It’s all in the call

Call maker shares tips on calling waterfowl

A flock of wood ducks winged overhead, a hen squealing in the typical manner of a flying wood duck. Ralph Jensen brought a reed-style wood duck call to his lips. Blowing gently, he produced a different sound. Rather than the high pitched, rapid, single-note squeals of the flying hen, he blew a much quieter, squea-uh-ee, peep, peep, peep.

“Here they come,” he said. “Get ready.”

As they circled back and passed overhead, he raised his shotgun and fired. A wood duck fell to the water. While a Labrador retriever fetched it from the blackwater swamp run, he explained the subtle art of calling wood ducks.

“The flight call or alarm call rouses ducks from the water and doesn’t attract them to you,” he said. “Yet, most hunters make the mistake of blowing that call. A hen wood duck makes the same calls as a mallard – the hail or rallying call, comeback, feeding and contented call. They simply use a different language, making squeals and squeaks instead of quacks. They are easy sounds to imitate if you have the right call to begin with. You just have to listen to them on the water, rallying their broods for the dawn flight or calling them together after they have landed and make the call I just made. The comeback call is two or more low, drawn-out squeals. The feeding call is made like the mallard feed call, with a ticketing of the tongue against the mouthpiece. The contented call is just a low squeak, repeated in one to five single notes.”

It’s a passion

Jensen’s business was The Master’s Touch and he made and repaired furniture, cabinets and millwork at his shop in Wilmington, NC. He began making calls as a side business 25 years ago after he went duck hunting and became fascinated by the sport. His first call was a mallard call that was spirited from his shop by an employee without permission, until it was recovered in a happenstance fashion. 

“That first call has a simple, stippled decoration,” he said. “But now I carve all types of scenes into my waterfowl calls – flying ducks and geese, the dogs of the call’s owners and other scenes they want to remember.”

Jensen uses exotic and rare woods to make his calls – walnut, chestnut, cocobolo, ebony, teak. All of the woods have a history or tell a story.

He also wears a distinctive horseshoe mustache these days. Carved into his calls is an outline of his face, to go along with the motto on each custom call box, “For a call with class, go with the ‘stache.”

“I have made calls from old gunstocks, historic buildings and favorite trees and other woods,” he said. “It adds something extra to the call, eliciting an emotional bond between hunter and game.”

The most difficult part, disregarding the intricate carvings, is making the reed, or in the case of a call that doesn’t have a reed, creating the appropriately-sized and placed finger holes.

“I have hunted ducks, swans and geese in many places,” he said. “I started out hunting with Tommy Smith on some lakes on private property near the city lakes of Greensboro – Lake Brant and Lake Townsend. Most younger people don’t know that those lakes once had blinds open to the public. However, people who didn’t like hearing gunshots eventually had the hunting closed on them. But the private lakes nearby have great hunting for wood ducks, mallards, black ducks, teal, gadwalls, wigeons and Canada geese. Sometimes we even see dives including redheads and ringnecks.”

Proper calling techniques

He still hunts there, and has also hunted near Lake Mattamuskeet, New River, the Cape Fear River and its tributaries, Roanoke Rapids, Harris Lake and other places. He felt the need to create calls for most duck species.

“Most hunters can blow a mallard call, but they blow it too loud,” he said. “My mallard calls produce quieter sounds and are what most people call ‘timber calls,’” he said. “It’s tricky getting the reed right to make the feed call. Some hunters use two different calls, using a separate call only to make the feeding call. I make sure my calls make the feeding call easily, with a ticket, ticket, ticket tongued to the mouthpiece. Then the hail, comeback and contented quack fall into place. My calls are easy to blow.”

The trick to making the goose call is creating a soundboard that allows the reed to break with the reduction in back pressure. The opening in the call barrel is covered with the ring finger and little finger, or the call is cupped in both hands to block the air to make the high pitched, second note of the Canada goose. He said he makes sure it does so without taking so much air it makes the hunter dizzy.  

“The most important call a hunter can have strung around his neck is the combination call,” he said. “The pintail, teal, wigeon, wood duck call is extremely versatile. Think about it. More ducks whistle, squeal and peep than quack.”

All of Jensen’s call come with instructions. This is especially valuable with the combination call. It has two holes – one for the index finger and the other for the middle finger, in addition to the hole in the end of the barrel which can be covered with the ring or little finger or cupped in both hands to create back-pressure when blowing such two-note calls as the wood duck’s contented call.

“To make the flute-like sound of the pintail, hold the call with your first finger next to the first hole and middle finger completely covering the second hole,” he said. “Blow the call with a futtering of the tongue using quick short bursts varied in duration and pitch and mixed for variation and it sounds like a flock of pintails. You don’t flutter the tongue; just make short sharp bursts of air varying with the words wee, wee-eep pip.”

The teal call is made with the finger holes uncovered and saying tet, tet, tet with the tongue while the call is blown. The wigeon call is made with the finger holes uncovered by blowing a sharp whee-WEE-whee. Rocking the call and varying the sequence makes the sounds of an entire flock rather than a single wigeon.

The wood duck call is made with the finger nearly covering the second hole, blowing a long note and gradually increasing the back pressure while at the same time raising the finger from the hole to change the pitch to create the resting or contented squeal of the hen. The other notes of various wood duck calls are made by varying the finger position and air volume.

Check your sound

“Back in the day, you had to actually visit refuges and other areas that had ducks and geese and listen to them to try to imitate their calls,” he said. “Now, you can listen to recordings and videos to see how to make the various calls. With my calls, if you are having trouble or want confirmation that you are making the sounds correctly, you can give me a call and I will listen to you over the phone to make suggestions. I can also custom tune a call to what the user wants it to sound like in the field.”

The most important ingredient to success is practice, which can still be accomplished best by heading to a lake, river or marsh outside of hunting season or to a refuge or park lake anytime and listening to and calling to real waterfowl to see how they react.

“You don’t want to practice during hunting season,” he said. “You should already know what sounds work and what sounds don’t before you set out your decoys. The success you have is all in the call.” 

Why use a custom call?

Custom game calls are more effective, easier to blow and more beautiful to carry than mass-produced game calls. This particular R.H. Jensen wood duck call is carved from Riverwood. The first wood duck call crafted by Jensen, the reed was patterned after an old Scotch wood duck call he “stole” from Mike Marsh’s gunning bag during a hunt. He presented it, as well as the original call, to Marsh at a Carolina Beach DU Chapter banquet and fundraiser as thanks for his help with DU and other conservation organizations.

Riverwood is mined from the Cape Fear River and is more expensive per ounce than gold. It is sawn from old-growth cypress and longleaf pine saw logs that became waterlogged and sank in the river, likely from huge log rafts, over time that could be measured in centuries. The tight growth rings make the calls extremely durable and the yellow and browns of “petrification” are strikingly beautiful. Riverwood is a company that has exclusive rights to recover them. All R.H. Jensen game calls are made from woods that have a history or tell a story. Jensen will also carve calls from woods provided by customers, for example from a cherished tree or a gunstock that is a family heirloom or from an old building on a family farm. Others are rare and valuable woods including but not limited to chestnut, walnut, teak, and cocobolo. Jensen guarantees all of his calls. This one has had its reed and stopper assembly replaced and the carvings freshened through long years of field use.

Jensen also helps hunters by listening to their calls over the phone. Offering tips and retuning calls is part of the guarantee for his calls that are made to be handed down as family heirlooms. On request, he also carves custom hunting scenes, retrieving dogs and other reliefs into the call barrels.

To contact R.H. Jensen Game Calls, visit rhjensengamecalls.com or phone (910-231-6865).