Champion goose caller Threinen starts a small business

When Scott Threinen was 10 years old, he was doing chores on his family's dairy farm west of Rochester, in the small town of Mantorville, Minn., when some Canada geese landed in a field behind the barn.

"I can still remember that day, and the sounds they made," said Threinen. "It fascinated me. The birds still do. You could say hunting geese and trying to understand their behavior is in my blood, and it all started that day doing chores. It became my passion then and it's still my passion today."

Fast-forward more than two decades: Threinen, 33, and the Canada geese that enthralled him as a young boy are now inextricably linked as business partners of sorts.

Threinen is the founder of Molt Gear in Rochester, a small business started in 2006 devoted to Canada goose hunting and hunter education. Over the years, he has developed several instructional products, most notably how-to calling and hunting DVDs and CDs. Molt Gear unveiled a line of acrylic calls (goose and duck) designed to complement the instructional videos in 2012. All were developed by Threinen.

The company also offers guided "instructional hunts" in the farm fields surrounding Rochester — the epicenter for giant Canada goose hunting in the Upper Midwest. The "big birds" aren't the only attraction for clients; Threinen himself is a draw. He's a three-time World Goose Calling champion. The contest, held each year in November on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, attracts the best of the best competition callers from across North America.

"Winning the world calling championship three times has certainly given me credibility in the competitive business market we are in, because a lot of hunters look up to good callers," said Threinen. "That has certainly helped us market and sell our instructional DVDs and book clients for our hunts. But one thing you have to understand is that most hunters who walk into a store looking for a call probably have no idea who won the local, regional or world calling contests. They're just hunters who want to learn. So our mandate is to relate to them, and give them the products and tools that work in the field. That's the bottom line for us."

On a recent weekday, Threinen and his one full-time employee and staff manager, Matt Benjamin, who is also a title-winning competition duck and goose caller, are busy "getting inventory out the door." They're polishing, engraving, painting, tuning and even packaging calls for shipment. "This is our busy season, and it can get pretty hectic," said Threinen. "It really gets going in the middle of June, because a lot of stores want fall inventory, and picks up steam all the way through the hunting season. It's good to be busy. You won't hear me complaining."

"I remember thinking, 'I have to get out there, closer to the birds,' so I did," he said. "I got some burlap and covered up in the field. No gun. No decoys. No call. I didn't even know what decoys or calls were at the time. I just remember being out there and getting so excited when the birds got close."

That same year, he asked for (and received) a goose call for Christmas. He also used his chore money to purchase nine "cheap" Canada goose decoys. He was still too young to hunt the following year, but he nevertheless deployed his decoys in a field and hunkered near a fence line, calling geese with his flute call. "I think the best part of those early years was learning about the birds and teaching myself to call," he said. "I take a lot of pride in being self-taught. When I was 13, I shot my first goose with a friend hunting from a pit blind in Rochester. I remember that day like it was yesterday. A flock of six came right in and I raised up and harvested my first goose. I was so excited I ejected the remaining two shells out of my shotgun and didn't fire again. I don't know what got into me."

The experience put its hooks ever deeper into Threinen. At 14, he purchased his first short-reed goose call (a more difficult call to master than a flute call). "When I got my first call when I was 11, I would practice every day. It got so loud in our house that my mom kicked me outside," he said, laughing. "Then I would practice for literally hours in the garage, especially when I switched calls, which was the hardest thing to figure out. It took me four months before I could blow a real goose sound out of my short reed."

That year, Threinen got his first big break in the hunting business: He started calling geese for a Rochester-based guide. "When I started working for the guide, my mom would drop me off at the field and I would go out and call for paying clients," he remembered. "They were like, 'Who is this little kid?' And the guide would say, 'That's the kid who is going to call in your geese.' "

At 20, Threinen started "contest calling" and over the years has won more than 40 major events, including three straight Minnesota state titles and the three world titles in Maryland. "Competition calling was a way for me to call year-round, and I loved it," he said. "It also made me a better hunter and really was the beginning, at least in concept, of Molt Gear. Calling gave me notoriety in the industry, and that's helped a lot."

In 2008, Molt Gear released a DVD version of "Bad Grammer." In subsequent years, the company unveiled hunting instructional videos, the footage of which Threinen shot and edited himself. "It's one thing to have a CD, it's another to have something you can visually learn from," he said. "The DVDs have really helped a lot of hunters. It's the total learning experience. It's something I wish I had when I was beginning to learn."

Threinen said Molt Gear's instructional hunts are ways to "put theory into practice." He added: "You have to be creative to set yourself apart from the competition. Instead of just guiding a group, we turn our hunts into an outdoors classroom on everything you need to be successful in the field, from decoy placement, tactics, concealment, calling, all of it. After we're done hunting, we go over what happened, take questions and practice calling.

"One of the best things about the instructional hunts is that it gives someone who is new or just learning the tools they need to be successful on their own," he added. "As a hunting demographic, we're losing waterfowlers, in part, I think, because there's such a learning curve."

Threinen said the waterfowling industry is highly competitive, and making ends meet is no easy task. When he started Molt Gear, he kept working full-time for the lawn-care service he co-owned.

"I had to," he said. "It wasn't until 2012 when I finally took the plunge and devoted all my energy to the company. I decided that guiding, developing products and educating hunters was a lot better than spraying lawn chemicals. It was a risk, but it's turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made."

Tori J. McCormick is a freelance writer living in Prior Lake. Contact him at torimccormick33@gmail.com.