If you love duck calls as much as I do, it is always a pleasure to receive a little square box in the mail. Even if you have not seen the call yet, you know that you are soon going to get the much coveted privilege of annoying the neighbors with a new toy. Did you know that cats abhor loud duck calls? All this, plus the slightly glazed expression from your spouse that a new call causes! So it was with great delight that just prior to the 2002-2003 duck season I received a little white box from Dr. D.D. Hull’s “Doc Calls” and discovered his newest call design, the single reed cast acrylic “Suzie” duck call. I used this call with great results throughout the last duck season, and my thoughts and observations are set out below.

The first thing that you will notice about the “Suzie” is that it is a very sharp looking call. The call is turned from cast acrylic and is not the molded polycarbonate that sometimes is passed off as cast acrylic. The call possesses clean, classic lines, and the insert is not uncomfortable for a small hand as are a lot of calls today. All Doc Calls come with an O-ring on the insert which ensures a snug fit and keeps the insert from falling out, and the Suzie is no exception. The "friction fit" of the inserts in a lot of call designs causes inserts to go swimming, so Doc has a great feature here. The narrow silver band lends a very classy appeal to this call. It is not gaudy and overpowering like a some of the huge bands you see on some calls these days. The call has double lanyard grooves, and has been meticulously finished. I could not find a tool or sanding mark anywhere on the call. It has a laser engraved “Doc Calls” duck logo, an engraved serial number, and Doc Hull’s signature engraved on the call. The engraving is understated, and lends to the elegant look of the call.

Doc Hull is one of the few call makers who is still connected with the great call making tradition of the past by offering “Glodo” style calls. Victor Glodo was a legendary market hunter from the Northwest corner of Tennessee. He is credited with inventing the Reelfoot-style duck call. According to Doc Hull, the Glodo style barrel was conceived while Glodo was helping dig a well. He noticed that sounds from the workers digging the well became more amplified after the walls of the well were undercut to enlarge the bottom of the well. When Glodo added this feature to his call design, he noticed an increase in the resonant volume of the call.

A simple way to think of a “Glodo style” barrel is to imagine a cone, with the tip of the cone representing the mouthpiece of the call. Most modern call makers today use a straight non-tapered bore hole of 5/8" inch for their barrel design. Doc says the Glodo style barrel has a smaller diameter mouthpiece and an expanded diameter cavity in the remainder of the barrel. This gives the call a “resonant cavity barrel” which results in a more efficient use of the air used to blow the call.

The biggest problem that most duck hunters have with their calls is that of sticking. A sticking call in the marsh is like having no call at all. Dr. Hull has taken the sticking problem head on in his call designs. Most call sticking is caused by the surface tension created between the mylar reed and the tone board of the call by saliva. For many years, Doc offered specially cut narrow replacement reeds for his calls, as he found the narrow reed helped prevent sticking by reducing the contact patch between the reed surface and the edges of the tone board. In fact, my first Doc Call came with some of the narrow reeds. After experimenting with the reed design, Doc came up with a radical design change for the call insert itself that has pretty much destroyed the problem of calls sticking from saliva.

Other call makers, like Primos in mass marketed calls, and J.J. Lares in high end custom calls, have attempted to deal with the sticking problem with some success by cutting slots into the surface of the sound board to break the surface tension. Doc took things in an entirely different direction by scalloping out a section on either side of the tone board, in order to keep a full size reed, but still reduce the “contact patch” between the reed and the tone board, so that accumulated saliva does not cause the reed to lock up. I can tell you, these calls DO NOT stick. You can drop it in a glass of water, take it back out, shake out the water, and rip out a glass shattering highball. It is very impressive how hard it is to stick the new design Doc Hull. I dropped it in the sink, left for 10 minutes, shook the call out, and blew a greeting call. Other than water all over the bathroom mirror and an outraged spouse, no problems. Water is not the same as saliva, but I have not been able to "spit stick" the call either. Out of deference to Doctor Hull, I will not publish a picture of his insert so other folks can copy it without at least buying one of his fine calls! So you ask, can a call still exude pure freaking hen duck with the tone board radically altered to prevent sticking? You betcha!

I found that acrylic Suzie call will get VERY LOUD without much air. By comparison, it blows away most of my other acrylic single reed calls with the same amount of air pressure. The call also does not “shatter” on the high end. This call has very good “DBA out for PSI in” so to speak. This is perhaps the most efficient call I have ever blown in that department. I can bang the heck out of this call with air pressure and not yodel or squeal it (unless I try to do it on purpose). That is impressive since the reed is not all that "hard" on the GC "reed quickness" scale. Although sound varies with the same call with different operators, I found the acrylic Suzie to be pretty raspy with straight air. However, I was able to get it cleaner by playing with it. I would rather a call be raspy and me clean up the sound than it be dead flat and I blow out my lips and upper throat to scratch it up. The Suzie is similar to RNT and Gaston calls in this respect. The reed that came with my Suzie seems pretty "quick" and I can chuckle it as well as most other calls. The double cut chuckle is not my strong point, but this call does it about as well for me as any other non-timber call I have tried. I find it a little easier to go up the scale on this call than it is for me to get it all the way down. I can get it all the way down on the scale, but it takes a little more air on the low end for clucks and whines. However, I can RIP the top end with little effort. I am still working on this, and it is more a function of the operator than the call.

I noticed a very interesting thing about this call when working with it early this duck season. I was always taught to call "reed down" to keep the moisture off the tone board. In other words, the way I hold the call, looking in the barrel you would see the cork on the bottom, then the reed, then the tone board on top. With the acrylic Suzie call, I get really raspy sounds blowing "reed up" and much cleaner sounds with the reed down. More “juvenile hen” with straight air with the reed "down" and nice crunchy rasp with the reed up. I think this a function of the radical insert design, and is a unique feature of Doc’s calls. It could be of some benefit for someone who has not learned to bring a call in and out of “ring” yet.

Doc Calls are available directly from Dr. D.D. Hull, 5848 Otoe Street, Lincoln, NE 68506, or online at Doc Calls Doc can be reached via telephone at (402) 489-2580. His wood calls start at $69.95, with a personalized inscription for $9.95 extra. Acrylic call prices are $125.00. Shipping and handling on all calls is $6.00. Doc Hull also has available calls made from exotic woods that include African Black Wood, Brazilian Rose Wood, Mediterranean Olive Wood, Mexican King Wood, Snake Wood and many others. All Doc Calls come with extra reeds and tuning instructions. As a nice touch, Doc marks and indexes each extra reed and cork so that you can be sure to get it back in exactly the right place.