15-Year-Old Wins World's Championship Duck Calling Contest

Hayes Kibe, a 15-year-old from Batesville, Arkansas won the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest in Stuttgart, Arkansas on Saturday, November 29. Callers from across the country came for the famed World Championship to put their skills on a duck call to the test. But ultimately, it was Kibe who came out on top!

Kibe also won the intermediate contest held on Friday for youth callers under the age of 17, where he won $1,000 and a smaller version of the iconic World’s Championship trophy featuring a large base with four duck calls in the corners, and one giant duck call in the middle, with golden mallards flying atop each duck call.

During the World’s Championship contest, Hayes strung together three very strong routines. As did much of his competition. With over 60 competitors, who had to win a qualifying contest to even have the ability to step on stage at the contest on Main Street in Stuttgart, not one competitor is easy to beat, every note you blow through your call must be perfect in order to have a shot at winning. The final order came down to Hayes and last year’s World Champion, Seth Fields, the crowd favorite to win back-to-back world titles. But when the emcee announced Fields as 1st runner-up, and Hayes as the new World’s Champion, the crowd erupted with excitement.

Kibe, at only age 15, is the youngest caller to ever win the World’s Duck Calling Championship. A feat not likely to repeated again. In an act of class, Fields congratulated Hayes, and said later in a comment on Facebook, “I liked your chances to win more than mine. I look forward to seeing you blow a duck call for years to come.”

Kibe held up his second trophy of the weekend with pride, but this time it was the big one! The World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest trophy, that came with all the money, prizes and accolades of being a World Champion; and at that, the youngest in history to ever do it!

---