Best Duck Calls for Mallards and Puddle Ducks

How to choose a duck call

Every call on this page is scored on the same rubric, but three published details actually separate them for a working duck hunter: the reed system, the barrel material, and whether the maker backs the call with tuning and a warranty.

Reed system first. A double reed generally takes less air control to sound right and is the design several makers here pitch at new callers. A single reed can go louder and carries more of the call's tone in your mouth, which is why RNT describes its single reeds as calls you have to be able to drive. If you're not sure which side you land on, see our single reed vs double reed comparison.

Barrel material second. Acrylic, polycarbonate and wood each carry sound and hold up differently in the field. Our acrylic vs wood duck calls comparison walks through what the material changes and what stays the same.

Tuning and warranty support third, and it is a real gap in this lineup. Buck Gardner and RNT both publish a lifetime warranty and free retuning for the life of the call, and Buck Gardner sells matching tune-up kits for its own calls. Duck Commander and Haydel's publish neither a warranty length nor a tuning service on their own product pages for the calls below. That does not make those calls worse to blow, but it does mean you are on your own if a reed needs replacing two seasons in.

None of this replaces learning the call. Once you have picked one, our guide to blowing a duck call covers the air pressure and tongue position that actually make a double or single reed sound like a duck.

Reed systems, in the maker's own words

"Double reed" and "single reed" cover several different mechanical designs once you read the maker's own pages closely, and the design changes how you tune and troubleshoot the call.

The practical takeaway: Buck Gardner and RNT sell you a way to fix the call yourself or send it back for free. Haydel's built self-adjustment into the DR-85's wedge instead of offering a factory service. Duck Commander publishes neither, so its strongest selling point is the ease-of-blowing claim itself, not long-term serviceability.

What each maker says about sound

Volume and range aren't independently measured; every description below is the maker's own claim, exactly as published, and it counts for 15% of the score.

How we scored these

Each call is scored on five published metrics: reed system and ease of learning (30%), barrel material and build (20%), tunability and serviceability (20%), the sound range described in the maker's own materials, labeled as the maker's claim (15%), and warranty terms (15%). The full weighting and how ties are broken are published on how we score. These are editorial reads of manufacturer spec sheets, product manuals and warranty pages, not results from calling these ourselves in a blind.

What a mallard call has to do

Almost every duck call sold in the United States is a mallard call, because the mallard hen is the voice the whole vocabulary is built on: the quack, the greeting call, the feed chuckle, the comeback and the lonesome hen are all her. A call sold for pintails or teal is a whistle, and a goose call is a different instrument entirely. So when people search for the best duck calls for mallards, what they are really choosing between is reed count, material and how much volume they can control — which is exactly what this page ranks.

Rasp is the mallard-specific quality. A hen mallard's quack is not a clean note; it has a break in it, and calls that produce that break easily sound more like a duck at close range. Double reeds give you rasp with almost no effort, which is why the two highest-scoring calls on this page are double reeds. Single reeds can produce it too, with more air control and more range on either side of it.

Match the call to the water before you match it to the species. A mallard over flooded timber and a mallard over a two-hundred-acre lake need opposite calls: soft and raspy in one, loud and carrying in the other. We split those two cases out on their own pages — best duck calls for timber and best duck calls for open water — and the picks there are drawn from this same ranking.

Picking by situation

First season, or handing a call to someone new: every double reed here will get you calling faster than a single reed will. If you want the list narrowed to only the calls their makers explicitly built for beginners, see best duck calls for beginners.

Wet blinds and cold fronts: the Double Nasty's toneboard is the one call here with a specific maker's claim about blowing wet. The Mallard Magic and the acrylic RNT calls hold up fine in the cold too; wood is the material to watch in a wet, freezing blind.

Big open water, long-range calling: the Daisy Cutter Acrylic is the single reed RNT itself rates above its Short Barrel for volume. It is not the call to learn on.

Flooded timber and close work: a double reed you can soften down, or a single reed you have already learned to control, both work. Volume matters less than tone in tight holes.

Heavily hunted public land, call-shy birds: variety matters more than any single call's spec sheet. A single reed you can drive well gives you more tonal range to sound different from the last three callers those ducks have already heard this week.

Every call on this page makes a hen mallard noise, which covers one bird of one sex of one species. The drake mallard whistle, the pintail trill, the wigeon three-note and the wood duck squeal all come off a different kind of call — see best duck whistles, which is also the cheapest useful call purchase on this site and the one to reach for when hen calling has stopped working.

Who should skip all of these

Calling Canada geese instead of ducks: see best goose calls, which uses short-reed and flute-style calls scored on the same rubric. Hunting the spring light-goose conservation order and considering an electronic caller: read electronic caller laws first, since federal rules bar recorded or amplified calls for regular waterfowl seasons.

A duck call is one piece of a spread, not the whole plan. A call that sounds right but works over a spread that doesn't hold birds' attention still won't finish ducks; see our best duck decoys picks for the other half of that equation, and the full duck hunting gear list for everything else on the checklist. If your budget for a call is a firm number rather than a preference, best duck calls under the hundred-dollar mark runs the same rubric across the calls below that line — two of which outscore acrylics several times their price.

Who should skip buying a new call at all: if you already own a double reed you can run confidently and you're happy with its tone, a higher score here isn't a reason to replace it. The rubric measures published specs and support, not whether your current call still works for your water.