WINTER ESCAPES
www.porchprairiemag.com
Volume 2 • 4
Roads, Rodeos, and the Life of Raggio Photos by Mark Davis
60 - WINTER 2021 | PORCH + PRAIRIE Magazine
PORCH + PRAIRIE magazine | WINTER 2021 - 61
It sure does feel like the cold mornings in flooded timber are a long way off. It’s hot. Mississippi hot. The Summer has ended but Mother Nature didn’t get the heads up yet that maybe the heat over the Deep South can quit for the year. The allure of a pool is almost too much to pass up, but it’ll have to wait. In the midst of the chirping birds and the faint sound of a tractor turning a field in the distance, there is a peculiar sound coming from inside an unassuming garage shop in the small suburb of Raymond, MS and it rings out several times a day. Some folks might walk by and be startled, not knowing what the noise might be. But for those who mark their calendars solely based upon the opening and closing of duck season, that sound is the sweetest thing to hit their ears all year. Inside that shop is Josh Raggio. Bull fighter, ballplayer, father, husband, duck call maker, and without a doubt, artist. Raggio is the founder and owner of Raggio Custom Calls, a duck call company that has done what most only aspire to do--- combine top craftsmanship with a perfect homage to the heritage and traditions of duck hunting. Perhaps more than any other style of hunting, duck hunters are always aware of their past and yet still focused on how to pass the torch to the next generation. Raggio knows this well, having grown up hunting with his father and now making his life and his business about passing the history onto the next generation and at the center of it all, he is creating duck calls that will last for centuries to come.
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Duck calls have been spoken about in lore dating back to the late 1600s, but the first patent on a duck call didn’t come until nearly 200 years later and over time, those calls have evolved in their shape, their sound, and their material. Everything from bone, to wood, and even metal was used in the construction, though metal turned out to be a bad idea when the duck call froze to a hunter’s lips in the cold temperatures. Regardless of the construction, a duck call is a special piece of the hunt and the centerpiece of the duck hunter’s journey. What Raggio does transcends all of that though and from this woodshop in Mississippi, he creates a work of art. Speaking to Josh about duck calls and his place in the business takes you down many roads. Through his subdued and almost quiet demeanor, he lights up when he talks about the process of working with a hunter on a custom call and what those calls mean to him as a craftsman over time. As he finishes the tuning on a call he made throughout our time with him, there is a small side smile that comes off his face, almost in a moment of appreciation. He knows the process and how each call is unique. He knows the precise imperfections that are part of any handmade item. He knows the time and dedication that goes into making sure that call is tuned just right. But perhaps the most important and most gratifying piece of it all is his knowing that he created something that will placed on the lanyard, dragged through the mud, relied on to bring that circling group of mallards within range, and be a piece of the owner’s family forever. In our conversation with Josh below, it’s clear to see that it’s not so much the call that keeps him producing the best duck calls anywhere, but instead it’s the bonds of family and friends you created along the way.
P+P: How does a guy from being a bull fighter to be a duck call craftsman? JR: Ha, that’s a great question. I would say it started before then growing up on a cattle farm and learning that grit and hard work from my grandparents and my dad, then transitioning from college baseball to rodeo and the a corporate job for about 12 years at Puckett Caterpillar. In the midst of that job, I figured out I wanted to learn to make a duck call and it became a hobby that progressed and the next thing you know, it became how I make my living. P+P: So is coming into the duck world new to you or did you grow up around it? JR: I grew up around it—my dad was a duck hunter. I think I was about 10 or 12 when he took me for the first time and we hunted all public land then. You know, that was back in the days where I wore men’s waders rolled down and a braided bench cinched all the way up just to try to keep them from falling down. I think I had 5 or 6 pairs of cotton baseball socks just to find a way to make the things fit.
So yea, I was introduced to it very early on and the one thing my dad really loved about all of it was the calling. He was the guy that was blowing a call in the house everyday and always had a call in his pocket. It was the part of duck hunting he loved the most. That, and the camaraderie side of it all. And so, I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. P+P: And here you set up shop right here in what is traditionally known as a great duck hunting spot. You’ve got the Mississippi Delta, you’ve got Arkansas, you’ve got the flooded timber in Louisiana. What is it that you enjoy the most about the duck culture right here in the Southeast and Mississippi River? JR: I would go back to the camaraderie point. Just being outdoors. I love trying to beat the elements a bit and am definitely a bit of a gear junkie. I love the gear, the bags, and I’m a gun guy, so I definitely like cool guns, all of it! But when it comes down to it, I’m a duck call maker and one of the reasons I am is because I love the interaction
between the call, the hunter, and a wild animal. Knowing that I can come in and make calls right here in my shop and then take it out to hunt and it actually working, to me that’s a huge accomplishment. In the beginning, that’s what I wanted to do was to take the duck call that I made myself and bring it out and actually use it. P+P: That first call—do you still have it? JR: Oh yeah, definitely P+P: Does it work? JR: Yea, and it still works well. I have the first one, my dad has the second one, and my best friend has the third. One time a year, we go take them out and use them. They don’t sound the best, but that’s part of the process for me to get a chance to learn and get better and produce a sound that we know is going to work out there. It was great to use at the time, but that was long before I knew what the heck I was doing or trying to create. It sounded great to me at the time!
“Real craftsmanship, regardless of the skill involved, reflects real caring, and real caring reflects our attitude about ourselves, about our fellow men, and about life.” – Spencer W. Kimball
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these hand drawn maps about where they hunted. They didn’t have Google Maps, so they relied on these hand-drawn maps to remember these great spots they had and how to get back to them. I’ve turned quite a few MLB players’ bats into custom calls so I’ve got the handles off the bats as a reminder of some cool projects. One thing in there is this old barber chair in there with a really cool story behind it. It belonged to a duck decoy carver and anything he ever carved came out of that chair and his family wanted me to have that chair for my shop. I don’t often stop and admire the things that are in there, but occasionally I’ll stop and look around at some of the things in there. I’ll look around and I can relate every piece in that showroom to something or somebody or an event and it’s a special thing to me. P+P: Everything you do here is custom--- what is that process like? JR: The custom side picks out the aesthetics of the entire call and decide what they want it to look like. They pick the material they want, they pick the band they want, and it can even go down to the particular sound that they want as well. Every call I make it purely custom, even if they are similar to another. Nothing is reproduced in here and each is done by hand. I don’t measure a lot, but the process is mostly done by hand and with them choosing the way they want it to look and act, it’ll be something they treasure for a lot of years. It becomes an heirloom piece. One day I’m going to pass my duck calls on and the hope is that they’ll go another generation beyond that. That’s what I am trying to create in my shop.
“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.” – Josh Ruskin P+P: I imagine the first time in the blind and that if that didn’t sound just right, 5 or 6 heads in the blind with you look at you and wonder what the heck is going on. JR: (Laughing) Absolutely! P+P: You talk about history and heritage and a lot of traditions—I walk into the shop and this is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to. The very first room you walk into is a reminder of the awards and the people you’ve encountered. What crosses your mind when you walk through that room besides knowing its another 10 hours making calls? JR: For me, I’ve designed that room to be somewhat of a showroom for a lot of really old stuff I have like my call collection. I collect handmade calls from other call makers—some from the 1900s in there and other from current call makers as well—and I get to see those every day. One thing in that there that incredibly special to me is my dad’s old duck hunting journal from 1970-1973. Its got pictures and his writing about the duck hunts they went on, combined with 64 - WINTER 2021 | PORCH + PRAIRIE Magazine
P+P: You mention the handmade portion of all of this—everything is authentic, from the tools to the process and anywhere in between. Is that the calling card of Raggio Custom Calls? How would you describe it? JR: I would say “perfectly imperfect” is the best way. Now the difference between a good craftsman and a great craftsman is covering up those imperfections really well. In the past however many years I’ve been doing this, you start to understand more about the materials you work with and that’s where the craftsman side comes in. You’re dealing with wood and you can’t control everything in that process. The process is unique and genuine and heart felt and I am hopeful that the customer feels that handmade effort and passion coming from me when they get their call. P+P: Your work has trickled out to all parts of the world, so clearly you’ve done something right. You obviously enjoy it. When someone gets one of your calls, what do you want that call represents for them and even for your own legacy as a call maker? JR: Well, for one, I hope they appreciate it for what it is. Number two, I hope it is one of those heirloom type pieces that will have stories wrapped around it and that it will get passed down. You know one thing is that the waders and the jackets and gear tend to come and go, but one of the constants for a lot of hunters is their duck call and I see a lot of that in the older generation. The things they are most proud of is their call. They’ve had 5 or 6 different jackets, but one duck call from the 60s. And so, hopefully those stories are being built every time they go and that they wrote the stories down in a journal because that duck call is part of that hunter’s life and those stories become part of the next generation. All of the events that happened—the funny, the sad, all of the emotions. I really hope that when they open that box and put it on their lanyard, they know that they are about to add more chapters to that story and keep that tradition going. P+P
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