TALK ABOUT A PERFECT TEAM: SHAWN STAHL, AVERY, GREENHEAD AND BGC

Of course, Shawn Stahl is excited about not only being a part of the Buck Gardner Calls team, but also the newest member of the Avery, Greenhead Gear and BGC team.

“I worked for them (Avery) a few years ago and then went off and did my own video stuff,” said Shawn, 37, who has won more than 25 goose calling titles, including the 2000 World Goose Calling Championship and the 2002 World Team Goose Calling Championship. “Now, it feels great to be back with them doing some sponsorship. They are a major sponsor now. They do everything from blinds to decoys to accessories. In their product lines, they make the best stuff that’s out there.”

In other words, Shawn now has “all the best products” at his finger tips, he said, as a member of one of the waterfowl industry’s most exclusive and sought after position as a member of Avery’s Team Waterfowl.

The feeling is mutual at Avery, which, like Buck Gardner Calls, is based in Memphis, TN.

“It is no secret that Shawn is among the elite when it comes to waterfowling and we are very excited about the relationship between him and Avery,” said Chad Belding of Avery. “Shawn’s videos rank among the best and we feel that the Avery and Greenhead Gear product lines will be a perfect fit for him and Fowl Pursuit.”

As for Shawn, he said, “There’s no doubt I’m blessed. To be able to do something that you really, really truly enjoy everyday is awesome, and then to be matched up with a company like Buck’s and a company like Avery. They all share the same passion and thrill of doing the same things I like to do.”

From now on, Shawn, like BGC president Buck Gardner, will use only Avery accessories and GHG decoys.

Shawn grew up in SW Michigan and still lives in Allegan, Mich., which is a town of about 3,000 to 4,000 in southwest Michigan near Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. He played sports growing up, but for the most part his after-school hours and holidays were spent hunting and fishing, starting when he was 5. At that age Shawn wasn’t allowed to carry a firearm, but he tagged along with his grandfather.

Michigan, after all, is known more for its deer hunting than waterfowl hunting.

“We have 750,000 plus deer licenses sold each year in Michigan,” Shawn said. “We’ve got roughly about 60,000 waterfowl stamps sold. So, I went deer hunting (at an early age) and back then you could only shoot one deer. I shot my deer on the second day of the season and I thought, ‘Well, now what?’ ”

Shawn’s “now what” turned out to waterfowl hunting.

Of course, it helped that there was a small pond less than a mile from his home.

That’s about the time Shawn asked his dad about going duck hunting.

“My dad had about a dozen paper machete decoys in the garage and he told me I could use them,” Shawn said.

From there, Shawn got a metal reed duck call and headed for the pond with the family dogs, a Springer and a Lab.

“I shot two wood ducks (that first trip),” Shawn said. “It was just me and my two dogs. I didn’t have any waders. It was too deep to get out there (in the water), so I’d tie the decoys to a bush and throw them out into the water. Those two wood ducks just came in and lit. They sure didn’t come in because of my calling. That’s the way I hunted for the rest of that season and the next. I think I shot something like 4 ducks.”

By the time Shawn was 18, he no longer had the desire to deer hunt.

Waterfowl hunting had become his passion.

“Michigan isn’t a duck rich area,” Shawn said. “Saginaw Bay is like Stuttgart (Ark.) as far as nostalgia and everything, but you’ve got to drive about 4 hours to get to it.”

Goose hunting is another thing.

In fact, Shawn said he lives near a refuge, which at one time had upwards of 35,000 geese from the middle of October to the middle of November.

“To this day I live 15 minutes from there and we still hunt there,” Shawn said.

It wasn’t long after he started goose hunting that Shawn made his first decoys out of ¾ inch plywood.

“That’s all I had,” Shawn said with a laugh. “We had half a dozen sheets of plywood lying around the house. I painted them black and white with gray breasts.”

As for his goose calling abilities, Shawn credits that to growing up near a public hunting area.

“We literally hunt around the perimeter of the refuge in standing corn, and you’re separated from other groups of hunters by 25-100 yards” he said.

For his high school graduation present (1988), one of Shawn’s presents included a Ken Martin goose call. After that, Shawn started reading magazine articles and watching videos on goose hunting/calling, as there was no Internet back then.

“I wanted to be able to say I could half-way blow a goose call,” Shawn said. “Then, I got into contest calling.”

When he was blowing competitively, Shawn still lived in town on the second floor over a lawyer’s office. A Catholic priest lived on one side of him and an Episcopal Church was on the other side. The county sheriff’s office was across the street not far from the offices of the American Red Cross.

“I’d start blowing that goose call on my front porch and people would be coming to church and hear me blowing and they’d start looking in the sky for a goose,” Shawn said, excitement growing in his voice as if the story he was telling happened yesterday and not years ago. “There were many times I’d start calling and have geese circling over the house as they made their way to the river down the road.”

Shawn admits, he’s “living a dream.”

When he was “really going it at” as a competitive goose caller, it wasn’t unusual for him to be on the road 16 to 20 weekends a year. Add to that having a regular job as a manufacturing engineer for new product development for the Herman Miller Company, being married and preparing to start a family and it was a busy, busy time for Shawn.

He also started producing goose-hunting videos.

“You want to blow in a contest and prove that you can win,” he said. “But once you prove you can win – without sounding arrogant – how long do you have to stand at the top the hill beating your chest and telling everyone you can blow a goose call? There isn’t any relevance in me still competing. I know in my heart that I can blow a goose call. And in reality that’s the only reason I started blowing in competition. It was just to prove to myself that I was good as the people I’d read about. Once I did that, I was done.”

Calling contests were a challenge at one time, now the challenge has switched to developing a line of Shawn Stahl Signature Series Goose Calls for BGC, instructional CDs and, of course, DVDs. He’s also lent his expertise to refine and improve Buck Gardner Calls’ already top-self Canada Hammer Series Goose Calls.

For 2007, Shawn is producing Fowl Pursuit V in conjunction with his three-year deal with Avery. The video should be out in April, he said. He’s also doing some other things on the side, including a dog training video. With Buck Gardner Calls, Shawn said, “We’ll probably get more aggressive with some of the stuff we’re doing in the call line.”

By Larry Rea, Media Director

For additional information, please contact Buck Gardner at 1-901-946-2996.