury of being retired, I have been afforded the opportunity to work many, many hours learning the trade…from 40 to sometimes 60 hours a week or more. I have had many influences on my call making, and have had the luxury of some very knowledgeable acquaintances that helped me along the way. Ladobe and Uncle Jay helped me to learn many of the ins and outs of tuning a closed reed and forming air chambers. The open reeds have been a long study…starting out with my Screamin’ Demon utilizing a Steve Barbour tone board, and then on to tons of experimentation…wood, delrin, polycarbonate, polyethylene, horn, antler….and on and on. I finally developed a couple I really liked and then taught myself to mold them. I still do…my Kat Kaller tone board is one of which I am so proud…I use it a great deal of the time, and it has been the demise of many predators…it will also play the Star Spangled Banner

After 2 or 3 years making calls, I signed on with Buck Gardner to help design a line of predator calls, I designed all but one of his current line of calls. There are several more in prototype form and they continue to get better and better.

I have since became particularly enamored with horn, antler and acrylic…90% of my calls are now made from these elements…though I still enjoy turning some wood, water buffalo horn is my addiction…

I still produce a few “plastic” calls, in a hunter grade, but my love is horn…

Joe Bradshaw