How to use a slate call: hold the pot, angle the striker and make your first yelp

“Slate call” is the everyday name for a pot call: a round cup with a playing surface on top that you stroke with a wooden or carbon stick called a striker. It is the second call most beginners learn among the turkey calls worth owning. It takes more touch than a box (our rubric scores pot calls 6 for learning curve against a box's 8), but Primos calls Pennsylvania slate “the easiest surface to use,” and WoodHaven says pot calls with a slate surface “will be the most user friendly.”

Every stroke on this page comes from a maker's published instructions (mainly Knight & Hale's, whose Slate Hammer is our first pick below) or from the National Wild Turkey Federation. We haven't run these calls ourselves; sound descriptions belong to the makers.

How to use a slate call: the steps at a glance

1. Condition the surface with the scouring pad that came with the call (Knight & Hale).
2. Rest the pot on your fingertips, gripped so lightly it could fall if you turned your hand over (NWTF).
3. Hold the striker like a pencil at about a 70-degree angle to the call (Knight & Hale), fingers about an inch above the tip (NWTF).
4. Play the upper third of the surface for the most consistent tone; the center is deeper (Knight & Hale).
5. Yelp: a short oval or circle about ½ in long, 5 to 7 times per sequence.
6. Cluck: very quick, straight ¼ in lines with a popping motion.
7. Cut: the same quick ¼ in lines in a broken rhythm, such as 3 notes, 2 notes, 4 notes.
8. Purr: slowly slide the striker in a straight 1 in line.
9. Keep it clean: don't touch the slate, and keep the striker tip free of buildup (Primos).

Pot, surface and striker

A pot call has three parts. The pot (or cup) is the body: injection-molded polymer on the Knight & Hale Hammer calls, acrylic on the WoodHaven Fusion, yellowheart on the WoodHaven Anodized Ninja. The surface is what you play: slate, glass or aluminum on the calls in our registry. The striker is the stick you draw across it, usually hickory, with carbon and laminated-wood options.

Surfaces sound and behave differently. Knight & Hale describes its slate top as making “natural, clear” yelps and clucks, its glass as offering “great sound clarity,” and aluminum as “sharp, high-pitched volume for far off calling.” The strokes below are written for Knight & Hale's slate call, and the NWTF's grip advice applies to pot calls in general. Which surface to buy is its own question, answered in our slate vs glass vs aluminum pot call comparison.

Step 1: Condition the surface

Makers want the surface slightly roughed up before you play it. Knight & Hale's instruction is simply: “Make sure the call is appropriately conditioned with the included scouring pad.” Primos, for its Jackpot slate, says: “Keeping your Jackpot™ slate surface roughed up with the enclosed conditioning pad will produce the best results.”

• Slate and aluminum: the NWTF's troubleshooting kit lists “scrub pads for conditioning the surface of slate or aluminum calls.”
• Glass and crystal: the same NWTF article suggests “sandpaper, drywall screen or a sanding stone.” Phelps says to run its conditioning stone “in a left to right motion until the crystal/aluminum appears white and frosted,” then run the striker top to bottom across those scratches.
• Anodized aluminum that needs nothing: Primos says its Rare Breed Aluminum surface “requires no conditioning, so it's ready to call out of the box.”

Step 2: Hold the pot and the striker

Knight & Hale's Slate Hammer instructions: “Hold the call away from your body; cup it between your index finger and thumb. Hold the striker like a pencil at a 70-degree angle to call; rest your other fingers solidly against the call.”

The NWTF's Brian Lovett, in his friction-calling fixes, stresses a light touch: “Rest the pot on your fingertips, and grip it so lightly that it could fall out if you turned your hand over; same goes for the striker.” For the striker, “grip it with two, three or even four fingers, use a light touch, and make sure your fingers are about an inch above the striker tip,” then “use light, even pressure to drag the striker across the call surface.”

Lovett names the problem this solves: “The biggest mistake people make with pot calls is gripping the call and striker too hard, limiting the sound quality.”

Step 3: Know where on the surface to play

Knight & Hale: “For the most consistent pitches and tone, use the upper third of the call. The center of the call produces deeper tones.” Phelps and Primos describe the same map: Phelps says to move toward the edge for high pitch and toward the center for low pitch, and Primos says the outer edges of its Rare Breed Aluminum produce “higher yelps, cuts, and clucks, while lower and deeper tones can be made toward the middle.” Start in that upper third and stay there until your yelps are consistent.

Step 4: Yelp, cluck, cut, purr and cackle

These are Knight & Hale's published techniques for the Slate Hammer, with measurements written out:

Phelps describes the yelp stroke differently, as “continuous ‘J’ strokes,” with a purr made by lightly dragging the striker downward and a cluck as a quick top-to-bottom stroke. Try both shapes and keep the one that gives you a clean two-note yelp. Lovett's tip for getting there: “Focus first on creating a whistle, which is the front end of a yelp.”

For the purr, Knight & Hale adds: “Use scouring pad to create additional friction as needed.” What each of these sounds means to a turkey, and when a hen makes it, is in turkey calls and what they mean.

Strikers change the voice

The striker is half the call. Makers pair different strikers with the same surface for different sounds:

• WoodHaven packs two strikers with its Anodized Ninja for “two distinct, ultra-realistic hen tones.”
• For its Fusion Aluminum, WoodHaven says: “Need kee-kees? Pair it with the carbon striker.”
• Primos sells a Kee-Kee Striker that “specializes in reproducing the kee-kee run” and a Cuttin' Striker it calls “very forgiving.”
• Knight & Hale says its hickory one-piece striker “creates a smooth, rich sound.”

Keep the tip clean. Primos: “You must keep the tip of your striker clean and free of any build up.” The NWTF notes that “some prefer a light-grain sandpaper for this, and others use a pocket knife to gently scrape the tip.”

How to practice

Lovett's advice applies to every friction call: “Concentrate more on soft calling. Lots of folks can hammer on friction calls, but it takes more skill to produce soft, subtle whines, whistles, purring, clucking and yelping.” Once you can run a slate, our guide to how to call a turkey for beginners shows how it fits with a box and a mouth call, and the box call how-to covers the easier friction call if you haven't learned one yet.

When a slate call won't make a sound

Work through the causes the makers and the NWTF name, in this order:

1. Too much grip. Loosen your hold on both pot and striker (NWTF).
2. A slick surface. Condition it with the pad or stone for your surface, and check you haven't touched it (Primos).
3. A dirty striker tip. Clean or lightly sand it (Primos, NWTF).
4. A wet surface or striker. See below.

Prevention is easier than repair. The NWTF's Steve Hickoff: “Keeping calls clean is the best way I know to avoid having to condition frequently.” He also carries pot calls in drink koozies, which he says “make great pot and trough call protectors and reduce any rattling against other items.”

Pot calls in the rain

Slate is the surface that gives the least help on a wet morning. None of the slate calls in our registry carries a weather claim, and our rubric scores slate lowest on weather among pot-call surfaces. Makers of the other surfaces do make claims: Primos calls aluminum “the most weather-resistant calling surface” and says that if it gets wet or oily, “wipe it with an alcohol wipe, let it dry, and keep calling.” WoodHaven builds the Fusion Aluminum for “true turkey sounds in all weather conditions,” with two strikers it lists as “runs when wet.” Knight & Hale also sells a separate Waterproof Striker with a tip it says “performs in all weather conditions.”

What to look for in a first pot call

• A slate surface to learn on, which Primos and WoodHaven both call the easiest or most user-friendly.
• A striker and scouring pad in the box, so you can condition and play on day one.
• Published technique. Knight & Hale prints stroke lengths and counts for each sound.
• A weather plan. A second, aluminum-surface call or a wet-weather striker if you hunt rainy springs.
• A second striker later, once your yelp is consistent, for a new voice on the same call.

Pot calls and a striker to learn on

If you'd rather learn on glass, Knight & Hale's Glass Hammer shares the Slate Hammer's pot and striker and scores 0.4 higher on our rubric, mainly on weather. For every pot call and striker we score, see our picks: the best slate calls.