Call of the Outdoors

CORPUS CHRISTI - During baseball's offseason, Pat Urckfitz can be found hunting in the swamps of Port Bay, a small body of water nestled along Lake Ontario, east of his hometown of Penfield, N.Y.

Although the Corpus Christi Hooks reliever lacks the ZZ Top-like beard the Robertson men sport on "Duck Dynasty," Urckfitz, who did not surrender an earned run in his first five relief appearances of the season, is an avid outdoorsman.

Like Willie Robertson, star of the popular reality television series, Urckfitz owns a game call business. Beaver Creek Game Calls is the result of Urckfitz's love of hunting and hobby of making his own custom calls.

"I started making turkey calls for myself and some of my buddies from home," he said. "I started messing around with duck calls and all different types: duck, deer, coyotes, stuff like that. This was two or three years ago. Then I started thinking maybe I can sell a few of them."

Game calls are a hunter's musical instrument of choice. The hand-held devices attract unsuspecting prey by mimicking their natural sounds. Making a game call is an art, one Urckfitz perfects in his basement.

"The turkey calls, you got a latex reed and you have to stretch it a certain tightness," he explained. "If the tension is too much it's going to be too high, and if it's too loose it's not even going to make a sound, so you got to find the little tension in the middle there that will make it just right. Then you make little cuts in it and it will make it more raspy."

Urckfitz first began experimenting with game calls when he was young. He would take them apart, swap out the parts and rebuild them. He also remembers watching the Robertson family before TV put the spotlight on the camouflaged clan.

"These 'Duck Dynasty' guys used to make hunting DVDs and I'd watch them when I was little, just watch them hunting," he recalled. "Saw it on TV and I was like 'that's weird, I grew up watching their hunting videos.'"

Because hunting is a popular pastime among baseball players, his teammates were willing to help Urckfitz take his business to the next level.

"They've all helped me."

Last year, Ross Seaton, who was promoted to the Oklahoma City RedHawks on April 22, built a website. Prior to the website, Urckfitz was selling his game calls on EBay. Hooks infielder Jio Mier aided by creating social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

 "I never even had a Twitter or anything before," Urckfitz said. "(Mier) said 'You got to get a Twitter for it.' When I first started last year with the Twitter, they'd say 'Hey everybody, go follow Beaver Creek.'"

@BeavrCreekCalls now has over 13,300 followers.

Handcrafting game calls, and testing them in the field, is a labor of love for the southpaw hurler.

Urckfitz said, "It's an offseason job like anyone would get. At first, it was just for fun. It's still something for fun. It's not like work; I still enjoy it."