Two New Calls!

I've made duck calls for 29 years now. During that time, I've varied the design a bit, but settled on 4 basic designs, of which I now still build 3.

In the past few years however, my farm in Arkansas has been covered in Specklebelly geese! Frankly at times, they outnumber the mallards on the farm. My father has gone headlong into this with full decoy setups and even bought a couple Speck calls to mess with.

To that end, I had to get those 'mass produced' calls off his lanyard, and it was time for me to get into the Specklebelly business. I've now made a few prototypes, each being modified multiple times. I've used two completely different internal component sets.

Through all of this, I've finally found a setup that gives the best balance of controllability and ease of use (not being hard to blow!). The final prototype is below, in Santos Rosewood with Bois D'arc cap and Paduak stripe.

 

 

The second new call is my new drake whistle. Pretty simple call, but it does a lot. It works as a drake mallard and pintail whistle as well as a teal call. Drake whistles have grown in popularity in the past 10 years because they work! The prototype below is made of Paduak with Winchester brass.

 

 

 

Put these two calls together along with one of my single reed duck calls and you have the perfect Mississippi Flyway combination.





Some History!

Back in 1989, the Duck Call and Duck Hunting Museum in Stuttgart asked for one of my calls. I very happily obliged. At the time, I believe I was the youngest duck call maker around (I was 14 at the time, and had started at 12).

10 years later, they asked for another, and again, I provided a call for the collection.

Dad was in Stuttgart yesterday and had a chance to go in the museum. In the collection were my calls. Still there and proudly displayed alongside some pretty amazing callmakers' offerings.

A 'Little' something for fun!

Another callmaker, Ryan Watson, made a great looking tiny little call a few weeks ago that really caught my attention. His looked great. Made from ivory and African blackwood with a pretty silver band.

I decided I had to do one in my own style. Its below.

1/4" bore. It is sitting next to a quarter in many of the photos and one of my Little Lagrue calls in another. I hand cut the tone board. It actually does blow!

Cocobolo with a brass band and African blackwood cap and endpiece. Brass Orbit as well. .005 Reed!