I’ve spent a lot of my life around duck and goose calling contests. Not just competing in them, but sticking around before and after. Listening. Watching who people gravitate toward. Seeing who’s teaching, who’s hiding, and who’s already checked out.
So when people ask me if calling contests are dead, I don’t get offended. But I don’t give them a clean answer either. I’m not sure there is one. Because the truth is, they’re not dead.
But they’re not what they once were.
There was a time when the streets of Stuttgart were absolutely flooded during contest weekends. Shoulder to shoulder. You couldn’t go anywhere without running into callers, hunters, families, people there to celebrate, people who just wanted to hear what the best in the world actually sounded like. Going to Worlds wasn’t optional. It was non-negotiable. Winning meant something. Even just being there meant something.
Those were the glory days. That part isn’t up for debate.
From the mid-90s through about 2010, calling contests were everywhere. Parking lots. Convention centers, storefronts, small stages, big stages, state contests, regionals, the U.S. Open, the Winchester World Open, the World Goose in Easton, Maryland, and the World Duck in Stuttgart. The chairs were full. Prize packages were worth traveling for. There was prize money that, for some guys, rivaled a salary.
Lights up.
“Caller, would you like a warm-up?”
Lights down.
“Judges, this is for competition.”
Eighty seconds. Ten seconds left. Finish strong.
Judges behind the curtain, scoring every note; opening highballs, greeters, lay-downs, comebacks, finishing feed… All of it judged on realism and mind blowing control. That stage mattered so much to us.
Big companies were invested. Avery, Greenhead Gear, Benelli, Cabela’s, Mack’s Prairie Wings, Sportsman’s Warehouse, Canada included. Calling contests weren’t a novelty, they were a pipeline, and for a lot of us, they were everything. There were weekends we traveled to a contest and brought home every trophy there was to win. We were riding high. Other weekends, we got our asses handed to us, and we loved every second of it. Because competition makes you better. Calling contests are the reason The Fowl Life and Banded were born. They were held close, sacred; they shaped who we became.
So what happened?
I can see that part of it was success. A lot of callers became established. Breaking into the top ten in any contest was brutal. Routines started to sound the same, judges were hearing the same cadences, sometimes even the same copied sequences. Slowly, the competition side started to lose its edge.
Then the money started fading. Companies invested less, prize packages shrank; it stopped making sense to drive a few hundred miles, pay for fuel, food, and lodging, just to compete for something that barely covered the trip.
Then the the internet came into play, and particularly, Youtube. YouTube made it easy to see routines and hear exactly what the best callers were doing. Instead of motivating more people to step on stage, it convinced a lot of them they never could. I could never sound like that. But that was never true, and it’s still not true.
Calling contests used to be the place where you could walk up to Tim Grounds or Jim Ronquest or Fred Zink and ask for their opinion. Ask them to listen to part of your routine and get real feedback. They were a place where you could learn from your heroes.
Somewhere along the way, social media convinced people they could skip that part. They could bypass competing altogether and go straight to having a channel, a following, and instant credibility. It’s like a country singer blowing up on TikTok without ever playing honky-tonks and beer joints for five people and a bartender. You might get famous, but you really miss the foundation.
Without that foundation, the contests started to disappear. Most didn’t die in a big bang. They just slowly thinned out. Lighter prize packages. Smaller crowds. Fewer entries. Today, you can go to the World Goose Calling Championship in Easton, Maryland and darn near count the audience on your fingers.
That part hurts. But here’s the thing people get wrong;
This isn’t a talent problem.
Some of the best callers in the world right now are young, and most people in the old circles have never heard their names. Every once in a while, one of them shows up and absolutely smokes a room. You feel it immediately. You know when something special just walked in.
That part gives me hope.
What worries me is the gap between generations. Calling contests only survive if knowledge gets passed down. Not hoarded and protected like a secret recipe. In our world, knowledge needs to be passed down. The greats understood that. They competed hard, but they taught even harder. They stood behind the stage, listening, making mental notes, and then they helped perfect things.
That’s why guys like Butch Richenbach and Tim Grounds were so important, and still matter deeply to this community. Not just because they won, but because they created other winners. We need more of that.
I actually think some of the old guard should still be competing. Not to prove anything, that’s already been done, but to stay visible, connected, to keep the spark alive. But if you’re going to stay in it, you’ve got to be willing to teach. You can’t just show up, win, and disappear. That’s how things fade.
Will calling contests ever make a comeback? I don’t know. Who carries that torch? I don’t know that either. But I do know this:
This art still means a lot to a lot of us.
The sound still hits,
and the right call, at the right moment, will still stop you cold.
We just can’t expect the future to show up if we’re only looking backward.
Keep talkin’.