One of the state’s newest duck call manufacturers, Black Ops Duck Calls, started in 2009. He says he hopes Echo continues to grow, but at age 61, he “doesn’t want to keep working so hard,” and plans to train someone to handle the day-to-day operations so he can just supervise. “I had no idea when I started that a hobby would snowball and now it’s hard to keep up,” Dunn says.Įcho has now outgrown its shop, and plans to move to a larger location at the beginning of next year, Dunn says. Dunn continued making calls part time until 1996, when he became a full-time duck call maker. When someone offered him $40 for it, he accepted, and it just “took off from there,” he says. But his third call was “really good,” and he says he didn’t want to give it away. Rick Dunn, owner of Echo Calls in Beebe, began making calls as a hobby in 1975 and gave away the first two he made. At 73, he says his eyesight is failing, but since he can put together a duck call by rote, he’s planning to continue making them for as long as he can. Now, Migeot sells his calls mostly at Ducks Unlimited dinners, by word of mouth and retailers such as McSwain Sports Center in North Little Rock and Fort Thompson Sporting Goods in Sherwood. His mission was always to remain small: “It’s not fun when it’s a major business. Migeot made more and more calls, and eventually sold them in stores.
“As a new hunter, I didn’t have a lot of equipment, and bartering worked pretty well,” he says. Instead of selling his calls, he says he bartered them for hunting equipment. Migeot says he tried to duplicate a call Bowles made for him “using a hand drill and piece of walnut.” At first, Migeot made calls for himself, and then made them for others. So, Migeot decided to make his own call, and says he was inspired by Arkansas call-maker Andy Bowles.
“I bought a $10 duck call but couldn’t make it sound like a duck.” Migeot, a California native, started making calls in 1980 after a neighbor took him duck hunting for the first time. “A duck call is truly a musical instrument,” says Bob Migeot, owner of Mojo Duck Calls, a “one-man” operation based in Maumelle. Each manufacturer, no matter how big or small, has its own unique history and strives to carry on the state’s rich duck hunting tradition so that it is passed along to the next generation. Arkansas duck call makers have fine-tuned their instruments to produce the highest quality call for hunters all over the world.
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