In this video, Jason Cruise shares his insights on the essential duck calls every hunter should own. He emphasizes the importance of a Drake whistle, a two-reed call, and a cut-down call for effective duck hunting. Jason includes practical advice on choosing and using these calls, along with personal anecdotes and experiences from hunting seasons. He also highlights the value of a versatile lanyard setup to ensure quick access to the right call in various hunting situations.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
You know, it seems to me that for a duck hunter, you're either going into duck season, coming out of duck season, or you're in duck season. And so it's the summer. We're here at the lodge. I'm here at the kitchen table. And, I think about all the meals that we have during duck season here. You know, there's a lot of ministry happens at this table. A lot of eternal conversations. And and I think, you know, we bring I bring a lot of guys down here that are, you know, everything from executives to songwriters, pastors, just all kinds of different people that come in and out. But 1 of the things that I do notice and this conversation happens a lot, so I thought I'd talk about it, is what what kind of duck call should I buy? We do I do have duck collars that'll come on these hunts, but sometimes it seems like most of the time, I'm the guy that does most of the calling, and I would love that for not to be the case, but but, it ends up being the way it is. But I I would there's a lot of guys that that can call, that should call, that don't call, and and and I would tell you, I'm gonna put a video in the in the notes here, and it's called the single greatest truth about duck calling. And I think that's what we called it. It's an older Mossberg video, but it is so worth it.
It may be the highest watched video, I think, or maybe 1 of the highest watched videos of the rugged American hunter series ever. It's in the top 5II think for sure, but, now I'm second guessing myself, but it's up there. But it it because it's because it hit a nerve and, I ain't gonna give it away, but I'm gonna talk to you about it. If you're gonna buy some duct calls, here's some duct calls you need to buy and have on your lane. The first is just what I would call a a Drake whistle. You know, and, man, I just can't believe the number of guys that don't have any of these on their lanyards, even the guys that call DUTS. This is a DUT, man. If you can pull a jerk rig and do that, you can call ducks and kill ducks all day long. A 10 year old can do that, and I just I'm telling you it works. Works. Tin tail. Widgeon. Alright. Teal. Barely put and then this thing is just it's awesome. And I'm telling you, that is 1 of my go to calls. But if you can have that on your lanyard and just do that and pull a jerk rig, the best duck call in the world is loving you because you're another duck, and and he needs that help. And now let me get let's get into now some of our duck calls and this is a a 2 recall.
Man, I don't there's a lot of ego out there and go, oh, he's blowing a 2 recall. Man, I just don't listen to that. If you can call a duck to your barrel, you're winning. And and if it if this is what ducks wanna hear, this is what I'm calling that day. And so it's just a 2 recall. And nice thing about it, you don't have to put much air pressure on it at all, which helps you from not blowing too hard. Watch this, I'm not I'm not even gonna put my lips on it. Hear it? I mean, I never even put my lips on the call. So, you can get real soft with the 2 recall and I like that. We hunt a lot of open water and because we hunt a lot of open water, I have a single recall. This happens to be an echo, but there's a lot of companies out there that are great and I would suggest you just finding the 1 you like and going from there. But it's a 2 week call and and I love it. Call up a lot of ducks with it. I can get loud with it. Now, another call that I do have, even though we hunt a lot of open water, I have a cut down call. And a and a cut down call is something that, is goes way back in duck history. A lot of old timers way way I mean, way older than me.
A 100 years ago, maybe even. I mean, maybe even that far, had these timber calls. It's more of a timber call, but it's made to to to really sound muddy like a lot. It just barks in that timber. But I will tell you, it makes me think about something that goes for all duck calling. You you know, duck timber collars, you know, they're blowing down on that water with this with this cut down call. Not that you have to do that, but I was taught that by an older duck hunter 1 time that, you know, just blowing that down, it carries that sound. But I will tell you why that's also a good thing to do, to learn to call call down to the water. So many guys call up to the duck, and when you're calling up to that duck, you're just blowing him out, man. You know, bap bap You know, just calm down. Whatever you did, I'm I'm not gonna blow that out. I didn't wanna try to blow it because it's so loud in here. We have concrete floors. So, anyway, but just learn to calm down. So, those are the kind of the duct systems I have. So, I'll give you 1 1 last little help if you're kinda new to duct calling and what kind of calls to buy. I keep my I do have a speckle buddy, we have a lot of specs, so I keep a speck on there.
So really I only have, honestly, you can do 3 calls. I keep my my 2 recall on my right side, so I always not I'm not trying to find it looking down. I can find I can reach down there on my right. I got my single recall on my left, so I always know where it's at. And so when ducks are around, if I want if he's getting far out there, if I have a lot of wind, I I know I can go to my left side and get that. So, double on my right, single on my left, and my favorite is my my 6 in 1 here in the middle, right there, and that's I'll touch them with that sometimes before I touch them with anything just to see what that'll do. That's that's my lanyard and I'll give you 1 other thing I put on here is a whistle. If you have a dog, if your battery happens to go dead on your on your e collar, having an extra whistle, if you lose your whistle, having an extra whistle, I keep 1 on my e collar lanyard, but I keep a whistle here too because I can work my dog all day with that. So that's what I would encourage you to get if I were starting out today, start out with a drape whistle, maybe a 6 in 1, start with that and a 2 recall, and you can kill ducks all day long with that.