Duck Calls

Functional art that echoes through history

The history of duck calls often centers around three places — Reelfoot Lake in New Madrid, Stuttgart, Ark., and Pekin, Ill. 

The legendary Reelfoot Lake, born from the New Madrid earthquake of 1812, which shook Missouri’s Bootheel, is remembered for its metal reed-style calls. Stuttgart, Ark., considered waterfowl heaven for any hunter looking to chase greenheads in the timber, is a long-time meeting place for callmakers and competition callers. Pekin, Ill., is home to Phillip Olt, who is credited with introducing a curved toneboard that most callmakers emulate to this day.

Anywhere waterfowl fly, there’s a history of hunting and callmaking to go alongside and Missouri is no exception. From luxury checkered calls made for wealthy clients in Kansas City to simple, turned calls made for the everyday hunter, callmaking was an important part of Missouri’s history and remains so to this day.

Missouri Goes Metal

Modern duck call history in Missouri began with metal reed calls. 

For those unfamiliar with how a duck call works, they typically consist of five main pieces. The barrel is a tube, often wood or acrylic, which the caller blows into. The insert is a piece that holds the toneboard, reed, and wedge into the barrel. Inserts were made with a variety of materials, from metal and wood to hard rubber and acrylic. Similarly, the toneboard is what the reed vibrates on to make sound. The reed vibrates as air passes over it. Reeds have been made from brass, copper, and according to Dale Bordulon, legendary Louisiana-style duck callmaker, even filed down from plastic combs. Wedges were often made of cork and were what held the reed to the toneboard. 

While modern, mass-produced calls are most often acrylic or polycarbonate with a plastic reed, duck calls going back into the 1800s were made of wood and used thin metal sheets for reed material. A variety of styles of metal reed calls could be found throughout the state. It’s these calls that characterized the early duck callmaking history of the state.

Big City Meets the South

Waterfowl Hunting and Wetland Conservation: A Model of Collaboration places some of Missouri’s earliest callmakers in 

St. Louis, as well as southeastern Missouri. With both on the Mississippi flyway, it’s no surprise that duck hunting was an important part of both places’ history. 

St. Louis was a major center of commerce and the confluence of America’s two most iconic rivers, so it didn’t take long for wealthy individuals from the area to get interested in waterfowl hunting. Well-to-do hunters from Missouri’s city centers would often travel south to hunt both southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Oftentimes, they would come in conflict with local hunters and get into fist fights, shootings, and some duck hunting lodges were even burned down.

Meet the makers

St. Louis callmakers William Mackwits and Thomas A. Morgan were producing duck calls as early as 1900 and were selling them in local hardware stores. Both used metal reeds, but where the Morgan calls were more typical of a Reelfoot style call, at least some of Mackwits calls had unique divots along the toneboard. One such call exists in Kansas City’s John Braun’s collection of duck calls, also mentioned in Waterfowl Hunting and Wetland Conservation: A Model of Collaboration. 

Around the same time in the Bootheel region, callmakers with metal reed calls were being used in the Big Lake region of northern Arkansas and other areas in the state’s southeast region. Ed St. Mary, born and raised in Lilbourn, Mo., became famous for making duck calls. While his calls are typically associated with Manila, Ark., Missourians from the area maintain his place as part of the history of their region. 

James Tillman (J.T.) Beckhart, a legendary callmaker often associated with both the Big Lake region and Hornersville, Mo., was another significant figure in local callmaking and waterfowl culture. Beckhart lived in a variety of places, moving from Indiana to East St. Louis, Ill., before ultimately settling a few miles south of the Missouri border.

Beckhart’s calls were characterized by German silver reeds, and he carved plain calls for local hunters, checkered calls that were a bit pricier, and much more expensive “fancy” calls for wealthy hunters who wanted a memento of their experience. As Ryan Graves, avid waterfowler, duck call collector, and historian reports, “the association of Beckhart’s calls with Missouri is largely because Hornersville was the closest town he could use for a mailing address. I’ve therefore included him in the history of the Show-Me State on a technicality.”

After his death, Claude Stone of Hornersville bought Beckhart’s callmaking equipment and wood. Graves reported there was speculation that Stone helped Beckhart continue making calls in his later years. Either way, the Missouri connection with Beckhart was too strong to exclude his contribution to callmaking in the southeast portion of the state. 

Kansas City

Meanwhile, the Paris of the Plains was building its own history of callmaking and duck hunting. Like the eastern part of the state, Kansas City’s hunters, both wealthy and working class, were chasing waterfowl in the areas surrounding the Kansas City metro area. 

Bean Lake in Platte County was home to several well-known callmakers. An oxbow of the Missouri River, it was once a popular location for fishing, boating, and duck hunting. A 1917 newspaper article praised it as the best fishing in Missouri, while also bemoaning the unbridled gambling and drinking that happened in one of the lake’s clubhouses. The lake has shrunk and hasn’t held nearly as much water since the Missouri River was channelized in the 1930s and 1940s.

Meet the Makers

Born in 1872, Frank Dougherty was a Bean Lake resident who hand built his calls. He also served as a market hunter and guide for other duck hunters. According to Ryan Grave’s research, Dougherty would checker his calls using a hacksaw. The other parts of the call were finished with sandpaper, a pocketknife, and other hand tools. This painstaking effort meant that Dougherty didn’t produce large numbers of calls, but they are still sought after and collected today. 

Dougherty’s nephew Sean Dougherty said of his uncle, “On a typical day, Frank and his wife, Lottie, would host a dozen hunters. Lottie would serve them dinner consisting of roasted duck, fried rabbit (fried in duck fat), fresh catfish, seasonal vegetables, and certainly apple and pecan pie from their 10-acre apple orchard and numerous pecan trees.”

In the mid-1890s, Frank met another market hunter named Victor Gilado. 

“Frank only knew how to call ducks using his thumb and his lips,” Sean Dougherty said. “Gilado taught Frank how to make duck calls out of wood. Frank’s first duck calls were made from an old staircase. For the next 45 years, Frank handmade duck calls in Bean Lake on the family farm. Initially the duck calls sold for $1 in 1900. Those same duck calls sell for $1,000–$5,000 today.”

George and Bill Willis, also residents of Bean Lake, built popular calls. Bill eventually sold the design to Dr. E.S. Stofer of Kansas City. Born in 1886, Stofer served in World War I in field hospitals, returning to Kansas City to resume his practice in 1919. Both the J. Andrews collection and the Graves collection feature Stofer’s work. Most of his calls were made with walnut barrels and the inserts were either walnut, maple, or cedar. Stofer’s calls carried a variety of stampings, from E. STOFER KCMO and E. STOFER Lone Jack MO to BEAN LAKE E. Stofer Duck Call. Stofer was perhaps the most prolific, and according to Waterfowl Hunting and Wetland Conservation: A Model of Collaboration, he produced more than 40,000 calls. H3

text

Tradition Continues

Today, callmakers of all varieties are keeping the art of duck callmaking alive. 

Pete Frazier, who lives in Cape Girardeau and has been chasing waterfowl for 40 years, makes duck calls from river cane, a tradition reminiscent of Louisiana-style calls. He started after his mom passed away and he wanted to make something special for his dad for Christmas. At first, he built a pintail whistle. Now, he makes mallard calls, as well. 

“I go out and cut my own bamboo and cane,” Frazier says. “It’s all collected from a 60-mile radius of Cape Girardeau. Every call is different because the cane is different.”

Alongside a more modern style of cane call, Frazier makes a double reed metal call that is reminiscent of those early metal reed calls from Missouri’s early callmakers. 

Tucker Sherrod, who lives in southeast Missouri, is an award-winning competition caller, callmaker, and duck hunting historian. His family is from Hornersville, and he initially told me about J.T. Beckhart. Coming from an area with such a deep history of duck hunting and duck calls, Sherrod feels it’s only natural that he has a connection to those early callmakers. 

When I asked about his favorite vintage call, Sherrod said, “My Red Boyette call is probably my favorite call in my collection. It’s a pretty rare old call and well known around Reelfoot Lake.” 

Sherrod’s “holy grail” of vintage calls would be a checkered James Beckhart, a Victor Gilado, or a Jack Giraudo. Sherrod keeps his connection to duck call history alive through collecting, hunting, and participating in calling competitions. 

There is a current need for more Missouri callmakers to continue the art of making metal reed calls. Rob Protzman, who runs Weston Waterfowl, may not be a Missouri callmaker, but he both collects and makes metal reed duck calls.

“For me, making metal reed duck calls is as much about preserving callmaking history as it is about having a unique sound that hasn’t been heard by every migrating duck as they make their way down the flyways each season,” Protzman says. “I’ve had the opportunity to make some different metal reed designs, but I stick with the tried and true Reelfoot style calls with a ¾-inch flat toneboard, metal reed, and wooden wedge.”

While modern, mass-produced calls offer a low bar entry for waterfowlers, it’s well worth the time for both callmakers and hunters to experiment with different styles of historical calls. Not only do they offer unique, individualized sound, but they make interesting additions to both the lanyard and the collector’s stand.

For callmakers like Frazier and Protzman, duck calls are more than tools. They are functional art and a connection to the history of our state and the way previous generations hunted. Exploring this history gives a person the chance to feel that in every marsh, their calls echo alongside the calls of thousands of hunters and conservationists before them. And if we continue to value wetlands and the history of duck hunting, those calls will echo far into the future.