Bear Grease - Ep. 353: This Country Life - The Dixie Mallard Duck Call

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Finders keepers, losers weepers. Both of these phrases describe fortune and misfortune depending on how you view the discarded, lost, or found item. Brent shares a crazy story of a found item from 40 years ago that sat neglected in a box until he found it again and learned its historical significance. A rare duck call whose value can't be measured by money alone. You're gonna like this one. It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.  https://www.instagram.com/thepublictimberproject?igsh=MWZvcHN3MXpndGd5dA== https://www.facebook.com/share/1CHbfcgiJy/?mibextid=wwXIfr Shop This Country Life Merch Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.

Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Nives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts the airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.

The Dixie Mallard Duckaw. There's an old saying that I've heard all my life that goes like this. Every now and then, even a blind hog will find an acre. Now I've taken the meaning to me that even the unskilled, unlucky, and generally unsuccessful can achieve a modicum of greatness even by chance. I've done that on more than one occasion, my wife and children being pinnacle examples of my fortune. I'm going to give you another example of that old saying right now,

and the story is the whole episode. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started. In 1983, the hunting pressure on public land was a lot different than it is now, but it was still having to share the woods with hunter hunters. My brother Tim and I shied away from those well-known public places, like the ones that had made Stuttgart, Arkansas, the place for folks to duck hunt. Green timber duck hunting remains the experience of all experiences as far as we are concerned, and we could do that right where we lived in our sacred Saline River bottoms.

The timber company land we were hunting on was as public as it got, except for the deer hunting. In the days before leasing, hunting clubs staked out their areas through generational gentlemen agreements. Deer Camp A hunted from this map feature to that map feature encompassing hundreds if not thousands of acres of upland and river bottom timber. Deer Camp B started where Deer Camp A's claim stopped, and so it went for all of the tens of thousands of timber company acres owned by the Potlatch Lumber Company. A timber concerned it purchased the land and all the timber that grew on it inheriting the deer camp claims from the Southern Lumber Company and the Bradley Lumber Company in 1958, both of which operated lumber mills on each side of town in Warren, Arkansas. Coincidentally, the train that ferried pine chips from one mill to the other was the same one that

I and a fellow sophisticated had hopped on in front of the Westside Elementary, shortly after getting off the school bus, trading a day of sixth grade. education for cigarettes, snooker, and cheeseburgers from a diner in the middle of town. But that's not what we're talking about, not today. So let's get back to the duck hunting. Deer camps claim deer hunting rights only on potlatch's land. Squirrels, coons, turkeys, rabbits, quailed, and ducks were there for anyone who wanted to go. Deer season wasn't nearly as long back in the day, but really only the first week counted.

That's when folks took vacation, businesses closed, and school let out. You heard me right. School let out. The money on the first week of deer season, whether you deer hunted or not, you didn't go to school. Now, on the flip side of deer hunting was everything else. Most folks I knew had squirrel dogs or coon dogs or bird dog or any combination of them. The outliers were the duck dogs. A few folks had them and fewer folks duck hunted.

And while it would be years before Tim or I ever owned a Labrador retriever, fetching our own ducks in the flooded timber of the Saline River Bottoms wasn't a chore, especially considering that we were the only folks there. We never ran into anyone. And we spent a large portion of our time walking slews and bows and hardwood flats that fluctuated in depth with the amount of rounds. rain. Beavers were our most valued allies in the dams they built in the fall shoved water out into the flatwoods. All the acorns of the red oak family, the preferred varieties of mallards, they lay

patiently waiting for the water to rise and the ducks to find them as they rested and fed along their migration and followed the ever-rising river water that crept along the landscape. In good years, with adequate duck hatches, rain, and cold fronts, the only good difference between the flooded timber of the self-proclaimed duck capital of the world in Stuttgart and the river bottoms where we lived was the zip code. Some folks didn't believe me when I told them that they were running all over creation chasing ducks while Tim and I were smashing them right out the back door. Of course, I didn't tell them until it was all over and the leasing started. But for several years when the conditions were perfect in Stuttgart, the conditions were good.

at home. That's how it worked. We'd catch the overflow of ducks during the big migration years, and we were what we named a fringe location that would be good when the regular places were great. It was a 40 miles one-way trip from where we stood in the middle of the river bottoms in Cleveland County to ground zero of the public shooting grounds near Stuttgart. The average flying speed of a mall or duck is somewhere around 30 or 40 miles an hour. I know folks that drive farther than that to work every day. Forty miles ain't no step for a stepper, as they say. Which explains why on more than one occasion we killed ducks in the bottoms that had crawls full of rice.

Why were they leaving the food-laden richness of the rice fields where their travel routes were undisturbed and wide open for acres and acres to fly for an hour in pitching the decor through a hole in the canopy that required acrobatics unmatched by the most skilled of test pilots. Why were they doing that? I don't know. Why were two boys that had the same thing out their back door, driving an hour and a half to walk into a place they'd never hunted just to say they went hunting in a place so popular it had more than one name? The Scatters, Biomeda, the shooting grounds, the public shooting grounds, all referred

to one seemingly massive. magical place that holds almost as many memories from me now as my beloved river bottoms do. Maybe that's why we went, because of the romance of it. All the books we'd read and Tim reading them first and passing them down to me, Duck hunting was our thing, mine and his. I learned to love it because he did, and I loved him. I'd pestered him to go to the scatters and finally. he took me. I was old enough to go by myself. I wasn't 18. I was close to it, but we always

duck hunting together if we were able. This trip would be no different. We pulled into the parking lot that had 10 to 15 trucks already there. We'd gotten there later than we planned, and it was close to sunrise. Seeing that many vehicles in one spot where we'd be walking in behind folks in a place we'd never been, well, it was more than disheartening. but we'd committed and we were going to check this box and do the best we could. We headed out the same trail to everyone else had, judging by the sloppy boot tracks that led from the similarly swampy parking area into the flooded woods. By the time the sun started sneaking up,

we'd walked about a quarter of a mile from the truck and could hear folks calling, but none were very close to where we were. We saw some preening feathers on the water, floating and the ones that get left when ducks are sitting around relaxing, nibbling, and fixing their clothes. The waterfowl version of primping. Tim found a little hole in the timber and we dropped 11 decores scattered around in the opening.

Number 12 had blown out of the back of the truck somewhere between New Edinburgh and where we parked. I vowed to look for it on the way back home. Ducks started flying and others started shooting before we did and I thought, and I felt like I had really wasted the morning. You only get so many of these mornings. And at that stage of our hunting lives, shooting ducks may not have been the most important part of the activity,

but Pardinay wasn't far. Then, as if right on cue, we got a small group to work, and after making loop after loop, they settled into the hole. Each of us calling, begging them through the treetops until they hit the water 50 feet in front of us. Tim Holler, get them!

and we stepped out from behind the trees the ducks got up and we started shooting. He got two and I got one. That was the only group that came in and we couldn't have been more happy. We saw a lot of ducks flying but they weren't working our area. Slowly we began to hear the calling and the shooting from the other groups subside until we were the only folks left. Not being known as quitters, we stayed until we had to leave to be out. before the midday deadline. We slashed our way back to the parking lot

arriving on a slightly different course than we left on. The scatters are known for that, and even today, with the advent of GPS every year you hear about someone who wound up spending the night because they were lost, some even burning decoys to stay warm. Regardless, we'd made it back, and had that parking lot been a indicator of the heavenly rapture,

it had happened and neither one of us had made the cut. Everyone was gone. Just my truck, me, and Tim, and an acre of ankle-deep, sloppy, buckshot, mud, and gravel. Well, if this was the rapture, that twelfth decoy wasn't going to do us any good because heat that night and for the rest of eternity was not going to be a problem.

But in spite of the fact that we got a little off-course on the way out, I was feeling good about what we'd done. We followed a roadmap to a parking spot, walked into a place we'd never been, and brought out a mess of ducks, calling them in and shooting them the right way after letting them finish on water. While I changed out my canvas waiters,

I'd bought it to Farmers' Co-op, I saw the barrel of a duck call barely discernible in the mud beside my tire. I picked it up, and I could see that it had been there for quite a while. I slung the mud off and out of it and I showed it to Tim and I dropped it in the left hand pocket of my green Army field jacket I'd bought at a surplus store. We've planned to clean it up and see more about it when we got home, but I forgot about it. So did Tim. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building

each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods,

they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts. at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did,

and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. It was sitting in the pocket of that surplus jacket hanging in the back of my closet for, I don't know how long before I found it again.

And when I did, I put it in a box, only to be stored away with a bunch of hunting items and keepsakes that got moved from assignment to assignment over the next 30 years until a few years ago when I ran across that old friend once again. This time, I wasn't in a hurry to get somewhere else, and I recognized it immediately by it still having some of the mud from that parking lot stuck inside that wooden barrel. Instantly, I was back to that morning that started out somewhat suspect, but ended with a group of ducks decoing into the water that I can remember to this very moment as if it were this morning.

There would be hundreds more in our future as Tim and I would guide people there within the confines of the shooting grounds for nearly 30 years, starting a decade after that first day. The day I found this old call I now held in my hands, a small piece of black string still attached to the barrel as a makeshift lanyard. The frayed in telling the tale in the fate of the hunter and how he lost that call. A wooden piece of turned wood that was nondescript with no high gloss finish or colorful decals or engraving.

Mud turned to powder when I touched it and wiped it away almost as clean as if it had never been there. There's no cracks in the barrel. I wiped it off with a damp cloth until no dirt or residue from that day I found it remained. I went to the hardware store and bought a can of linseed oil and I put on a coat when I got back home. And that's when I saw it.

On the insert, the part that holds the reed at the end of the call, you know, where the sound comes out, are three thin, close parallel lines cut into the wood as it spun on the callmaker's lake. One more adorn the collar where the insert and the barrel maker, and then three more at the widest part of the barrel and another set near the end. But in between the two decorative sets of thin lines on the barrel of the call, there's a brand. A one-word brand, the callmaker burned into the call, and it reads Dixie in all capital letters.

When I saw it, I sat back in my chair. Could this really be what I'm looking at? Because what I found 40 years ago that languished in the pocket of an old hunting coat and moved from home to home as I stumbled my way through life each time shedding myself of items that I didn't want to include them to move, but miraculously hung on to a piece of real Arkansas duck hunting history. Yeah, that's exactly what I'd do. I'd found an original Dixie Mallorougham.

Duck Call, a highly collectible and sought after call made by the man himself in the 1940s. That man's name was Chick. Chick Major. Chick was the nickname of Darcy Manning Major. He was born in 1894 and was a well-known figure in the world of duck hunting and duck calling in Arkansas. He was instrumental in the development of the distinctive Arkansas. style duck call, an absolute legend not only in the annals of Arkansas duck hunting, but to the call-making and collecting world at large.

The chick major's Dixie Mallard duck call has been a staple for hunters and collectors since he started producing them for himself. When other hunters heard them, they wanted them too. And the first production calls started in 1940, one at a time, and completely by hand. and for 10 years, he burned Dixie into each barrel before they left his workbench. That would continue until 1950 when the decorative decals replaced the Dixie brand. Now, fortunately, for me, by this time, the interwebs had been invented, and I found the contact information of a man named Don Cahill.

Mr. Cahill married Brenda, one of Chick Major's daughters, and had continued on the legacy of the callmaking after Mr. Major passed away in 1974. Don Cahill continued on the legacy of building. The Dixie Mallard call started the next year in 1975. Now, I contacted Mr. Cahill and described the call I'd found way back when and then rediscovered a couple more times in my trove of treasures as I moved around and I sent him a picture of it to see if it was, in fact, an old, Dixie Mallard call.

He said, yep, that's an old one, made during the 1940s. And we talked about it for a while and visited about duck hunting in general and tried to make plans to talk in person where he could see the call for himself. Our schedule's never allowed for the visit time marched on and Mr. Cahill passed away in November of 2023. Don's son David had taken over the business, several years' priority is passing and has now, as a little over a year ago, turned the reins over of the call company to the fourth generation, his son, Tyler Cahill, the great-grandson of Chick-Major.

I spoke with each of them about this call I have recently and was pleased to find out that they still have a legacy passion for call-making that runs deep, not only in the history of their family, but in the history of Arkansas and duck hunting as well. that makes them a part of my family or me a part of theirs however you want to look at it. While talking to Tyler, I skirted the question of his manufacturing progress. In today's world of CNC machine and 3D printing and AI generated content, I didn't want to hear that something his great-grandfather could have never envisioned would be how these calls were being made today.

So I skipped forward to, hey, Tyler, I have a first generation call. How do I go about getting one of yours, a fourth generation call to match it? The answer I expected wasn't what I received. He said, well, Mr. Brent, I picked up a lot of orders, and it takes about three and a half hours to make one that doesn't include the tuning. And I stopped him right there. You making these by hand, Tyler? Oh, yes, sir, just like my great-grandfather. Man, I can't tell you how happy that made me to hear him say that.

In today's world where just the other day a friend of mine sent me a picture of me from high school that he turned into a video of me interacting with the camera. I never know exactly what to believe, what's right and what ain't. But this, man, this was different. Here's a family legacy and heritage built on craftsmanship and utilitarian art that is continuing now in its 85th year and fourth generation. What's better than that? Nothing. Nothing's better than that.

These are the stories of the people that deserve to be told and remembered, not just for the sake of nostalgia, but for the sake of how we got where we are. In a way, that duck call is a cave painting. It's a piece of Americana that continues to tell a relevant story just by being. I met the third and the fourth generations of Cahills this week, and I talked to both of them about our common interest and love for duck hunting. Several years ago, I had the pleasure of sharing those same thoughts with the second generation of that call-making family. The only one I never had the pleasure of talking to was the patriarch, the first generation. Mr. Chick Major himself as I was but a slip of a lad of eight when he died.

I'm sitting here looking at this old piece of hand-turned walnut and cedar, and I can feel the cold wind of the day I found it 42 years ago. I can hear Tim and I calling those ducks in the sound of their wings as they settled into the decoys with a splash. I can hear our boots as we waded through the timber back to the truck and feel the wet, gritty, muddy barrel of that call as I snatched it from the mud and gravel like King Arthur pulled Excalibur from the stone. I may not have had the pleasure of speaking to Chick Major, but Chick Major speaks to me every time I look at that call.

I thank you so much for listening. I'm going to post some pictures of that old call on my social media. And if you're interested in learning more about the folks who made and make them, check out Dixie Maller Duck calls on Instagram and Facebook. If you're a duck hunter, you owe it to yourself to find out where we came from. And there's no better place to start than with Chick Major and his family. Now, the Public Timber Project is another page I encourage you to check out. They've got a great mission and a goal of all of us working together to better

and share the places we all love so much. There's some good folks doing some good things that they really could use your support and your help and recognition. We need to get the word out there about it. Check out Claibos Bear Grease, the Render, and Lake's new show Backwoods University. How could you not like it? His name is Lake, for goodness sake.

So until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing all. Y'all be careful. First Lights Fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts.

Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.com.