Knight & Hale’s Mark Prudhomme Sets New Hooting Standards

Knight & Hale Ultimate Team Pro Staff member Mark Prudhomme is the hooter’s hooter. He’s ripped off a string of wins unmatched in hooting history. Prudhomme placed first in the 2005 World Hooting Championship, first in the 2006 NWTF Grand National Hooting Contest, first in the 2006 U.S. Open Hooting Championship and in an unmatched feat, first place in the 2006 World Hooting Championship. Hooting contests are held in association with turkey calling contests because turkey hunters use the hoot of a barred owl to shock tom turkeys into gobbling, thus giving away their locations.

“I started participating in the hooting contests just to spend more time on stage and calm my nerves about calling in front of a crowd,” said the unassuming Prudhomme. “I didn’t know it would be my ‘thing.’ But it is indeed his thing. His run of wins in unprecedented.

“It took a few years to get good,” he said. “I started hooting with my natural voice, but it wasn’t consistent, so now I use a standard Knight & Hale Owl Call that I’ve made some minor modifications to.”

The keys to becoming a great “hooter” include learning the owl vocabulary, which is more detailed than the outsider might think. “Owls scream, produce single hoots, eight note hoots, they laugh and do a throaty roll at the end of a longer series of hoots”

When turkey hunting, a hunter normally produces a single or double hoot and stop to listen for a shock gobble, but on stage during a contest, the caller must produce a series of hoots to fill a time slot, normally one minute.

“At the World Championship they let you do owls other than the barred, so I did a great horned owl and a screech owl mixed in,” Prudhomme said. Other Knight & Hale Ultimate Team Members Chris Parrish and Steve Stoltz won the Team Calling Competition, and Parrish placed fourth in the Turkey Calling Championship, and Stoltz placed sixth.