Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Katie Burke: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. It's your host, Katie Burke. And today on the show, I have a special guest, Rick Milligan, call and decoy collector. Welcome to the show, Rick.
Rick Milligan: Katie, I'm honored to be here. Thank you.

Katie Burke: So you are in town. Let's just let everybody know why you're here. I think that's the most important part, to put your call collection in the museum.

Rick Milligan: I am. Yeah. I'm just kind of still, you know, floating in an out of body experience here. I really am. It's such an honor. And yeah, I feel like I'm on the shoulders of giants. I mean, the people that have come before me, like, you know, Doug Lodermeier and guys like Mike Lewis and Howard Harlan and Ryan Graves. I mean, these are my contemporaries and they're just, you know, super smart guys. And I'm just happy to be mentioned in the same sentence with all of them.

Katie Burke: Well, I mean some of them, it's okay. Don't blow up Ryan's head too much. But yeah, so just to give people an idea, today is the 7th of December, so we're gonna install it tomorrow on the 8th and it'll be ready to see, let's say the 9th, it'll be ready to see.

Rick Milligan: We got some work to do.

Katie Burke: Yeah, we got some work to do, so feel free. I mean, this will come out later, but it'll be out and in the museum and come see it. All right, so let's… I like to, with all of my guests, to kind of go back to the very beginning. Well, and that this is also fun, like your son's here in the studio, which is kind of fun. He's probably not gonna say anything. But I want to mention this because I actually interviewed my dad on the podcast once. And it was fun because I got him to say things I never would have probably heard otherwise, like, because you don't think to tell your kids this stuff. So yeah, let's go back to the very beginning. How you got interested in the outdoors and hunting and just how that all came about was were you introduced by your father or grandfather?

Rick Milligan: Well, my son is in the studio, and I think he's kind of looked at me crossways for a long time. Like, you're doing what? You're collecting what? And it's kind of all come together. But to go back, yeah, my dad was an outdoorsman. He was a hunter. And in fact, both my parents are gone now, but the story is told that they actually went pheasant hunting on their honeymoon, much to my mother's chagrin, I'm sure. You wouldn't believe this if you knew my dad, but I'm the oldest of seven kids, and so when I came home from the hospital as a baby, my mom said, all the guns have to go. Now, if you knew my dad, you'd say there's no way he'd comply with that, but he did. And I don't know how many he had, but… I always talked about that little 410, sweet little 410. I've tried to find it, I can't. But he and I never got to walk the fields together. And every once in a while, I would reminisce about it and talk about it. And my father left this earth way too young, over 37 years ago. And so it was probably, I was just a young adult. I'm even younger than Adam here, who's in the studio with us, but I always had a fondness for it. And he, Adam, who's actually part of this story, he got into trap shooting and he got really good at it. And I thought he was really going to become a competitive shooter. And then one day he discovered this sport called lacrosse and it's the same season. But when he was very young, he said, dad, when are we going to do this for real? I said, what are you talking about? That's real ammunition. That's a real gun. No, no, I mean birds. And so I said, okay, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. We're going to hire a guide and this is what I've always wanted to do, just like you. And so a couple of decades ago, that's what we did. We went out and we had our first hunt, he and I together with a couple of friends and a guide and hooked, completely head over heels hooked. And that's kind of how the hunting started. And then right around that same time, I attended an… It's the Ohio Dequay Carvers and Collectors Association show, their annual show. And I went with some friends, and I saw a duck call, and it was a Glenn Scobie. You're welcome, Tennessee. I still have that call. It was a Glen Scobie duck call with a painted mallard on it in the box and I brought it home and I put it on the shelf and that was all she wrote. I think I always had a collecting bug and that was it. I just fell for it.

Katie Burke: Head over heels. I've noticed a lot with collectors. Yeah, most of them, they usually always have it. Did you collect anything before that? Were you always a kid who collected stuff?

Rick Milligan: Yes. Yeah. Again, rest my mother's soul. She's looking me cross ways with that baseball car collection. Believe it or not, I wasn't even old enough to have a beverage, but I had like a beer can collection. I mean, why? I don't know why she tolerated that. I don't know. But yeah, I always collected various things, and so I always had the bug, but nothing like this. And I was very fortunate to, very early on, meet a gent named Mike Paul. Mike was a very talented call maker from Ohio, and he kind of took me under his wing. And I kind of credit him as one of my mentors because he introduced me to everybody. And, oh my gosh, I've only forgot. I have one of Mike's calls that I wanted to bring to DU because Mike passed away last year. Yesterday was his birthday. And I wanted Mike to be here with me. Sorry, I'm getting choked up because he's… He was a really cool guy. Yeah.

Katie Burke: How old were you when you met him?

Rick Milligan: Oh, gosh. If I have to disclose, I'm 59 now. This is the point you're supposed to say you don't look that old. It was close to 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And he just introduced me to everybody. I have, you know, over 20 of his calls in my collection. I wanted Mike to be here with me, and yeah, he was just a great, great guy.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's a pretty call.

Rick Milligan: He was one of the founders, one of the 32 founders of the Callmakers and Collectors Association of America. He was a past president. And he was the one that got me on the board for CCAA. And said, you know, I even told him, I said, Mike, I don't know if I'm ready. You know, he goes, you're ready. Yeah, this is, this is your time. Let's, let's do this. And he pushed me and encouraged me. And so I owe him so much. I wanted him to be here. So.

Katie Burke: Yeah. So you, did you meet him? At what point when you started collecting did you meet him?

Rick Milligan: Um, pretty early on. Yeah. It was. Again, so many things just like the planets just aligned. I was just so lucky, you know, to, to meet him, uh, you know, to just have my son say, dad, when are we going to do this? You know, this hunting thing together. Yeah.

Katie Burke: It's a different beginning than a lot of people.

Rick Milligan: It is usually you're brought up, you know, in a multi-generational hobby. That didn't happen for me. I wish it had, but I didn't want to… I hate to use this phrase, but I didn't want to make that mistake again. I didn't want this generation to go by without sharing it with him. And so we've had a lot of fun together.

Katie Burke: Yeah. I don't know. I can see some parts of it being nice, especially with the collecting. Like, I mean, it's hard to be like, I think one of the things we talk about a lot on this show is getting started collecting and things like that with like younger people, but you know, it's not a, it's not a cheap hobby. No. Good Lord. And when you're, you know, especially my age when you have little kids and so much of your finances are going to all of that. Yeah, it's a hard time to pick it up like you can appreciate it and learn about maybe that's good that you have the time to read and learn about those things but you don't really have the time to purchase and acquire but it's kind of nice that you hit it at a point where you weren't like going through the really hard part of parenting and like the, you know, where you're consumed and like, and you've been in your career for a little while.

Rick Milligan: Hey, make no mistake, I still had college tuition to pay for, for a couple of kids. Oh, a lot of us do. For him and his sister.

Katie Burke: Well, yes, I mean, but like, do you know what I mean? Like, you're not having to do the diaper changing and the… Exactly. Yes, that part of life.

Rick Milligan: You are correct.

Katie Burke: And you kind of can breathe a little bit, have your own hobbies a little more at that point. Because in the beginning, you're just consumed. It's hard to make space for yourself.

Rick Milligan: In the beginning, I probably did more reading than buying. I tried to just gather as much knowledge as I could. I really wanted to appreciate the tradition of the sport and learn about the history of it. You know, all the way back to the late 1800s when You know, the first duck calls were essentially made and commercialized, you know, with Fred Allen and Charlie Ditto and, you know, JT Bechart. And, I mean, just, gosh, I get chills when I talk about these guys, you know, because they really started it all.

Katie Burke: Did you have influences to like encourage you to read more or did you just kind of that's just when you pick that first car like well I need to learn about it was how'd that kind of go about?

Rick Milligan: Yeah you know I've always kind of had that research you know bug in me too you know like if I'm gonna do this we're gonna do this right we're gonna go 110% at it and and that's kind of what I've what I wanted to do and so I knew, you know, knowledge is just monumental. Right. And especially in this because, you know, so many times you can be offered a call, you can be in a trade situation with somebody. And if you don't have the knowledge about what you're getting, it could certainly work against you. And I've had a few of those. I mean, if you do enough of this and collecting, whatever it is, whether it's stamps or art or cars, you're gonna stub your toe a little. And that's okay as long as the good ones outweigh the bad.

Katie Burke: Yeah, I want to come back to that, but one thing that's different about you, and not all collectors, but from ones that we've had on the show, that our listeners have heard about, is that you did not pick a specific, you didn't pick a genre, you didn't pick a state or a call, like a maker. You have kind of collected a little bit across the board. What influenced that decision? That's a great question.

Rick Milligan: I love them all, I guess, and I respect the guys that will just collect a state or their state that they live in. I totally respect that. I mean, you look at a guy like Mike Lewis, who has written a book purely on Arkansas calls, and it's all in his backyard. And Mike took years of his life to research that and travel the country and take pictures of other people's collections, and that's cool. But I have friends all over the country that are talented callmakers, and there's been some tremendous callmakers from many different states. I just, you know, there's an old phrase, you collect what you like, and then you've got to like what you've collected. And that's kind of how I just ran with it.

Katie Burke: So, I guess my question with that is, because when they always, when you get a collector to give you advice, one of the first things a lot of them will say is, you know, pick, figure out what you like first, like what you want, and that way you don't, like, buy something you don't really want in your collection or doesn't fit or make any mistakes. Like, get to know exactly what it is you like and stick with it. So you didn't do that. You went a different route. And did you get flack for that at first? Did you make mistakes too?

Rick Milligan: Yeah, a little bit. Sure. And, you know, there was a gentleman, his name was Greg Gerritsen. Greg lived in St. Louis. Greg's left this earth several years ago. And he was also a kind of a mentor of mine. You know, Greg, he made me focus. He was the guy that said, you need to take a rifle shot approach to this and not just a buckshot approach. You know, why are you collecting that? You know, rather than buying 10 of those, save your money and buy one of those. You know what I'm talking about. And that's really kind of what I've tried to do. And it's hard because, you know, before I was about volume, quantity, and now, you know, I really love quality.

Katie Burke: So with that in mind, have you sold to then upgrade to more better quality calls?

Rick Milligan: Yeah, many years ago. Please understand, when I say I take from the bottom, I don't mean any of the call makers were bottom. Right, right, right.

Katie Burke: It also could just not be a good example of that maker. It doesn't have to necessarily be that the maker is bad. It just isn't as good of an example.

Rick Milligan: You sell maybe the higher production, lower value things to add to the top. So you take from the bottom, you add to the top. Collectors do that all the time in whatever they're collecting. And so, yeah, I did quite a bit of that back in the day.

Katie Burke: Yeah, because you never know, because some collectors are like, no, I'll never sell anything.

Rick Milligan: Right, and that's kind of what my collection is now. I call it a black hole, you know, you put something in it, it never comes out.

Katie Burke: One day it'll have to come back out when you're gone. Maybe he'll get it.

Rick Milligan: That might be Adam's problem one day. He might actually care.

Katie Burke: So, it's rare that the people at Heritage and Collections care.

Rick Milligan: Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Burke: So, I think you might be okay. Yeah, I think he gets it. But you never know.

Rick Milligan: I told him, I said, listen, if I get hit by a pop truck, you know, tomorrow, I said, don't let your mom put, you know, have a garage sale. So, he gets it.

Katie Burke: Yeah. Well, I'm sure your friends won't let them have a garage sale either.

Rick Milligan: No, they'll all be after it. They'll be knocking on his door. Yeah, exactly.

Katie Burke: Yeah, it's so funny because it just reminded me when Bob Pitts was in the museum. Sure. He was literally selling them out of the case, like people would walk up. I didn't know that. Yeah, because he was getting, he kind of was, you know, he had talked about Mike as well, like just, I mean, so many Tennessee calls. That's all I did was Tennessee. So he was kind of getting rid of a lot of his collection at that time. And yeah, people were walking up and buying it straight out of the case.

Rick Milligan: I wish I'd have been here for that because, you know, Bob had good taste.

Katie Burke: And Howard was there and he'd be like, don't hold still that one, that for that, and they start arguing and they're like two little old women, they argue the whole time. Yeah, they're peas in a pod, that's for sure. So yeah, it's interesting because I never, you're the first I've had that has like more of a, I guess what you would call like encyclopedic collection. National. Yeah, national. Yeah, you always get told with decoys, with everything, like focus, focus, focus, but I've never gotten to talk to somebody who did it the opposite. really, you know, and it didn't, it's not like it didn't, it worked out, like, and there are other collectors that do that, but yeah, it's interesting to hear.

Rick Milligan: If somebody pushed me to the wall and said you could only collect from one region, you know, so many of the original calls came from the, you know, Illinois River Valley area, And I have a number of them and I love them. But again, I don't wanna pinpoint because I really have a national presence in my collection, but that's an area that's always intrigued me. Again, here I go with the books, but Bob Christensen wrote The Duck Calls of Illinois. And it's a masterpiece on Illinois duck calls. I admire these guys so much that take time out of their lives to photograph and research and then put it together and get a publisher and make these books. And so those books have been invaluable to me for research. They've also been invaluable for… Mental stability sometimes, you know, I'll just go in my office shut the door and you know, and just flip through these books sometimes and they just they take you back.

Katie Burke: Yeah, and it's such I mean, it's like this a lot of things but it's such a It's not an easy thing to research these callbackers. They weren't I think it's even, it's almost, I don't know if that's true, but like it's, they're more reclusive than the decoy carvers in a lot of ways. Because some of these carvers did so little and they didn't really make a lot.

Rick Milligan: These guys made these for a purpose. Yes. And that was to call in and shoot ducks. And they didn't ever anticipate that these things would be worth what they're worth today, or that they'd be on people's shelves, or that they were going into the Ducks Unlimited Waterfowl Heritage Center. It's like that wasn't their intention.

Katie Burke: So you'll laugh at this, just like a side note, speaking of that. We get a lot of their, because Arkansas and Tennessee, we're in Tennessee and Arkansas is just across the river, and we'll get a lot of the family relatives will be in the museum and see their grandfathers, their uncles, so-and-so's call. And of course these are all private collections that then return home to their collector's house. And they will get mad at me. I will get phone calls about how I took their uncle's call off the shelf. And how dare I? And I have to be like, and then usually it's fine, but it's like, I'm like, well, we don't own the call. It's a collector's. And they're like, a collector? I'm like, yeah. And they're like, I mean, they'll want, sometimes they want the person's name. And I think it was definitely when I had Mike's collection. I'm like, he's not going to give you any of those calls. Mike is a black hole. His stuff doesn't go anywhere. So, but yeah, I found it so funny. So many of the, we've come across so many of the relatives of these people. And the other thing I find interesting about calls, other than decoys, is decoys, it's so much more of a handed down tradition. They were happy to teach carvers, like it was, whereas, I don't know if this is with every state, so this is my question, I don't know if you know the answer to it, but in Arkansas, they didn't really teach each other, and they were kind of, they wouldn't teach each other. Is it that way for most carvers, like call makers, or is that just like in Arkansas? And that's such an interesting thing, whereas decoys, it's the opposite. It's very much a handed down tradition.

Rick Milligan: Yeah, I think, and by the way, years ago, I really started crossing into decoys as well, because who goes into the marsh without decoys and a call, right? So they go together, they're peanut butter and jelly. And so I really became an appreciator of the decoys too. Again, same kind of tradition in history and the artistry is amazing, but to your question about Do these guys share? I think it's a case-by-case carver. I really do. Some have been very open and said, look, you want to do this? Here's how it gets done. And then there's guys that sort of protect their secret sauce. Yeah.

Katie Burke: I feel like the more modern guys, the guys out there now, they're much more open. You bet. But I've always heard like, well, Mike, because he always talks about Starks and finally getting him to like, he would never show him in person. He would just have to go, carve something, bring it back, and he would just tell him everything that was wrong with it. Then he'd have to leave and get it again.

Rick Milligan: This reminds me of a great, great story. One of my good friends, a very talented call maker, past president of the CCAA, Troy Taylor. He lives outside Seattle, Washington. And when Troy, 100 years ago, when Troy was making calls, he really wanted to make high-end, beautiful calls. And he called Paul England from Minnesota. And Paul just didn't have enough time for him. And he said, look, I appreciate your call. You need to call this guy Jack Wilson. And everybody that knows Jack Wilson is chuckling right now because Jack lived out in Flint, Michigan. And Jack was just a hardcore, hard-nosed dude, but extremely talented. And Troy called him up and said, hey, you know, Mr. Wilson, my name's Troy Taylor. Paul Englund said, you know, that I should give you a call about, you know, how to make calls. And the phone went silent, and Troy's like, oh my gosh, I hope this guy says something, you know? And he goes, let me get this straight. He goes, let me guess, let me guess. He goes, you went down to Sears and Roebuck and you bought yourself a lathe, and now you're a hotshot callmaker, right? And Troy's like, Uh, no, no, Mr. Wilson, no. And Troy's like, yeah, he pegged me totally. You know what I mean? So, Jack was the kind of guy that would not share. But Troy pastored him enough and, you know, because he knew Jack was so talented. And finally, Jack relented and said, okay, you know, if you're gonna do this, you're gonna do it my way and you're gonna do it right. And they began a long-term friendship. And now Troy turns out, you know, wonderful calls too.

Katie Burke: I have heard that a lot, even with decoy makers, that if you have to show them you're serious before they'll even… Yeah.

Rick Milligan: Rightly so.

Katie Burke: You can't just ask them. You have to show some actual gumption.

Rick Milligan: I don't blame them to a degree because this is their life's work. This is their passion. And many of them, it's what puts food on their table. And so don't come to me, and again, I'm putting myself in a carver's position, don't come to me and not be serious about this like I am. So I get it when they kind of take that tactic.

Katie Burke: No, I do too. I get that a lot, yeah. I'm glad that it's turned to be more of like a little more hand down of a tradition instead of just I mean just for the fact to keep it alive. That is the one thing I will say with calls versus decoys is the intro into becoming a call maker is is there's a lot more like there's a lot more call makers out there and new call makers. It's it feels like they're doing a little bit better job on that end of recruiting new and younger makers and to kind of keep that tradition going.

Rick Milligan: Yeah, and they're using so many different materials now too. I mean, back in the day, what did they make calls out of? Walnut. And maybe just good old American hardwood, but walnut was very predominant. Now it's… We talked about micarta back in the 80s, you couldn't… That was the hot material at the time. Tom Turpin, Memphis, 1930s and 40s. Turpin is just a giant in this industry. He realized that wood was unstable, that it expands and contracts with moisture and temperature, and he wanted a more stable material and began experimenting with Bakelite, which is a hard rubber material. And you'll see one of my calls as a checkered Bakelite Tom Turpin is going into the Heritage Center. I'm very proud of that call. But yeah, and it started to evolve and they started experimenting with different material. And now it's acrylic is really big because it's super stable and hard. But you look back at the Bakelite old… Phillip Sanford Olt, back in Illinois, he figured out that hard rubber Bakelite is a really good material. And those calls, you could put it on your lanyard and go out in the marsh and call in ducks today.

Katie Burke: My dad actually used a D2. He's used a D2 his whole life. Outstanding. He's still today. He's got three left and he just, yeah, he doesn't let anybody touch them. He's got one people would probably want, but it's still in the box, but he's, no, that's to be used later.

Rick Milligan: I love that you know that.

Katie Burke: You know, I didn't know anything about it until, it's funny, and I've said this a million times on this show, so I'm sure the audience is sick of hearing it, but the Mississippi Delta, as rich in waterfowling history as it is, we have no callmakers, we have no decoy carvers, it is kind of a desert when it comes to actual historic waterfowling objects. So, I never thought about carved decoys or calls or any of that. So, his call really never registered to me. In college was the first time I realized that it was old because they stopped making them and he freaked out and bought a case. And that's the only reason I even knew it was old is that he, like, ordered a case because the factory was shutting down or something.

Rick Milligan: That was good foresight.

Katie Burke: Yeah, because he knew they, he's only, he's blown that call since he was 15 years old.

Rick Milligan: So yeah, he went ahead and ordered a bunch of them. And for some reason, those D2s have just gone crazy.

Katie Burke: Yeah, you know, it's crazy. And they're taking insides out of them.

Rick Milligan: Well, yeah, what they do is they take the inside of the stopper out and they flip it around to the other side. And so now it's called a cut down. So, yeah, it makes a slightly different sound, apparently. It's the same call, they just changed the configuration on it. But yeah, they've really taken off, especially, you know, the keyhole, if you've heard that term. And what's interesting is, to my knowledge, the keyhole was just a manufacturing thing so that they could more easily grip and turn the insert. It doesn't make the sound of the call any different, but some guys think it does, and that's cool.

Katie Burke: Yeah, I mean, I know it stops up all the time because he's always like, he has to blow it at the opposite direction to get it to like unstick. He takes a lot to blow that thing.

Rick Milligan: Maybe that breakfast muffin that he had, you know, is in there, some coffee's in there, yeah. Whatever's in the duck blind.

Katie Burke: Yeah, but he won't blow anything else and it's funny. And I didn't know that, yeah, I didn't realize that until a lot later in life when I was. It's interesting, I want to go back, because I haven't really asked this question and I wonder what about Tom Turpin in particular, because he's always been really interesting to me in that he experimented to such a large degree. Do you have an idea of why he was doing that? Like, what was the market in it for him to experiment like that? Or was it more of like, he just enjoyed experimenting and like, I, it's very different from everyone else.

Rick Milligan: Yeah. And there's guys that have experimented as well. And it's interesting because the jury's out on some of his calls. Like, did he really make that? Because these guys didn't sign their stuff back then. A lot of them didn't. But for example, I mentioned JT Bechart. All the way back to the late 1800s, he was compression stamping his calls with his name. And that's cool because we know those. But, you know, Turpin, there's many calls where… And they're all over the place. They're all over. Yeah. But there's guys that have experimented with styles. There's guys that have experimented with materials. I think that they were just always searching for that perfect call, that perfect sound. And, you know, I don't know if anyone's ever found the perfect sound, but why not keep searching? And so that's what I chalk it up to.

Katie Burke: Yeah, because it's interesting in that, because then you have like Dennison and somebody at the same time who has like made this, he's more of a marketing person at that point. Yeah, he's like, this is the call I make and this is how you use it. And he's definitely a businessman on top of that. Whereas with Turpin, it's like, was that making him money doing that? Or was that just because he found it entertaining?

Rick Milligan: It's such a different approach. I love that you know your calls, too.

Katie Burke: Well, I've been around him a long time. I know.

Rick Milligan: It's rubbing off on me. And some of these guys, they just get so popular. Again, I'm going back to a famous Tennessee maker, Johnny Marsh. Johnny hunted Real Foot Lake every year. He would go down for the whole season and just camp out, Bill Nation's camp. And it got to the point where People wanted and desired Johnny's calls so much, he just couldn't take it. He just wanted to go hunt ducks and have fun with his friends while he was there. And it got to the point where his good friend, Larry Hickerson, took over. And he said, look, I'll make these and I'll sign them, but I need a hand selling this stuff because I don't want to be bothered with it. Right. And I get that. Yeah. So a lot of these guys would take the marketing off their hands. They still love the calls and were terrific at making them, but you know, don't make me do the business side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Burke: Yeah. I mean, they don't like to be called this, but I mean, they're artists and yeah, and craftsmen. So that's probably, it doesn't come usually natural to a lot of those guys.

Rick Milligan: Absolutely. Yeah. They were duck hunters and artists and yeah. They don't like that word. Right. But then there's that business side of things. Yeah. Whereas if you're going to sell calls, how are you going to do it? You know, it's going to be one at a time. Some of these guys just, they made them and they gave them away to friends. They never sold a call for a dime, you know, they just gave them away as gifts. And, um, and that's great too.

Katie Burke: Talk to me about, a little bit about the Callmakers Association and what that was like in that role. So how long do you serve as, is it the president?

Rick Milligan: Yeah. Okay, so how long does that last? There's term limits on a couple of the positions, one of which is the president. The president has a two-year term and the vice president has a two-year term, secretary has a two-year term.

Katie Burke: And does it, do you go through like vice president, president, secretary? Is that how it works?

Rick Milligan: Yeah, I started out as secretary. Oh, you started out as secretary and vice. Yeah, I started out as secretary under Howard Harlan and skipped right over VP and went right to the presidency.

Katie Burke: Okay, so at DU, you kind of have to move through it. Sure. Yeah, like you have to be a senior VP, then you become, you get selected to be VP, which then becomes president, which then becomes chamber of the board.

Rick Milligan: And that's the standard progression. Yeah, you have like a little order, yeah. Yeah. So mine was a little more baptism by fire, you know, and, but I served on the board for about 10 years in the role of the president, role of the secretary, but then I was also the treasurer for a long time. And so, and I loved it. I loved every minute of it. And I kind of, it was, I was a little remorseful when I left the board. I mean, but I thought, you know, 10 years is good. You know, there was a reason that they have term limits is to get new blood in and I get that. And, you know, I thought I'm good with 10 years, but it's a wonderful organization that's committed to, you know, the promotion and education of, of call making, you know, here in the United States. Callmaking is our own. You know, as Howard says in his books, it's the great American folk art. You know, it didn't start in Europe. It's here. We can call it our own. And that's really cool from a folk art standpoint.

Katie Burke: It is, and I've mentioned it on here before too. I mean, call making more so even than decoys, like there is the random decoy, but waterfowling in general is an American thing. The way we do it here is so much different than anywhere else. It's very unique to America.

Rick Milligan: Amen, sister. Baseball, apple pie, and call making. Duck calls. That's the way I look at it.

Katie Burke: It's a very American thing. And we've talked about that. One of the interesting things that we always talk about here is how in Arkansas, and Tennessee, and Mississippi, and Louisiana's different, but North Louisiana, there were no decoys. It was just calls. for a long time, and because we hunted flooded timber, and once you got them in close enough with the call, you didn't need a decoy.

Rick Milligan: Right. And quite frankly, you know, back… It's so different. Back, you know, market hunting was outlawed in 1918. Right. And then guys were like, okay, we're still good because we can use live ducks as, you know, or call ducks as they called them. And these were prized possessions, you know, and they took care of them just like a hunting dog. Because, you know, these call ducks would sit there with a neck collar or, you know, a leg weight or whatever, holding them in position to call down the ducks. 1935, that was outlawed. And so they're like, okay, what do we… And I just think that 1930s and 1940s was really kind of the golden era of call making because You couldn't market hunt anymore. You couldn't use live ducks. You needed a strong decoy rig and you needed to know how to call.

Katie Burke: Yeah.

Rick Milligan: Or you weren't gonna shoot ducks, you know? Now, I love hearing the stories from the old-timers about how the sky is blackened with ducks and, you know, I, gosh, I wish I could go back to that.

Katie Burke: You also think that right there in the 1930s and 40s is when we had the biggest, the lowest duck numbers in the country. Right. Yeah, so not only were you not able to use live ducks or decoy, well, you can use decoy or like the punt guns or anything, there weren't that many ducks to be shooting.

Rick Milligan: Yeah, market hunters took care of that, didn't they?

Katie Burke: Yeah, and then that's the drought right there, the dust bowls right there. That's right. So it's all, it all kind of culminates into this, we have to fix the problem sort of situation. Right. Yeah, it's interesting. But yeah, you talk about like, we have the video at the museum, which you'll see of, it's not Coca-Cola, but it's out in Arkansas, and it looks like static on the screen, but it's not, it's ducks.

Rick Milligan: Oh, that's the famous clay pool? Clay pool, thank you. I love that picture.

Katie Burke: We have the video of it.

Rick Milligan: You can walk across the backs of the ducks to the other side of the pond, right?

Katie Burke: It's a cool video. It was like an old Field and Stream movie they did. It's really neat, but it's in the museum. But it does, it looks like static.

Rick Milligan: It does. It's ducks.

Katie Burke: Yeah, right. No, they don't like that anymore. It's like there's a problem with your TV screen. Yeah, it's a neat video. It's an old Nash Buckingham, Field and Stream, like he's sitting on there with his wife. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so what was it like? So kind of, just because I don't really know, as president of the Callmakers Association, what kind of role did you have to play in that? Like what is your job over those two years? Like what actually do you have to do?

Rick Milligan: Yeah, it's kind of, you know, as a director, you know, you're kind of the maestro, you know, you try and delegate as much as you can. But, you know, let's face it, it's a volunteer position.

Katie Burke: There's no paid staff for the call.

Rick Milligan: Gosh, no. Right. Yeah. I mean, when you go to a show, you know, and we had, you know, our big Chicago show, we have Real Foot and we have the NWTF that we partner with. And so when you go to these shows, you're paying for your lodging, you're paying for your trip, your, you know, food, whatever. So there's nothing, yeah, there's no paid position. And that's fine, because I did it for the love of the industry, or the love of the craft. But we have a, there's a quarterly newsletter that goes out. So you've got to constantly get articles for that. And that was fun. I didn't mind that. And I contributed articles too, which was great. I got to meet some incredible people. I did articles on Just great guys, you know great guys that have become friends You know Mike Paul was my first article and then you know great call maker buddy Duke, Tennessee, you know But he's become a good friend Sonny Bashore who's just guy I think he just turned 89 and last couple of weeks ago, and he's still a making knives, creating fish decoys, he's a scrimshander, turkey box calls. I mean, there's nothing this guy can't do. And so I love doing the articles on them and learning about, you know, their craft and just like you're doing with me, we're having a conversation and then I put it in paper. And then it's coordinating the shows, you know.

Katie Burke: So like at Chicago, y'all basically just have the meeting, right?

Rick Milligan: And then a little bit of a show. It's a big, it's our biggest decorative call show of the year. Okay. Yeah. And Brian Byers has been terrific in running that show for a long time. He's had a lot of help in the past with great guys like, you know, Bob Wiseman, another Tennessee guy and talented call maker. Yeah, it takes a group to put these shows together, but someone's got to be there, you know, sort of directing the whole thing, and that's the way.

Katie Burke: Yeah, so one thing I find interesting about it, and I think other groups would want to replicate it, I mean, y'all have barely any presence anywhere, but yet you still manage to recruit so many people. And I'm thinking in particular to collecting groups. And what can you attribute that to? Is that just the call maker community and collecting community? Is that just word of mouth that keeps having more people come in?

Rick Milligan: Yeah, you know, I think, you know, social medias have a big impact on it. Yeah. You know, because the Callmakers and Collectors Association of America has an annual due of $35. Yep, I have to pay for it. To some people, they're like, why would I pay that when I could just go on Facebook and see all these different social media groups? You know to a degree I get that but those groups aren't organizing the shows They're not promoting the call makers like comic like CCAA is And so they're not disseminating, you know information on a quarterly basis.

Katie Burke: That's what I was gonna say is Yes, the information you know you're getting from the newsletter is correct and research whereas and I'm on the on the Facebook groups is to but yeah, you don't know it's riddled with like misinformation or opinion You don't really know what you're getting. Whereas if this you know, I

Rick Milligan: Yeah, and it was always a struggle. You know, how are we going to get more members? You know, that was the big conversation every year. Oh, yeah, of course. It's any organization that's a nonprofit is always, you know, wondering how are you going to get more members. And so that's always a struggle. And again, with social media out there, it's almost like you can get it for free, but you're not getting anywhere near the value that you'd get by joining CCAA.

Katie Burke: Yeah. Y'all seem though to do better than, I feel like y'all do better than a lot of them. And it's interesting and I wonder why. I guess it's just got to be call makers and call collectors.

Rick Milligan: You want the secret sauce, don't you?

Katie Burke: No, I just want to know what's different about the call community versus what's happening there. Because I want it to happen across the collecting community. You know, like one of the things I work, I've been working with North American decoy collectors to try to promote them through this and help them with, you know, social media and stuff like that. And because, and let, and kind of, kind of get our audience to help build their audience. Because, you know, just to keep collecting going. I don't want to, you know, we just wanted to keep going. is just kind of trying to figure out what there is to help grow that community as well. It just seems to have, they seem to really have, and this might actually just be that the entry level into call collecting is much lower than it is into decoy collecting. And that might be it. It might just be that the financial entry is lower and that younger people can get into call collecting. versus with decoys, you tend to have to have some extra income lying around.

Rick Milligan: And there's a lot of great decoy groups out there. I go on to Midwest Decoys, Great Lakes Decoy Association, Ohio Decoy Carvers and Collectors, and I support these groups and I attend their shows and they're wonderful. But I think people are very willing to pay for something when they perceive value in it. And so you have to continue. And that's the challenge for every group out there. You have to continue to create value in your product. And so you can't just say, hey, we're this group and you should join us. And it's like, well, why? Give me a reason. Yeah, it's the education, it's the promotion of the decoy carvers or the call makers. It's the whole… It's the sum of the whole. And so I think when you put together a good product and you say you're part of something special, I think people are willing to pay for that.

Katie Burke: Yeah. I hope we can figure out a way to help them out too. So let's talk about decoys. What do you collect? I don't even know.

Rick Milligan: You know, it's kind of like, you know, a national presence just like my calls, too. So, what was your first decoy? Man, you know, I could tell you what my first call was. That speaks volumes. I'm actually kind of ashamed now. You know, let me come back to that.

Katie Burke: What is the first one you remember?

Rick Milligan: Um, well, um, probably one of my favorites is, uh, is an Elliston canvas back from the late 1800s.

Katie Burke: It's just- I was going to guess Illinois, uh, Mississippi River.

Rick Milligan: Illinois River, yeah. And, um, it's just got, you know, these bold, you know, big cheeks on it and a great paint scheme. And just, it's got a great patina from age over the years. And I mean, Elliston's just, to me, you know, we call them the big four in Illinois. It's, you know, um,

Katie Burke: Well, that Katherine Elliston paintwork is hard to get.

Rick Milligan: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's, you know, Purdue and Graves and Elliston, some might say, you know, Schoenheider. And so, you know, he's one of the greats. And I just love that decoy just because it just looks super old and it's got the patina. But, you know, Decoys really were big East Coast as well. And quite frankly, East Coast has a lot of diver ducks. You don't call it divers.

Katie Burke: There's no reason, so you have to have… I don't even shoot them. People might get mad at me about that.

Rick Milligan: I was about to go down that rabbit hole with you, but yeah. I'm with you. We get diver ducks that come into our spreads.

Katie Burke: It's okay. I'm spoiled. I can recognize my privilege.

Rick Milligan: I'll do respect to the divers. I'd much rather put a puddle duck on the table. But there's beautiful, incredible decoys that have come out of the East Coast. incredible carvers, you know, like Lemon Steve Ward, you know, Joe Lincoln. I mean, I could give you a hundred examples and they're gorgeous. And I've, you know, I've continued to try and find them and bring them into my collection and covet them. They're just great. Yeah.

Katie Burke: Do you do paintings as well? Do you have any flat art?

Rick Milligan: Not much, a little. Yeah, a little bit. But more for decor, less for collecting. But, you know, as Howard Harlan says, everything is collectible. And so look out, you know. I mean, I'm sure if I got into paintings that it would just take off and I don't want to go down that.

Katie Burke: Yeah, they've gotten really expensive all of a sudden.

Rick Milligan: Yes, they have.

Katie Burke: I have a funny Howard story so we were talking about when Bob was taking his stuff out of the museum and I don't know what it is about Howard Harlan but he just appears places and collections come to him like I don't I don't know how he does it but we were first of all he's been trying to forever trying to get me to put his minnow bucket collection in the museum and Howard what does a minnow bucket have to do with waterfowl? So, no. He has a giant minnow bucket collection.

Rick Milligan: I've seen it. I had the great honor of being at his house and he showed me his collection and I'm like, Howard, what's with the minnow buckets? Oh, I've got the largest minnow bucket collection in America. I'm like, okay. He goes, there's more out in the garage in the barn. And I was like, what's with the whistles? Oh, I have the largest whistle collection. I was like, oh my gosh, this guy's got it deep. And I'm like, what's with the shotguns? Oh, those are, you know, Holland and Holland. Those are Purdy's. And I'm like, oh my gosh, they're beautiful. And, and yeah, and then we haven't even gotten to the calls yet. And I'm like, I got to wade through all this other stuff.

Katie Burke: So his guns were in the museum as well when his calls were here. And we were at the rendezvous. Yeah.

Rick Milligan: Eating lunch.

Katie Burke: We should be there tonight. Yeah, eating lunch. This was like during the height of the pandemic, like everything had just opened. We were probably the only people in the rendezvous. And he went to the bathroom and he didn't come back for like 30 minutes. And Bob's getting all grumpy because he's been there too long and he's waiting on Howard. Bob's grumpy? And next thing we know, Ray Carroll was with him and with Bob, he was helping Bob with the thing, and he was like, I'll go find him. So he goes off to find him. And Howard has somehow met the owner, the new owner of the Rendezvous, and she is showing him a gun collection they have upstairs.

Rick Milligan: Of course.

Katie Burke: Yeah, and he's negotiating maybe buying all of it.

Rick Milligan: I was like, how would you find… I've heard stories about how he would hear about a really rare call in Missouri, in Illinois, wherever it was. His truck was packed that afternoon and he was already on the road and he would camp out in that town. He would get a hotel for two, three days, whatever it took. to get the family to sell him that call. I mean, that's how hardcore this guy was. And I always remembered that. And it's caused me to jump on an airplane and go buy a collection somewhere. And it's caused me to try to knock down walls to go and see other things and talk to people about their collections. And so I always remember stories like that, that, well, if he did it and that's the way he did it, then maybe I have to as well. It's hard, you know, you got to take time away from family and work and, you know, you're going to Nebraska for what? Well, I heard about this little town that has a collector there and he's looking to sell and that's what I, you know, I've done that.

Katie Burke: I get it. I run a lot. So, I have my own crazy hobby. Do you have a story of how you found one that you didn't expect? Do you have anything like that?

Rick Milligan: The unexpected fell in your lap.

Katie Burke: Yeah. Got any of those?

Rick Milligan: Boy, there's times where somebody will put something on an auction or like eBay, for example. They have no idea what it is and they'll just use a buy it now. And the pictures will be real grainy and you can't really tell what it is. But, you know, you're like, well, if it's what I think it is, it's a home run. If it's not, then, ah, you know, you win some, you lose some. And, you know, I've had a few of those where you just buy it now on the thing is 150 bucks and you get it and you're like, oh my gosh, you know, I can't believe this happened. So, I don't know if I could point to one specific one, but I've had a number of those where Or, you know, somebody walks up to you at a show and that's happened. Somebody walked up to me with a Dahl Emmerich. Dahl Emmerich is, you know, just made these classic, very few Illinois, you know, call maker. and walked up to me with a Dahl-Emerick and wanted to sell it. Now, I have the Dahl-Emerick call that's pictured in Bob Christensen's book, Duck Calls of Illinois. And I never thought I'd get another Dahl-Emerick. And here somebody's offered me another one to buy at a reasonable price. And so, you know, those are just little wins that you just take home and just keep smiling all day. You know, he was happy with what I paid him. I was delighted to get another Dahl-Emmert call and everybody won. So I love that when everybody wins, you know.

Katie Burke: Yeah, Ryan, when he was on here, he always likes to talk about, you know, he, when he was in college, it was the glory days of eBay. True. As he talks about those early days of eBay, how it was so great. And now he's like, you can't find anything on eBay.

Rick Milligan: No, because everybody knows everything. You can research, even if you don't know Duck Calls, you can just, you know, research, type in what you think it is and you'll get articles.

Katie Burke: Oh yeah. I mean, even with like all the, um, especially now that calls, I mean, With decoys, you could do this for a while because they were auctioned off for so long. There's so many auction houses. But now that calls are making it into the major auctions, you can actually look up auction prices on them. You can actually… They're way easier to appraise now than they used to be.

Rick Milligan: Yeah. And for CCAA, I helped with identification and valuation of calls as well. And so, if somebody… didn't know what they had, it was passed down from a previous generation or from, you know, uncle so-and-so, found this in an attic or I found this in a box in the barn, whatever it was, you can tell me what this is. You know, it seems that people have become smarter about that, where they know the information's out there, they just have to go find it. And rather than, well, I'll be glad to get 50 bucks for this old thing. And there's a hundred people that would be glad to give you 50 bucks. In fact, you might even add a zero or two to that and they'd still be glad to give you the money. But I think there's plenty of ways now to identify and value calls, decoys, whatever it is, because of the groups, because of social media. Because of eBay, the internet, yeah. So it's Ryan's comment about the glory days of call collecting via eBay. Yeah, he's pretty accurate.

Katie Burke: That's how he did the majority of his early collection. He was young when he did that.

Rick Milligan: But, you know, and again, gosh, I'm gonna blow his head up, but, you know, Ryan's really a, he's a, he's, he's a, he's a scholar of cult making.

Katie Burke: Oh, he's who I text pictures to when someone says, hey, wants to donate to DU.

Rick Milligan: Crap or not crap. Right. But he realized long ago that knowledge is power. Yeah. And especially in the collecting world. And, you know, I never had a photographic memory. You know, I've had friends that have. I have friends that are doctors that are like, yeah, I didn't really study. I'm like, you're a medical doctor. How did you… Well, I'm not that way either. They're like, no, I didn't really have to. It all kind of… I read something once and that wasn't me. And so my books were invaluable. I studied them. I talked to people, you know. I did my homework. I'd like to think so.

Katie Burke: Yeah, and I would like to tell, which I always end it, which I'll finish kind of in this topic, but I learned more from talking to y'all and being around collectors and carvers and their collections and asking questions. I get more from that than I do reading the book. Like, I just, for some reason, I'm able to absorb that information versus reading the books. And I think it has a lot to do with, I mean, I don't know if I've told you this, but I have ADHD, and the way those books are written, it's tough. It's dry, very fact-oriented, so it's so tough to get through them. And I use them to look up information, to check information, more of a kind of just a resource tool. But I get more from conversations than I do from anything else. And I always recommend people who want to get into this is to go to shows and talk to people. You bet. That's the major, that's always what I say. It's like I get more from that and people are nice.

Rick Milligan: Yeah, you know, a lot of, like, you know, younger collectors every once in a while ask me, you know, what should I, what should I collect? What should I go get? And, you know, first thing I tell them is books. And they look at you like you're crazy. I'm like, look, you need knowledge. You really, in the collecting world, and I don't care what it is you collect, you kind of need three things. You need, you need the passion. And a lot of these guys have that or they wouldn't be talking about it. Right. You need knowledge. And I hate to say it, but you need a couple pennies in the bank. You know, I mean, let's face it. If you're going to collect quality, you know, historic things, whether it's cars or stamps or duck calls or decoys, these things, you know, it takes a little bit of money. And so, you know, knowledge, experience, excuse me, knowledge, passion, and a couple of bucks. Usually guys have two of the three. Yeah. You know, they might have the money, they don't have the knowledge, they have the passion, and boy, you know, there's a lot of people looking for those guys. Some people have the knowledge and the passion, but, you know, they have a young family. They're just starting out in life, in their career, and they don't have a lot of the money, so… Call collecting like many collect like like collecting in general is really kind of a it's an evolution You kind of start out collecting what you can Yeah, and then you get you gain experience and knowledge and you collect what you want or you know, and what's really truly in you know valuable and I think a lot of these guys start out and I don't mean to label anyone but you know, they'll collect a You know, just a ton of, you know, high-production, low-value stuff. Maybe many things that are made on a CNC machine, right? They're not at the hands of an artist. They're not at the hands of, you know, someone that hand-carved and hand-painted that, you know, with their own eyes and hands. And then, you know, they think that they've put together a collection and then five, ten years go by and they try to sell that. because they're trying to graduate and they realize that they're getting as much or less than what they originally paid. And so quality things hold their value, they weather the storms, and they appreciate over time. Again, I don't care what it is that you're collecting, but that's kind of, you know, a standard progression in collecting anything.

Katie Burke: Yeah, so that gives me a question, brings me a question up. One of the things that they talk about is like starting with contemporary carvers because you kind of know what you're getting. The entry level is a little bit lower, but I would think… I never really thought about this until we just started talking about it, but with decoys, it's a little different because you know who's hand carving decoys, right? That's very easy to know the difference between what's being turned. With calls, there's not as much of, um, there's not, what's the word to say, like, this, there's not this mentality about how you, a call is done versus a decoy. Like, oh, I hand chopped my decoy out. If you didn't hand chop it out, then it's not, you know, a hand carved decoy. Whereas calls, it's a little bit different. It's, it's okay to turn it on the lathe and then they do, but then they, you know, do the detail by hand and things like that. So, if you're going into this and you're saying like, okay, I might just start with some of these contemporary guys, how would you necessarily decipher who is doing the finishing and the more hand-done stuff versus these guys that are kind of just doing everything on the machine? Like, is that something that's easy to figure out for as a new collector or is it…

Rick Milligan: Well, let's differentiate. Making calls on a lathe is very customary. Right. That's very customary. Yeah. I mean, all the way back to the early 1900s, you know, when the lathe was created. Because, let's face it, a call, for the most part, is a tube. And it's a cylindrical object and it can be created on a lathe, whereas a decoy has peaks and valleys and grooves and incised wingtips and it's just… You can't turn a decoy on a lathe, so… Well, they do turn them. A little bit. Some people do, yes. They rough them out. They rough them out, yeah. But a CNC machine call is a little different where you put a block of wood or a piece of acrylic on a lathe and you push some buttons and the machine does it all for you. Okay. That's the difference. Okay. Where, you know, and you can turn out hundreds if not thousands of calls that way and they're not made by the hand of an artist. Okay. So that's the difference.

Katie Burke: So how would you, I guess, I mean, you would look at things like checkering and that sort of thing to kind of be able to tell that what's CNC versus not.

Rick Milligan: Yeah. Yeah. Sure. You can still, you know, Afterward, you can still check her a CNC call, but you pretty much know, and you know the artists, you know the call makers that are, you know, doing it all by hand, and they're very proud of that work. So, yeah, you can definitely pick that out.

Katie Burke: Yeah, because I just never really thought about it because there's just so much more production in call making versus, I mean, in wood decoys, it's not that much production. Like, you can figure out who's doing what pretty easily. Sure. And I just never thought about, like, having as a new collector who maybe doesn't have any of that knowledge and you're saying, oh, I'll do contemporary calls because that's just easier for me to collect right now. They'll appreciate, most likely have a better chance of appreciating in value versus

Rick Milligan: And there's also something to be said for being able to meet the person, shake the hand of the person that made it, you know, and maybe even develop, you know, a personal friendship with that person, you know, and potentially buy more from them as time goes by. So, um, yeah, I've, I've got a number of calls that, you know, the call maker was a friend of mine. They're not, they're not walking this earth anymore. And, and I really value that call for the friendship that I created with them. Um, so that, that's, I can't, I can't go back in time and shake Johnny Marsh or Tom Turpin's hand, you know, just can't. And so it is nice to know the, the maker and, and possibly develop a friendship.

Katie Burke: Right. And that just brings you back to the importance of shows and attending those things and kind of be part of that community.

Rick Milligan: Yeah. And I hope that the shows, some people say that, you know, they're a thing of the past. I really hope not because just like working remotely, you know, and I told my kids this, you know, when, you know, when the pandemic hit and everybody went remote and we learned a lot during that, but Just starting out my career, the opportunity to stick my head in a senior person's door and ask a question, to have that senior person put a hand on my shoulder and say, that's a great question, let's go discuss it over lunch. You know, you can't get that working remotely. Just through osmosis, you know, you can learn so much. And so, yeah, and it's just like the shows. You know, you go to the shows, you observe, you talk to people, you might meet someone that says, you know, you should give me a call about that later. The friendships, The connections you can make at those shows, you know, really can be valuable.

Katie Burke: Yeah, I agree. All right, so before we go, before I let you go because we've done this for a while now, is there anything that for any advice that we haven't really given to like new collectors? I always ask collectors to do that. Is there any advice you haven't already talked about that you'd like to share?

Rick Milligan: I probably would just say don't be intimidated by it, you know. Buy quality. You know, quality will always weather storms. It will hold its value. Try to learn. Gain experience. You know, if I gave any advice, that's what it would be. So you know what you're buying. You can appreciate it forever. Those are things that have, you know, little mantras, little sayings that have really helped me. You know, I've made so many friends. I've met so many people. I've learned so much in this crazy craft and this collecting. And, you know, I'm just so grateful for it. And, you know, somebody, I once read a quote that said, never make fun of a person's passion. It could be the very thing that saves them from the world.

Katie Burke: That's a really nice way to say it. All right. Is there anything else you want to add before we go to our audience?

Rick Milligan: Just, I'm so honored to be here. I mean, what DU does for waterfowl and conservation, preserving our habitat, it all goes together. My little collection is just a small little tiny corner of… of the big picture and I'm just so honored to be here and in the presence of DU and so many people that have had their collections in the Heritage Center. Just gratitude is I guess is what I would say. So thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and share what I've put together with the rest of the world.

Katie Burke: Well, thank you for being here. Thanks for coming on the show too. This was fun. Thank you to our producer, Chris Isaac, and thanks to you, our listeners, supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.