Doc Calls... Fine Custom Duck Calls and Goose Calls

Waterfowl call making is a very old and honored folk art going all the way back to early Indian culture. Some have said that calling waterfowl is as old as man's quest to harvest birds. As the art of call making developed, the design and sound properties of the calls would vary according to the hunting conditions and the needs of the hunters of that area. A good example of how a special quality of a call applies, is the Reelfoot style call, Which is a very loud metal reed call, especially well adapted to the needs of the hunters on Reelfoot lake. Flooded timber hunters use a call with less volume than hunters in more open areas. The material used to make calls has often been selected from whatever was available, or would be easy to work with, but as the folk art developed, call makers began to embellish their offerings with various designs as an expresion of their own view of art. The collectable value of fine duck calls is directly related to the workmanship and artisry that is apparent in the call.

The first operation in making a call is to cut the turning square to the length of the turning to be made. It is important to make precise, square cuts so the turning will be accurate. Here doc is using a compound miter saw to make the square cuts.

After the square is cut to length and drilled for either an insert or barrel, it is placed in the lathe and turned to shape, then carefully sanded and smoothed.

Now Doc sits down with the insert to do the part that creates the sound quality of the call. The insert has been cut in a die to form the curvature of the sound surface and now it needs to be "first tuned". This is the preliminary tuning of the call after the insert has been fitted into the barrel, and before the finish is applied to the surface of the call. After the finish is applied to the insert and barrel, the parts are re-fit and the final tuning is done.