My father was himself rather a wild duck.
Most of his duck hunting had happened before I was born.....
He was good at it, I guess. He still had, when I was a child, several different styles of duck caller. There were turkey callers too.
Most people don't even know what these things were.
They were wooden, reeded, musical instruments, really, like a tiny handheld oboe or clarinet. They had a fairly wide pitch range.
They made quacking and other sounds which the caller could control by both pitch, rhythm, and volume.
The hunter would hold the caller in his hand, with a strand suspended around his neck, and then when ducks would respond, he would drop the caller on its string, and with the other hand raise the shotgun to his shoulder...sort of a soloist kind of skill there.
The hunter would hold the caller in his hand, with a strand suspended around his neck, and then when ducks would respond, he would drop the caller on its string, and with the other hand raise the shotgun to his shoulder...sort of a soloist kind of skill there.
Anyway, I got a couple of duck breasts, and thought of him.
He was a baritone; got a place in the Ole Miss Choir. He could sing anything in his vocal range. So, duck calling was something he found easy to do, too.
Female mallards, for your information, are masters of atonality, an ideal to which my daughter also aspires.
One can imagine music competitions, only for atonality, where the judges make similar moves to those of hunters with duck caller...they have to put the caller down and raise the gun to fire.
He was a baritone; got a place in the Ole Miss Choir. He could sing anything in his vocal range. So, duck calling was something he found easy to do, too.
Female mallards, for your information, are masters of atonality, an ideal to which my daughter also aspires.
One can imagine music competitions, only for atonality, where the judges make similar moves to those of hunters with duck caller...they have to put the caller down and raise the gun to fire.
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