Contact: Larry Rea, Media Director

ON THE ROAD AGAIN WITH BUCK GARDNER

If it’s September, it must be time for Buck Gardner, Champion of Champion Duck Caller and owner of Memphis-based Buck Gardner Calls LLC, to hit the road spreading the good news about waterfowl hunting.
And that’s just what he’ll be doing from Sept. 18-28 as Buck, the ultimate people person who thrives on one-on-one conversation with fellow waterfowl enthusiasts, conducts duck and goose seminars at eight locations across Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa.
Willie Nelson’s classic ‘On the Road Again’ would be a perfect fit for Buck’s travels.
“There’s just something about telling people about the thrill and satisfaction of waterfowl hunting,” says Buck, who won the World Championship of Duck Calling in 1994 and came back the next year and claimed the sport’s ultimate title, Champion of Champion. “Whether that person is 5 of 95 it doesn’t make a difference. As long as they’ve got the desire to learn, I’ve got the desire to teach.”
Buck’s itinerary will take him to Scheel’s in Omaha (Sept. 18) and Lincoln (Sept. 19), Neb.; Mankato (Sept 21), Minn., and Iowa City (Sept. 25) and Des Moines (Sept. 26), Iowa; Sportsman’s Warehouse in Sioux Falls (Sept. 20), S.D. and Ankeny (Sept. 27), Iowa and K & K Hardware in Bettendorf (Sept. 28), Iowa.
Buck’s seminars will begin at each store at 7 p.m.
If that’s not enough, each store will also be giving away a Remington 870 shotgun (winning entry must be present).
And if anyone knows about giving, it’s Buck Gardner, whose call business annually donates thousands of products, especially if the donations are going to youth.
To be exact, Buck says last year Buck Gardner Calls gave away 18,000 calls to kids.
“For one thing, I have never said no to kids,” Buck says. “Not once. I’ve never had someone say, ‘We’ve got 200 little kids and want to do a seminar but we don’t have a budget and we want to get them all duck calls. How can we work this out?’ I just say I need your address and we’ll send them to you.”
Buck admits that some people don’t understand what he’s doing.
“They’ll say that’s crazy, giving away calls,” Buck says. “They’ll say, ‘that’s nuts. You can’t do that.’ Well, God continues to bless us. I mean, our business continues to grow. We’re getting bigger. We’re doing better in everything we do. So, why would I quit doing what I do? It’s really a simple deal.”
Buck, being a family man with three children, including two sons (Brad and Patrick) who are actively involved in the day to day operation of Buck Gardner Calls, has long had a love affair with life whether he’s giving a seminar to a room full of children or working ducks or geese on a bone-chilling Canadian morning with a dog at his side and a lump in his throat as he shares tall tales of past, present and future hunts.
All of this goes back to Buck’s first duck hunt with his father at the age of six. Buck, who in 2005 was inducted into the Outdoor Hall of Fame, recalls picking up the two ducks his father had shot, stepping in a stump hole and going in over his head. When he came up, Buck still had both ducks in his hands. As soon as he was dry and warm, he was ready to go out again.
He’s still got that same passion for hunting . . . and making quality hunting products.
What started as a hobby in 1986, soon turned into a business developing championship-caliber calls, including an Arkansas-style call that would blow when wet.
Being first, whether it was blowing a duck call in competition or originating a new idea and making it work, has become one of the key ingredients in the success of Buck’s company. Buck Gardner Calls was the first company to produce a compact disc on duck calling. His company was also the first call maker to use Santoprene@ wedges in the place of cork, along with camo coatings to duck calls. In 2003, Buck Gardner Calls made available the first reasonably priced (another trademark of Buck’s company), laser-polished injection molded duck and goose calls. In 2005, Buck introduced Interactive Displays in the hunting retail market.
Buck’s new Spit Tech engineered calls are made to blow even better when they are full of spit. In fact, the calls are guaranteed not to stick. . Or you’ll get your money back. How’s that for a deal? For that matter, Buck says, “They really don’t sound right until you get them good and wet.”
He’s not through developing products that must have the Buck Gardner Calls stamp of approval.
One of the newest is the company’s Pocket Pocket.
When Buck says there has never been a single or double reed duck call with more range than his company’s new Pocket Rocket he’s not just blowing in the wind.
He means it.
“We guarantee that the call will never stick or you can have your money back,” Buck says.
“The big thing is that this is an extension of our Spit Tech technology,” Buck says. “It’s now available in a polycarbonate version with a buck brush short barrel. The cool thing about these calls is that they will blow when they are full of spit.”
Better still, Buck says they’ll sound even better when full of spit.
“We’ve now been able to take what we did in acrylic and put in the polycarbonate, which was revolutionary,” Buck says. “The big thing that everybody wants is a duck call that sounds awesome. This call, believe me, sounds awesome.”
Buck Gardner Calls doesn’t just make world-famous championship duck calls. It also makes goose calls, deer calls, squirrel calls, predator calls, as well as a 40-plus page color cookbook entitled ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Duck.’
Plus, there are a lot more ideas on the table for future development.
Come see Buck at one of his upcoming seminars and he’ll tell you all about it.
For more information check out Buck’s Web site at www.buckgardner.com or call (901) 946-2996.