Learning to Call Ducks: Pt. 1 The Quack

Owning a lodge and a guide business, I get to hunt with new duck hunters every day. All of them have a passion for their new found sport, but most don’t understand the basics of calling ducks and I have seen “middle of the road” duck hunters (hunting for few years) that have not properly learned the basics. For example, you wouldn’t teach a baby to say to say the word “extraordinary” without learning some basic words like “Mama” and “Dada” first or you wouldn’t teach them to run without taking a few steps first. The sport of duck hunting is FULL of duck hunters that have never learned basic calling techniques, but go hard every day during the season. Public land hunters know exactly what I am talking about when I say, “there are guys duck hunting that don’t even know how to blow the basic quack”. Today we are going to get back to the basics of duck calling, learn the correct way, and learn the quack.

There are three types of callers who have never learned the correct way to blow a duck call. Here is my list:

• The High Baller– This is the guy that only blows with his mouth and adds no diaphragm.
• The Low Baller– This is the guy that only blows air from his diaphragm and uses no mouth.
• The Fast Talker– This is the guy when calling, he sounds like a sick duck laughing really fast. He is also either a low baller or high baller.

There are two parts to blowing a duck call…… The air to make the sound and the tongue to cut the sound off (and help make different bursts of sounds). If you don’t know how to use either properly, then you will fall into a category I listed above. Air for duck calling comes from the diaphragm. I know. I know. Most have heard a seasoned hunter say this before. Here is what I mean. Do you remember blowing fog on a window as a kid and writing your name on it? That is the same approach I want you to take when blowing a duck call. How do you blow the quack? “Blow the fog on the window” and I want you to say the word whack. While doing this, I want you to cut off the sound. Cut it off with your tongue on the roof of your mouth right behind your teeth.  Here is a great audio clip of a mallard quack. Below you will see the audio clip on a sound graph:

Remember the quack is the basis for all other calls and everything in the duck language is derived from the quack. Perfect it and you will increase your chances of killing ducks! Don’t think your calling is up to snuff? Tomorrow we will discuss the mallard greeting call!