By John Felsher
Any family would be blessed with one member winning championships, but two siblings in the Wisener family of Guntersville are champions in the world of duck-calling, with one the reigning world champion.
Jake Wisener has won multiple duck calling contests, including two Alabama state duck calling titles, but hasnโt quite topped what his younger sister Kacie Wisener achieved in her rookie year
of competing.
โWe live about 50 yards from Jake, his wife and children,โ says Lynne Wisener, their mother. โEverybody knows when itโs getting close to duck calling season. Itโs definitely loud, but we enjoy it. We are very proud of them both.โ
Jake began his foray into duck calling competitions, not quite by accident, but close. At age 12, the active athlete suffered a torn Achilles tendon that required surgery.
โI was playing football, basketball, baseball, everything,โ Jake recalls. โI didnโt hurt it, but it began to hurt over time. They said that tendon was too short and would continue to hurt until they fixed it.โ
Unable to put any weight on his foot, Jake could do little more than look at his iPad or watch TV for months. While watching โDuck Dynasty,โ he became fascinated with blowing duck calls. He watched videos to teach himself the art of duck calling.
โWe had been duck hunting a few times with friends and really enjoyed it, but we knew nothing about calling ducks,โ says his father Mark, a Methodist pastor and owner of a turf management company. โWhen Jake was hurt and shut down for that long, duck calling was one of the things that interested him that he could do. Coming home from work one day, I heard calling coming from his room. I thought it was another video, but it was Jake.โ
Jake practiced vigorously for weeks, honing his skills. While Jake practiced, sister Kacie listened intently. At age 10, she blew her first call and hunted a few times.
โI listened to my brother forever,โ Kacie says. โI would occasionally pick up a call and blow it.โ
When the family attended the 2012 Tennessee Valley Hunting and Fishing Expo in Huntsville, Jake noticed a booth for Mayday Calls from Union Grove, not far from Guntersville. He picked up a call and started blowing it.
Impressed, the owner suggested the youth enter some calling competitions and even made a call for Jake. A couple months later, Jake entered his first local contest and won it.
โI entered that first contest for fun,โ Jake says. โI really didnโt know much about contests. Competing never entered my mind. I just wanted to be a good hunter. The idea of communicating with an animal and convincing it that I was not a human was very interesting to me. I relate it to a chess match between man and nature.โ
Jake started entering more prestigious events. While Jake competed, Kacie listened to the calls he and the other men made.
โThe more I listened to the men, the more it stuck in my head what a duck call is supposed to sound like,โ she says.
At one event, the family met Butch Rickenbach, founder of RNT Calls, a major duck call manufacturer. He sponsored Jake and taught him about competition calling.
In 2017, Jake won the Last Chance Regional Duck Calling Contest. Held the night before the World Championship Duck Calling Contest in Stuttgart, Ark., that event qualified Jake to compete in the menโs adult championship contest for the first time the next day.
โI owe all my success to Butch,โ Jake said. โHe became a friend and mentor. He was like a grandfather to me.โ
The calling championship annually takes place during Thanksgiving week in conjunction with the Wings Over the Prairie Festival in Stuttgart. The event began in 1936 and marks its 90th year this fall. To date, Jake has competed in three world championships at Stuttgart.
Each year, the Wisener Family rents a recreational vehicle to travel to Arkansas. During those hours-long trips, Kacie would listen to Jake practicing his routines in the back of the RV. Driving home from Arkansas after the 2024 championship, Kacie listened to her brother as usual.
โWhenever we went to Arkansas, Butch would hand me a call to blow,โ Kacie says. โWhen I called, everyone said it sounded good and that I should enter calling contests. I never wanted to jump on the bandwagon of competing, but everyone said that if I didnโt enter the 2025 contest, they would be mad at me. Jake helped
me prepare.โ
When the family returned home, Kacie began making TikTok videos documenting her journey into competitive calling. The videos became very popular with people encouraging her to compete.
โThe videos blew up,โ Kacie says. โI would occasionally make a video, but in the last month before the contest, I tried to do one about every day. People said we need more women to compete.โ
Finally, she entered the 2025 Womenโs World Championship Duck Calling Contest, also held in Stuttgart. She competed against six other women and now reigns as the current womenโs world champion duck caller.
โWinning a world championship is definitely much harder for the men because they have a lot more competition, but itโs still a big accomplishment for a woman to win a world championship,โ Kacie says.
Now 22, Kacie teaches pre-kindergarten and is the assistant volleyball coach for Guntersville High School where her team won the state championship.
Jake, now 25, recovered from his injury enough to become the starting quarterback at Guntersville High School. He later played in college. He took two years off from calling and married Dayleigh. The couple now raise daughter Remi, 3, and son Reed, 1. Jake works
as a firefighter.
โJake has been very successful on many levels throughout the years of competing,โ Lynne says. โThrough all those years, Kacie has watched, listened and supported her brother in this journey. We are extremely excited to see what Kacieโs journey will be now that she has accomplished this win for the world championship.โ
