“I don’t think there was ever a time in my life where I didn’t know what a duck call was,” said Cloud Jacobs, reminiscing on the startup of his company, Big Duck Energy.
Jacobs, owner of Big Duck Energy, makes handmade duck calls in Casscoe, Arkansas.
The operation started with Jacobs’ reintroduction to duck hunting – and a bit of boredom.
“My dad has hunted his whole life. He started when he was a little boy; he guided on the White River. And when I was a kid, I went with them maybe two or three times, and I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like getting up early. I didn’t like being cold, wet … getting in the boat at 4 o’clock in the morning,” Jacobs said.
A move to Little Rock to attend college turned into an eight-year stint in the capital city, until Jacobs was ready to return to Casscoe, near the White River.
“I moved back home in 2013 – and I was bored to death. My dad and his buddy were building a duck blind,” Jacobs said, “and I thought maybe I’d give this duck thing a try again. People travel from all over the world to come hunt here.”
That first season back, he found his love for the sport. By his second season, he was completely hooked.
Sound Decision
Jacobs’ father, Donnie, is a huge part of Big Duck Energy. Not only did he help Cloud find his groove in the duck-hunting world, but he also makes calls for the company.
“He’s never collected anything, but over the years guiding, he ended up with a handful of calls. They were in a Folgers coffee can, and I remember the night that he got them out,” Jacobs said. “He got into collecting calls, and I’d been a collector my whole life – so he got me into collecting calls.”
After a while, Jacobs thought it might be fun to take a shot crafting his own calls. About six years ago, he bought a “cheap lathe … and some cheap tools,” thinking, “Even if we just make a call for me and you, and maybe a couple of our buddies, that’ll be worth it.”
As a media specialist at DeWitt High School, Jacobs had plenty of time over the summer to work on his craft.
“I just went to the shop every single day, trying to figure out a little bit more than I knew the day before. By the end of the summer, my shapes weren’t down, my fit wasn’t quite right, my finish wasn’t great but my sound – I was happy with my sound,” he said.
The whole operation is a team effort.
“My dad’s really mechanically inclined, and I’ve never messed with tools,” he said “I’d run into something and he’d help me out with that, or he’d have trouble with something and we’d sit there and figure it out.”
It wasn’t long before Jacobs’ new hobby began to fund itself. Today, he aims to produce one call each week. In 2023, he estimates he made around 86 calls, a number he’d like to keep as his cap. After appearing on RNT-V, he saw an influx of orders and ended up closing his books to any new orders.
“It’s a low output,” he said. “It’s nice to have a lot of custom orders … but I closed my books because I didn’t want it to feel like it was turning into a job. I still want to enjoy it while I’m doing it. I want to want to do it; I don’t want to have to do it.”
Calling In
The appeal of Big Duck Energy calls comes not only from the handcrafted history but also their unique shapes. Jacobs’ signature call shape, the potbelly, is short and round rather than the traditional straight barrel.
“Being a collector first, you always appreciate it when you can tell who a call is made by, just by looking at it. I wanted to make sure that I made something that nobody else was doing at all,” he said. “Anybody sees one of my calls, they pretty well know who made it; they don’t really have to second guess.”
With such a unique look, Jacobs said it took a while for purchases to start pouring in while he was setting up at events like call socials. Then, World Champion duck caller John Stephens of RNT Calls Inc. took the plunge, buying the 99th call Jacobs had ever made.
“John Stephens bought one, and then everybody thought they were cool, it felt like. A guy walked up to me right after John bought the call,” Jacobs said. “He said, ‘Did John Stephens just buy one of your calls?’ Then he said, ‘Well, I want one, too.’”
A Big Duck Energy call named Abduction is inspired by Jacobs’ fascination with “Star Wars” and is modeled after a flying saucer. Another one, The Forefather, is Jacbos’ most standard design but is still slightly modeled after beginning sketches of a lightsaber. From Jacobs’ doughnut design to his father’s traditional, straight-barrel makes, customers are sure to find a call that suits their tastes.
“I enjoy making them; it’s a creative outlet,” Jacobs said. “It just so happens to be a creative outlet associated with something that I really love to do on the side.”
