History Lesson: Duck Calls

Midwest Flyways Podcast

Midwest Flyways

Sports, Wilderness

4.9 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Ten Minute Tuesday, the guys dive into the fascinating history of duck calls — from hunters using live decoy ducks and mouth calling in the 1800s to the rise of legendary call makers like P.S. Olt, Victor Glodo, Chick Major, and Phil Robertson. They break down how early mechanical calls changed waterfowl hunting forever, the origins of competitive duck calling in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and how modern duck calls evolved into both hunting tools and pieces of personal identity for hunters everywhere. The episode also explores the split between contest calling and real-world hunting calling, the impact duck calls have had on hunting pressure over the decades, and why understanding the history behind the calls hanging on your lanyard matters. If you’re a duck hunter, call collector, or just love waterfowl history, this one is packed with stories, trivia, and insight into one of hunting’s most iconic tools. Thanks so much for listening and be sure to subscribe and review! Join Flyways Hunt Club and get 1 month free! Flyways Hunt Club New Waterfowl Film out now! Out West | Waterfowl Hunting in Montana Stay comfortable, dry and warm: First Lite (Code MWF20) Go to OnXHunt to be better prepared for your hunt: OnX Learn more about better ammo: Migra Ammunitions Weatherby Sorix: Weatherby Support Conservation: DU (Code: Flyways) Stop saying "Huh?" with better hearing protection: Soundgear Live Free: Turtlebox Add motion to your spread: Flashback Better Merch: /SHOP

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to 10 minute Tuesday.
0:01.8	We are in studio.
0:03.5	Joey is not here. And he's late. Lateboy.com. What do you do? He's late. So we're going to get started with this 10 minute Tuesday. And today we're going to do another history lesson. You guys have been loving these. And I have got a bunch of them. I'm going to keep rolling these out. It's honestly been really fun for me, Carter, to look back and, like, read about all this stuff, too.
0:24.8	Yeah.
0:25.0	Because it just gives me so much context. And selfishly, I actually think it's making me a much
0:30.1	better trivia player. For sure. So, um, the stats don't show it, but the stats don't show it. But you
0:36.8	know what? I'm more about processes than results. Yeah. And eventually, if you follow the process, just like the 76ers did, eventually you end up with the results, right, Carter? Yeah, for sure. Okay. Because that worked for them. Exactly. So let's get into this one. We're going to do the history of duck calls today. I thought
0:55.9	this would be a very appropriate one. And I thought it'd be fun to have Joey here, so I'm glad he's
1:01.0	here with us. Perfect. So many of you guys probably have an idea about the history of duck calls,
1:09.9	and we have been brought up in an era where we've
1:13.5	been able to kind of see the transformation of some of these call companies. Specifically,
1:19.1	you could probably think in your head immediately of like Phil Robertson's story. And so we're
1:25.4	going to go through some of this history here. So before calls, actually, there was a lot of mouth calling.
1:31.9	A lot of guys got pretty good at, I don't know about pretty good.
1:35.6	A lot of guys got okay.
1:36.8	Good enough.
1:37.3	Good enough, ish, back in the 1800s at trying to make noises like a duck with their mouth.
1:43.7	Also, what a lot of people don't maybe realize is they used to use live birds. There's a clip going around right now. I saw that. Everybody's posting. I saw that clip. And if you guys haven't seen this, go look it up online. What was the account called Carter? It's like, it's like four seasons outdoors.
2:01.5	Something like that. Yeah. Go look at like four seasons outdoors. I think that's what it's called.
2:04.8	They've got a video on there of a guy setting out and putting a line on ducks. And these would
2:11.2	obviously act as actual decoy live birds and they'd make noise with their mouth.
2:18.5	Four season SZN underscore outdoors.
	...

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