Idaho teenager is a champion honker

BURLEY, Idaho — Kalen Smith’s first word was not “mama” or “dada.” It was “hornk,” and it sounded just like a goose.

So it is only natural that today, 16-year-old Kalen is one of the “Best of the West” when it comes to goose-calling.

The Burley High School sophomore is like any other teenager. He loves football and basketball and spends lots of time hanging with his friends, shooting baskets or passing a football.

When Kalen is at home though, he can often be found on the roof of a small shed inside the goose pen at Goose Pit Kennels, where his parents raise and train hunting dogs. As seven domesticated Canadian geese move about the pen, clucking and honking at each other, Kalen listens and learns, and they’ve taught him well.

Smith was recently named the junior division champion in the Best of the West Calling Contest held March 18 in Salt Lake City.

“He’s really good,” said his dad, Tab Smith. “But then he should be. A honk was the first word he learned. He used to toddle around the house making honking sounds before he could talk. We’d have people over and they’d ask where we were keeping the goose.”

There is much more to a calling contest than just blowing on a goose call, the youth explained. Geese are intelligent and they learn to differentiate between decoys and real geese and the sounds they are hearing. A caller has to be able to imitate the real thing.

“You paint a picture for the judges, who, separated from the caller by a curtain, cannot see the competitor,” he said. “You begin with a hail call to get the attention of geese at the edge of a field. Then you change to single clucks to draw them in. Then you do what is called an intermediate, which sounds like as many geese as you can all at once.

“Then the picture changes. You have to portray that you have lost their interest and they are leaving. You must call them back, repeat the intermediate call and then go to a soft feed call and moaning to get them to lay down.”

His dad said Kalen is a natural. And he admits the teenager has surpassed his own calling ability.

Does it hurt his ego to admit his teenage son is the best?

“Heck, no, because I brought him up and into it,” Tab Smith said. “A lot of other people have influenced him, but he is an offspring, a second generation, of what I’ve done. I’m proud of him.”