The Quest for the $20 duck call. 

by Mark Edwards

 “What the world needs now is a good $2 cigar.”-- W.C. Fields

 “What the world needs now is a good review of $20 duck calls.”-- J. Bosco

 “Ask and ye shall receive.”-- WaterfowlReview.com

Seriously, my friend and local decoy historian and author Joe Bosco asked me the other night, “Why don’t you do a review of good $20.00 duck calls on the market for people who don’t want to spend a hundred dollars on a duck call?”  Other folks have also asked me, “Is it really necessary to spend all that money to get a really good duck call?”  Well, the answer may surprise you.  After all, the $125 price point cast acrylic calls get all the attention, right?  Frankly, the real answer is “No.”  It is not necessary to spend an arm and a leg to get a functional call that will create every sound that a hen mallard can make, and some that a hen never dreamed of making. In fact, there are many bona fide bargain calls on the market right now that will just about do it all for about the price of a tank of gas.  

Listed below in no particular order are my six personal favorite duck calls for around $20.; Some are a bit more, and some a bit less.  The list you will find below are all rock solid “meat calls,” and at least two of them are capable of pulling double duty in the contest calling arena.  Duck calls are one of the few things in the world where price is not necessarily a function of quality.  This seeming paradox is due to several factors.  A lot depends on the operator’s skill level.  A world champion can take a $12 call and make it sound like an entire rice field full of feeding mallards.  On the other hand, a hacker can take a hand turned cast acrylic competition call and make it sound like a kazoo with the hooping cough. Everything is relative. 

Let’s take a look at what it is that sets the price on a duck call. The “Big three" are time, materials and profit.  All call makers are entitled to a reasonable profit, and we will leave it at that.  The other two factors are the most important are time and materials. A pellet of phenolic resin that is heated and injected into a mold to make a plastic call is pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things. Fine quality woods are more expensive.  Not just any wood makes a good call, and makers search out very dense woods with high oil contents for their higher end calls.  A blank of cocobola or African blackwood to make a duck call has to be cut in Panama or South Africa, graded, cured, dried and imported into the United States.  This costs money.  This increases your price.  Heavy cast acrylics are also not cheap, costing somewhere around $11 per foot.

Where you get into the real cost of duck calls is in the time it takes the call maker to shape the material.  Time is money.  An injected/molded call is just shot into a mold, and “presto” you are ready to de-burr and tune the reeds.  The main cost is the set up involved in creating the molds. Wood must be turned on a lathe, wet sanded, dry sanded, the insert shaped in a jig, have a reed set installed, and then tuned and re-tuned.  Then the call must have the finish applied.  All these steps take the call maker more time, and further increase the ultimate cost of the call to you.  Cast acrylic is even more time consuming to work with, since it blisters very easily, and must be turned and drilled at very slow speeds.  It often requires a lubricant when drilling to prevent blistering.  After turning and tuning, acrylic then has to be buffed out in order to remove the scratches and give the call the “transparent look”that buyers covet.  This is all very time consuming, and the labor drives up the cost of acrylic calls very rapidly.  This is the reason that plastic calls represent such a bargain. 

According to Rod Haydel of Haydel Calls, “We currently make three different calls in our extensive line that are identical in shape and size except for the materials. One is wood ($85.00), one acrylic ($115.00) and the other our standard plastic ($34.95).”  Three calls with the same dimensions, tolerances, reed set, and tuning.  But three different prices based on the materials used in making the call, and the time that is involved to make it.  Since you can get the same design and reed set of a $150 acrylic call in a plastic call for a tiny fraction of the cost, molded calls represent a tremendous value for the budget-minded call buyer.  

What is the effect of the material a call is made from on the sound of the call?  Cast acrylic is a very hard, very dense material that is very stable in any temperature.  Due to the hardness of the material, cast acrylic has a sharp and high pitched sound.  It is often described as “crisp.”  Wood is more porous than either plastic or cast acrylic.  Therefore, it tends to have a somewhat softer sound than either cast acrylic or plastic.  The most expensive hardwoods that are very dense have a sound quality approaching that of cast acrylic.   These woods, like blackwood and mopane, usually have the same cost as cast acrylic, too.  Injected plastic calls seem to split the difference between the two other materials and will handle most hunting situations with no problems. If properly tuned and operated, a plastic call can be blown loud or soft with the higher pitch more commonly found with cast acrylic.

With all that said, let’s look at some calls on the market that represent high quality and performance for the hunter at an affordable price.  I own all of the calls listed below, and can vouch for the fact that they are the real deal.  They are certainly better “calls” than I am a “caller” based on the results that guides, hunters and contest callers achieve with them every day.  There may be other fine calls of this type out on the market, but of all the ones I am familiar with, these six are my picks.

1) Carlson Equalizer: They call them the “brown bomber.”  Can you get a world championship winning duck call for $19.95?  Absolutely.  The Equalizer, and its $10 more expensive brother, the Carlson Volochoke, are the only injected/molded calls that have ever won the open divison of the World Championship Duck Calling Contest in Stuttgart, Arkansas.  In fact, these calls are injected identical “clones” of the Carlson bois d’arc (“bodock”) and turned cast acrylic calls that are also world champions.  Wendell Carlson set up the molds for this call so that everyone could have a call identical to a world championship winning duck call without the high price.  Thus the name, the “Equalizer.” 

The Equalizer is a single reed “Arkansas” type call.  Therefore, it has much more range than a double reed call.  It is also less forgiving of calling mistakes by the operator.  However, this is not a hard call to “run” for a new caller.  The Carlson design is a little different than most of the traditional “Arkansas” style duck calls.  The tone board of the call is a little shorter, with a shorter reed and more curve to the sounding surface than is traditional.  This allows for a call that is less prone to stick, and requires somewhat less air pressure to achieve the same decibel level than comparative call designs.

In the hands of a competent operator, the Equalizer will flat scream, but will drop right on down to a snotty low-end hen mallard.  It will ring on both the low and high end of the scale if the operator knows his stuff.  The reed on this call is plenty quick enough to allow most callers to chuckle and cluck but is still stiff enough that you can bang the call hard if needed.  The call also comes with a tape of the “Carlson System of Call Operation” by CEO and two-time World Champion Jim James.  The Carlson system is pretty advanced, and assumes you know the basics, but gives a ton of scoop on why duck calls do what they do.  It is well worth your time to listen and study the Carlson tapes.  Bottom line: This $20 call can win you the world championship if you are good enough.  It will also do fabulous “meat call” duty.  It is a killer deal for less than twenty bucks.  You can get an Equalizer from Carlson Calls, or by calling Jim James at (402) 554-8411.  Jim is very friendly guy, and will be glad to talk to you. 

2) Echo Molded Open Water Call: These are calls designed by 1997 World Champion Rick Dunn and are made in Beebe, Arkansas.  Echo calls have won multiple world titles.  Like the Carlson calls, these are exact duplicates of the world champion calls made by Rick Dunn, only in an affordable injected polycarbonate rather than exotic woods or cast acrylic.  The calls are then hand tuned by Rick Dunn. Rick is a fine fellow and will even give you calling advice over the phone.  Please don’t ask me how I know this!

This is another injected single reed call that will do it all.  From a glass shattering top end right on down to a sassy hen, the duck is all there.  This call will either “crack” or “purr” depending on how you drive it.  These calls are also available in a timber version that is easier blowing, but not quite as loud with a little “whine” on the end of the note.  How good are these calls?  So good that many other “custom” call makers buy the molded inserts and reed sets in bulk from Rick to use in their own calls.  It’s true.  These calls are good enough to do anything you want to do with them, and are limited only by your own ability.  The calls are available from Echo Calls for $29.95 or by calling Rick Dunn at (501) 882-2026.  That price puts the Echo a little bit pricier than most of the rest of the calls mentioned here, but well worth the extra change, and still not out of the “around $20 range.” 

The DR-85 is a double reed call, which makes it very easy to blow and forgiving for a beginner.  It is one of the best “starter” calls on the market, and many folks never put it down after they learn to call with the DR-85.  It has what Haydel calls a “floating wedge” that allows for personalized tuning for the adventurous soul who wants to custom tune his own calls.  The DR-85 excels at quiet, low-end duck calling.  The reed is quick enough to chuckle well, and it will get plenty loud enough to turn a duck’s head at reasonable distances.  If you want a glass shattering competition call, this is not the call for you.  However, if you want to sound like a duck, about as loud as a duck, and shoot a pile of ducks, this call will get you there.  It will do so for a mere $16.95.  And it will get a beginner there very quickly. Haydel calls are available anywhere duck calls or sold, or from Haydel Calls.