Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander

pulled up a chair!

    The green-winged teals go fast around our table, especially if Willie has pulled up a chair!

    Of course, the species I dislike the most is the Steven Seagal ducks—the ones that are hard to kill!
    The very first duck call I made in 1972 was the Original Commander Call, which was designed for the mallard hen. The mallard is probably the most recognizable of all ducks and is the ancestor of many of the breeds we see in the United States. The mallard hen is covered in feathers of uneven hues from buff to very dark brown and usually has a brown or orange bill. The male mallard has a white neck ring, which separates its distinctive green head from its chestnut-brown chest. The rest of its body is mottled in lighter brown to gray to black, and its speculum feathers are a distinct purple-blue with black and white edging. Themale mallard’s bill is yellow, and its legs and feet are bright coral red. The male mallard is really a beautiful bird. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from dropping them from the sky whenever I’m given the chance!
    I made the mallard-hen call first because most ducks will respond to that kind of sound. We still make the Original Commander Call today, and each one tends to sounds different because every one is still made by hand from wood. Of course we still blow on every call to make sure it sounds exactly right. The Original Commander Call is the quintessential duck “quack,” and the mallard hen typically gives the call in a series of two to ten quacks that start loud and get softer as she goes (sounds a lot like a woman I know at home). Now, not all mallard hens sound exactly the same. When you’re blowing on an Original Commander Call to attract a mallard hen, you can quicken and sharpen the cadence to replicate a young mallard hen, or slow down and draw out the cadence to get an old, raspy mallard hen. There are three distinctive sounds for a mallard hen: quack, feed call, and hail call. The mallard hen call is very versatile and effective.
    The Mallard Drake Call came along next. We were the first company to build one, so we patented it so our competitors couldn’t copy our design. The male mallard doesn’t quack; it’s more of a quiet, raspy sound. When I set out to build the Mallard Drake, I superglued various sizes of PVC pipe together and finallymastered it. When I finally built a call that sounded exactly like a male mallard, I went tearing into our house and told Miss Kay, “I have it! We’re going to revolutionize duck calls as we know them!”
    I blew on the Mallard Drake Call for her.
    “What is that?” she asked me. “Is it a frog?”
    If you blow too high on a Mallard Drake Call, you really do sound like a tree frog—and there’s no meat on those suckers! You have to catch the plump bullfrogs if you want a meal. The Mallard Drake Call is different from any other duck call. With most calls, you say, “Ten, ten, ten,” while you’re blowing into it. But with the Mallard Drake, you’re basically saying, “Aaaaah,” on a very low bass note as you raise your fingers off the call. It’s an easy thing to do, unless you’re a tenor. The Mallard Drake Call is controlled by your vocal cords and is really a whistle with a stem on it. You have to remember that when you’re on an amplifier, whether it’s with a guitar or any other musical instrument, you get maximum vibration when you hit a bass note. So you have to go really, really low when you’re calling mallard drakes.
    Conversely, there are three types of ducks that are whistlers: teal, wigeon, and pintail. Believe it or not, I built our first whistle from a children’s musical toy set. None of the flutes and horns in the toy set sounded like a duck, but after I spent an hour with a band saw and used plenty of superglue, I built a whistle that sounded like six birds! For pintails, you put your finger in theopening while you’re blowing; for wigeons and teals, you blow straight into the whistle. You can even use our whistle to call mallard drakes, doves, or quails if you want. That’s why we call our whistle a six-in-one call.
    The green-winged teal is the smallest of the North American dabbling ducks. It has a short neck and small bill, and its chestnut head has a green eye patch that extends to the nape of its neck. It’s another pretty bird. Male green-winged teals have a high-pitched, single-note peep sound, while females are relatively quiet. But the females will let out a sharp,