Take a look at a duck call and, if you're not a duck hunter, you may wonder where the sounds some from when a guy's in a blind watching some mallards fly overhead.

It's sort of a chicken and egg thing.

Is it the call? Or is it the caller?

Actually, it's both.

"A proficient caller can make a bad call sound good, but with a good setup it can make him a lot better caller," says Brian Phillps, a custom callmaker and owner of Dixie Land Calls in Guntersville. "That's why I encourage a lot of people to come to meet me so I can tune the reed and the call for them."

We'll get into "tuning" on Tuesday -- hey, you gotta come back again for the second helping -- but today we'll take a look at the call. Phillips was kind enough last week to break down a few of the tips for calling and his callmaking.

Duck calls have four main parts: The barrel, insert, reed and cork. Calls have different shapes and sizes. Callmakers have to be aware of the desires of hunters, so they shape their calls to fit comfortably in a guy's hands while also obviously considering the financial costs of the acrylic or wood they use to make the calls.

The barrel is what a hunter blows air into, and the air travels through it across the reed and then through the insert out of, typically, his cupped hand toward a duck or goose.

The insert is slimmer, to fit into the barrel, and the portion that slides into the barrel is halved with a groove underneath the reed. That is called the toning board. The reed is held in place by a small piece of cork or, as Phillips uses, a hybrid of cork and chipped rubber mixed to create a "cork" that won't shrink as easily as plain cork.

Air moving over the reed and through the insert causes it to vibrate. That creates the sounds you hear ... sometimes good, sometimes bad. It takes practice to call ducks and geese well enough to replicate the sounds of a real duck and fool them into gun range.

For callmakers, getting that insert right is the key ... and one of the toughest things to master.

"Sanding and finishing the toning board, because that's where all the sound comes from," Phillips said. "One lick of the file too much and it's ruined. You just have to throw it in the trash. You can't sit there and try to fix it because it's just going to get worse.

"That's the heart and soul there, the (insert) slope. If you don't get that right, it's not right. Don't get me wrong, the other parts of the call are important, too. But the depth of that channel right there and how the channel goes into the radius ... if you hit that wrong with the file, you'll cause yourself a lot of heartache."

The insert

When you're calling, the amount of air pressure you exert obviously creates loud and soft sounds. But the insert design can play a role in that, too. Phillips uses a "stair step" taper in the inside of his insert to help.

"A lot of people use a straight taper, but it's just a step in the backboring," Phillips said of adding the stair steps. "It's all for the sound. Based on the bore size, and I have different sizes, it does two things. My newest, the timber call, has just one stairstep. You get a little tighter with this one and what that does is create more backpressure. It's not as loud but the margin of error is not as much. It's a little quieter.

But with the open-water call and additional stair steps, he said, "what it will do is be loud. It gives a lot more volume but it won't have as much back pressure so it's a looser-running call. If you can't control your air real good then it won't sound as good."

The reed

Decades ago, before the introduction of rubber and plastic in the outdoors industry, duck call reeds were made of metal and took an incredible amount of air and control to master the sound.

The old Reelfoot Lake calls made by Johnny Marsh are a good example. But then someone tried hard rubber for a reed and changed everything, from the amount of air and pressure needed to the cost and sounds of the call. Hunters tinkered with the reeds by shaving the end and clipping the corners to create "dog ears," both of which affected the sound.

Today's mass-produced calls, and those made by many callmakers, use mylar reeds. They're thinner, more flexible and don't require as much air to move. They're also less expensive and easier to work with.

Phillips uses a 10-millimeter mylar reed for his duck calls and a 14-millimeter mylar reed for his goose calls. Adjusting the reed is part of the tuning process, which we'll get into Tuesday.

"For tuning, it's about adjusting the reed, changing the length of the reed, adjusting the dog ears on the reed," he said. "Sometimes the width of the reed makes a difference. A shorter reed is easier a call is to blow but it's also easier to squeak out. The longer the reed, the harder it is to blow and it's going to take a lot more breath and it won't squeak out as easy."

The dog ears -- clipping the corners just a bit -- are similar to shaving the bill on a crankbait to make it dive deeper or deflect off cover. Tinkering this way can have a good effect but cutting too much may result in disaster. If you fiddle with the reed, remember to take off a bit at a time, try the call and then clip a bit more if necessary.

"Dog ears lighten the tip of the reed and help it move easier," Phillips said, "but too heavy of a dog ear and it gets too raspy. Some people like that, though."

-- If you're interested in contacting Phillips or Dixie Land Calls, visit www.dixielandcalls.com

Tomorrow: Tuning and learning to blow the call takes practice and patience.