Kirk McCullough
| Kirk McCullough | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joseph Kirk McCullough June 18, 1959 Pine Bluff, Arkansas, U.S. |
| 💼 Occupation | Hunter, businessman, manufacturer |
| 📆 Years active | 1982–present |
| 🌐 Website | cutdownduckcalls |
Kirk McCullough (born June 18, 1959) is an American professional hunter, businessman, and duck call manufacturer (Kirk McCullough Enterprises LTD).[1]
Kirk began duck hunting alone in 1977 and began professionally guiding duck hunts in Arkansas and throughout the USA and Canada in 1981.[2] For the better part of five decades, Kirk has hunted the public flooded green timber river and creek bottoms in central Arkansas. [3]
Kirk refined the unique design of a cut-down duck call and began small-batch manufacturing of his own Cut-Down Calls in 2012. [4]
Early life
Born in Pine Bluff, Kirk McCullough grew up fishing the Arkansas River with his father, Newt McCullough. He fished the river with a cane pole and minnows, for fun and for food. [5] This is where Kirk’s love for the outdoors began. His father would take him to squirrel camp on the White River where Newt McCullough and his friends who worked the Cotton Belt railroad, also known as the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, would squirrel hunt for weeks at a time. [2]
Aged 14, his Uncle Scotty took him and his dad on the Arkansas river and they went duck hunting. Kirk recalled, “We did not even see a duck, but I just got hooked… I just wanted to keep going.”[5]
Kirk started to duck hunt alone at the age of 16. And by the age of 19 he was hunting ducks every day of the waterfowl season.[5]
Career
Early career
In the early 1980s Kirk McCullough started guiding hunts in the Wildlife Management Areas in Arkansas, primarily in Bayou Meto.[3] There he met Lester Capps. Lester Capps developed the "Cut Down" duck call while duck hunting on public ground in Arkansas in the 1980s using an Olt duck call.[4] Learning and perfecting the cut-down duck call with Lester Capps gave Kirk enough of an advantage over other duck hunters that he began guiding duck hunts for a living. Kirk considers Lester to be a mentor to him as a young hunter and the forefather of what he calls the “Cut-down Era” of waterfowl hunting in Arkansas.[6]
As a young guide early in his career Kirk also made money by seasonal work and selling fish he caught.[5] Once during this early time to make the $50 he needed to make ends meet, Kirk entered a talent show and skinned and gutted fish and frogs winning $1000.[7]
Kirk started getting his duck hunts filmed and produced into video compilations in the late 1990s. First releasing them on VHS and later as DVDs. This includes the titles 'The Sky's the Limit', 'Green Timber Duck Hunting', 'Shoot to Kill', 'Green Timber Duck Hunting II' and 'Living for the Kill.'[8]
In 2000 when the Arkansas State Game and Fish Commission moved to prohibit licensed duck guides from hunting on public land on Saturdays and Sundays, Kirk was one of the groups of duck hunters and duck hunting guides who filed suit against the Commission. This first suit took place in Arkansas County Circuit Court. The case was settled in the Supreme Court of Arkansas in 2001 upholding the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's regulation.[9]
After this ruling Kirk McCullough no longer guides in Arkansas Wildlife Management Areas, since guiding there is now prohibited by law.[3] He has not guided a duck hunt in 20 years.[5]
Cut-Down Duck Call
Unable to guide duck hunts in Arkansas Kirk turned to innovate the duck call itself. After over 30 years of cutting down calls for clients, Kirk used his experience and expertise to recreate the duck call. In 2012, Kirk became the man who invented a better duck call.[4]
In the small first batch of 60 duck calls, the duck call was revolutionized with a threaded reed insert instead of the traditional friction-fit insert of other duck calls.[6] Having a threaded insert with a centralizer on the duck calls allows the insert to fit for a consistent sound.[1] This innovation came from his working in the oil fields of North Dakota as a safety inspector and witnessing the technology that the lineman used. In addition to how the insert fits into the duck call Kirk designed and tuned the sounding channel for the inserts beyond the traditional keyhole and round hole channels he designed a new multi channel insert.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "One on One with Kirk McCullough - King of the Cutdown Call".
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "24.7 Hunt Episode 7 – Kirk McCullough".
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Cut-Down Duck call King".
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "'Cut Down' duck call and good old days".
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Kirk McCullough Part 1".
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Kirk McCullough Split Reed Cut Down Q&A".
- ↑ "Kirk gets $1000 for skinning fish and frogs".
- ↑ "Kirk McCullough Duck DVDs".
- ↑ "Supreme Court of Arkansas v SLEDGE, Kirk McCullough etc".
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