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How the Deadly Divas Were Born ft. Michael Waddell

The Knight & Hale Deadly Diva Series
By Michael Waddell

Ready Rita, Trashy Trina and Lonesome Linda. Don’t you love the names of the new Knight & Hale Deadly Diva Series of diaphragm calls? In my mind, I’ve always imagined that it is the sexiest-, hottest- and loosest-sounding hens that attract the gobbler. So, when Chris Parrish and I teamed up to design the new diaphragm calls, we decided to give them all racy-sounding names. We had a blast coming up with those names, but we had even more fun working on the calls’ designs.

First off, let me say that I’m stoked to have the opportunity to help design these calls with Chris. He and I used to compete against each other in turkey calling competitions, but we’re actually like brothers with a different mother when it comes to what we look for in turkey calls. Chris had some great ideas with cuts and reed designs and we decided to put our heads together to produce the perfect mouth calls that will help hunters put the smack-down on gobblers this season.

The Design Process

In my opinion, the biggest problem with other diaphragm mouth calls is that they’re basically all the same call, but with different names. They don’t offer the variety that seasoned callers want. Plus, most of the manufactured calls are made of thicker latex, which gives a run-of-the-mill, mediocre tone, and that just doesn’t cut it for hardcore turkey hunters.

We designed the new Deadly Diva calls with thinner latex, making them easy to blow. The thinner reeds produce realistic tones and those wavy sounds hens have when cutting and yelping. Even though you can buy the Deadly Diva calls at the store, they’re as high-quality as custom-made calls and are even good enough to use in calling competitions.

Chris and I agreed that we wanted to design the three best, most versatile mouth diaphragm calls we could without getting overly complicated, and we accomplished that with these three calls. Each one has her own special qualities and talents, so the hunter has a number of options to choose from based on the turkey-hunting situation at hand.

The Deadly Diva Series

Ready Rita is big, loud and raspy and demands to be heard. She’s built with extra-light latex, which makes her easier to blow than other triple reed calls. She produces that realistic raspy boss hen sound thanks to multiple cuts on individual reeds.

Trashy Trina is the wild child in the group. A triple reed gives her the advanced reach that experienced hunters desire, and her batwing cut produces an extremely raspy tone. She’s perfect for long-distance yelping and cutting.

Lonesome Linda is spontaneous and versatile, switching easily from yelps, cuts, clucks and purrs. The double reed makes her easy to manipulate, but her complex fang cut makes her dangerous. She’s perfect for intermediate and experienced callers.

The Bone Collector/Knight & Hale Partnership

With the help of my input, Chris built these calls as if he were building them for himself to use in competition or in the woods. He used cuts and blends that we’ve both found success with in the past. Experienced turkey talkers will know these are great calls right off the bat.

I’ve had a lot of fun throughout this process and I think it’s so freakin’ cool that Knight & Hale is partnering with Bone Collector. Harold Knight and David Hale are icons in the outdoor industry. In fact, they’re like the godfathers of the turkey calling world. For me to be able to wear their names on my jacket and represent them is something special. I take a lot of pride in this partnership and these calls.