Will Primos
Any hunter will testify that the best hunting calls for any game hunted in North America are made by Primos Hunting Calls. Will Primos is the Founder and President of Primos Hunting Calls Company. This twenty seven year old company manufactures the best hunting calls for every category of game. They also produce the hugely popular video series the TRUTH.
Will Primos as a young boy was always fascinated by hunting and would accompany his older family members on their duck hunts. Will loved the outdoors and all he wanted as a young boy was to get closer to the game, and duck calls really intrigued him. Once on a hunting expedition in green timber with his uncle Gus, young Will was fascinated hearing uncle Gus making the duck call literally sing. Uncle Gus was an expert duck caller. After getting home, Will made his own call copying uncle Gus’s duck call. This was the beginning of the legendary Primos brand call. The year was 1963 and by 1976 Will Primos started selling his very own custom-made turkey calls. After the success of his turkey calls, Will finally decided to get out of the restaurant business and got involved full time in the business of selling game calls.
Apart from hunting, Will is a keen conservationist, although not the tree hugging types. Will Primos believes that destruction of habitats kills more animals than hunting. Will is a member of many organizations engaged in conservation of habitats.
Will believes that he is a hunter first and hence he does not hold any calling titles. He is more than happy to win contests with the game in the wild. However, many people do win calling titles with his company’s calls.
Will Primos firmly believes that the bowhunter has to go to the place a whitetail deer goes and not wait on a tree stand. Will is an expert in calling deer within range; using rattling horns, estrous bleats and grunts. He is aware of the terrain and always stays tuned to the wind patterns. Will believes in staying scent free and uses the scent blocker suits to effectively contain body odor. Once he has finally identified a place, he puts up his stand in such a way that the terrain helps in camouflaging the stand. If there is a ditch or a cliff, thick cane thicket behind the stand, the deer will not have a clear view of what lies behind and may be tricked into believing that there is another buck or doe. But, if the deer is able to see clearly what lies behind the stand it will not approach, as no deer will be seen. When a call is made the hunt should be completed, when the deer approaches the stand or blind.
Will was inspired by a documentary of Howard Hill, which he saw, when he was a child. Howard Hill was seen shooting a bow in that documentary. Will got home and crafted his first bow and this is how he got into archery. Will still has his first bow. Over the years, his passion for hunting grew stronger and anything that crawled, flew or swam interested him.
After graduation in 1974, Will joined the family restaurant business in Jackson, Mississippi. In the fall turkey hunting camp, he met Eleanor Roessler, a woman in her late fifty’s and his life changed forever. Ms Eleanor who owned a camp, made and sold mouth calls. The calls didn’t fit Will’s mouth well and he decided to make his own calls using tin beer cans. People who heard these calls were impressed and so Will started selling them and the year was 1976. A local sporting goods store called Hunt and Whittaker started stocking Will’s calls. Wills double and triple reed calls were priced at $20 per piece.
A hunter from Pennsylvania, who owned a store was once hunting in Mississippi and happened to come across Will’s calls. He was impressed with the call and soon Will had a dealer in Pennsylvania. By 1979, Primos had to hire people to make calls as the demand kept on going up. Will also expanded his product range to include Friction calls and mouth calls.
The next logical step was to introduce his calls with an instructional audiotape.
Today, Primos Hunting Calls Company employs more than 120 employees and the product range has grown to more than 620. The company holds numerous trademarks and 26 patents are guarded aggressively.
Will Primos attributes their success to quality and self-belief firm, in what they are doing.