Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED
If you watched the Dive Bomb SquadFest duck calling contests, you were probably expecting someone like Cory Niccum, Seth Fields, Colby Stilwell, Domingo Sanchez, or a myriad of other decorated callers to come away with the grand prize. I mean, that usually is the case. Not many “underdogs” win in the world of contest calling. Not because of the lack of talent, more because of how the scoring system works, and because, well, the guys who always win, always win for a reason- they’re the best. Tyler Heaton proved that’s not always the case during the meat duck contest down in Missouri. Not only did he notch his first novice win in his belt, but he also came away with his first open win, against some of the best competition in the world. Split Reed had the chance to talk to Tyler to get to know him a little better, and also to get a rundown on what it was like to win that contest, and enjoy that experience.
Tyler grew up in West Michigan and started waterfowl hunting when he was 12 years old. His uncle was the one that started the addiction for him, mentioning that he served as a father figure to him. “I picked up my first call when I was like 14 or 15 years old,” says Heaton, “I didn’t get into calling right away. It was pretty tough and I didn’t quite have the desire to get good on the call at that point. But during, I think, my Sophomore year of high school, I sat down and listened to bad grammar and really learned how to blow a short reed call, and from there it was on”. Heaton mentions that as soon as he really started to learn how to use calls, he was hooked. He started learning as much as he could about calls- how they operated, how different calls sounded, how they were made. Joining different forums, talking to different call-makers, and so on. Tyler didn’t start contest calling right away, though. His first contest was a novice goose contest in his home state of Michigan in 2011 where he took 7th out of 15 callers. After that, Heaton says he took a bit of a break from the contest calling scene, until 2016 when he decided to get a bit more serious about it. “SquadFest was my first ‘big’ contest, but over the past few years I’ve been going to contests here and there around Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, just kind of spreading out”. Heaton made the decision to go to Missouri for SquadFest, and just wanted to see how things went for him.
A big boost of confidence for Heaton was the online contests held by Kile Jones and others during the 2020 pandemic, where he finished 5th and 8th against some pretty stout competition. “I know it was online, and you could submit your best routine, and I also had called in Indiana against Trevor (Shannahan) and Seth (Fields) before but I wasn’t even close to that level when I had competed against them, but I’d really been practicing over the years and getting better. So those online contests gave me some confidence knowing that if I blew clean that I could at least kind of hang, so I really was going down to try to win the novice meat duck contest. I hadn’t won a meat duck contest before. I wasn’t trying to be cocky but I knew if I blew a clean routine I could probably win it or at least finish top 3”. Tyler’s biggest goal at the contest was to win the novice contest. In the open, he just wanted to blow a clean round, and see how it was received by the judges. His honest goal was to make the second round. He notes that if he could make the top 15-16 callers, he’d be happy.
In talking about his novice duck contest, Heaton says that he felt good about all his rounds (which he obviously should have). “I blew clean, I wasn’t pushing it. I probably could have done a little bit more on the call if I wanted to, but I just wanted to keep it clean and have good power. So going into that third round I felt confident that I was one of the top guys”. The contest was cut to 5 callers going into the third round, so Tyler knew he had made into the top 5 at the very least. He mentions that after the third round was finished he didn’t know where everything lined up, but he felt pretty sure he was in at least first or second. After the names were read, the goal was accomplished- Heaton won his novice meat duck contest. No ties, just a clean, three-round outright win for the Michigan man. However, Tyler does mention that he didn’t have much time to enjoy the win because as soon as he collected his $1,000 check, got the prize winnings, and took the pictures, it was then go-time for the open. “There wasn’t much time to sit with my buddies and enjoy winning the contest which was kind of a bummer, because that was the contest I was down there to win, and I wanted to celebrate that a little. Unfortunately, I had to just get ready for the open meat duck right after. I won the novice contest, and pretty much had to head right back to the bullpen”. Tyler does say that winning the novice did boost his confidence heading into the open contest. It also took some of the stress away. “I reached my goal of winning the novice, and I was just elated! So now it was time to go into the open and whatever happens, happens”. Except for this time he wasn’t going up against guys that hadn’t won a contest before, he was going to be trying to post up scores to compete against world champions and some of the best in the business.
In the open contest, Tyler says he drew something around the 9th calling position, so he listened to a few routines, then it was his turn. He went out, blew his first round, kept it clean, and felt good. He says he did basically the same thing he had just done for the past three rounds in the novice contest that had given him the win. From that point, they cut to 11 callers for the second round, and Heaton made the cut. “Like I said going into it, that was really my goal. Make the first cut and make it into the second round. So when that happened I was like ‘sweet! Got that done!’ ”
For the second round, Heaton was a little closer to the first of callers to hit the stage. He went out, blew a clean round, and came back to the bullpen. He figured for the third round they’d be cutting to 5 callers unless there were any ties. In that case, they might have to bring 6 or 7 callers back depending on what position the ties were at. “They brought back 6, and they were paying out the top 5 places. So they call out the top 6, and I’m in there. At that point, it’s starting to set in a little bit. I mean there are guys that are world champions that got cut. I’m not trying to say I’m better than them at all, but they made mistakes, or for whatever reasons the judges didn’t like it. So now, I’m in it with the best”. At this point, Tyler had the assumption he was sitting somewhere in the standings around 5th. While you’re in a contest you don’t know where you actually are in the scorecards. Heaton, now, was just determined to go out and give a great third-round routine to ensure a top 5 finish. “That third-round routine was probably the best routine I blew all weekend. I mean, it was just clean, smooth transitions, everything was good about that routine. I came back from that routine and I felt good, and everyone’s talking back there, and Forrest and Kile come back and say that there’s a tie. Forrest taps me on the shoulder and says ‘I need you’ and he taps Cory Niccum on the shoulder and says ‘I need you’. Now I’m just like ‘Oh God, I’m tied with Cory Niccum’” Going from having never won a meat duck calling contest before, to notching your first novice win, to then being in a tie-breaker in the final round with Cory Niccum is quite the way to make an entrance on the scene.
In the tie-breaker, Tyler drew the “bullet”, or the first caller, which meant Cory would be following him. Heaton says that was the most nervous he’d been all weekend at the contest. With more money on the line, and being in a tie with arguably one of the best meat duck callers to ever do it, he notes that it was quite an intense period of time between getting on stage, blowing his round, listening to Cory, and then waiting for results. With Mike Benjamin getting 5th, Heaton was pleased with the fact that must have been calling for 3rd or higher. Then Daniel Ault took 4th, which raised the stakes even more. Then Colby Stilwell took 3rd, and at that point, Tyler realized that he had been tied for first in the biggest open meat duck contest that had happened in years. With one of the best callers in the world. “Man, that feeling of when they called his name for second- like I said I haven’t been doing this for a long time. About 2016 is when I really started going to contests and getting into it, but I mean it’s something I’ve dreamt of since I was in high school. When you’re up on stage with the top callers and your name gets called last. To have that moment, at SquadFest, where it was the first contest in over a year and a half, and to go down there to my first big one, and to win it- it was a shock because I never planned on that happening. I planned on winning one eventually, but not at the same place I won my novice at!”
Heaton’s original plan was to drive back to Michigan that night after the contests (about a 7-hour drive), but Tyler made the call to his wife to tell her he had won, and also apologize that he wouldn’t be driving back that night. Too much celebration was in order. “We went out to dinner and had a bunch of drinks with all the guys. Cory and Mike Benjamin and all those guys, everyone was really cool man. Everyone congratulated me, and it was cool because, with those online contests, some of those guys were the ones that judged me. So I was back and forth with them sending them routines and talking to them, but this was my first time meeting them in person. They were just really awesome. You know, we’re all duck hunters. We all love to hunt, we’re all just normal people and to just hang out and drink beers and have a good time with those guys was really awesome!”
It’s safe to say that Heaton’s calling career is just getting started. The next contest he has his sights set on is Presley’s. Another stacked contest filled with talented callers. However, his big goal for the year is the world live duck in Easton, MD. He mentions that he was planning on going to that contest either way just as a bucket-list trip. Something to do while he’s in the throws of contest calling, using the call a lot, and has a good chance of going deep into the contest. Luckily for Heaton, it seems like he’s right on top of the game and ready to make a deep run wherever he goes.
While Tyler may be hot on a duck call, he isn’t a stranger to short reed goose call either. He collected a novice win back in 2016 in Indiana. When he first got into contest calling, that was his original pursuit. Trying his hand at the goose-calling side of things. However, live and meat duck contests have gotten more popular, giving him more opportunities to compete in those types of contests. As far as competing in a main-street style contest, Heaton says he has no problem with it, he just was originally more drawn towards the calling style of actually calling like you would during a hunting scenario. He says that maybe one day he’ll give it a shot, but it doesn’t seem like something he plans to do in the near future.
Tyler has a competitive nature that allows him to continually push to be better. After all of his contests, he makes sure to talk to his judges to see why they scored him a certain way, even after contests that he won- just to make sure he knows how he can keep getting better and improving. “I want to go to contests and know that I can finish in the top 5, or know that I have a shot to win each contest I go to,” he says. Heaton uses a C&S prototype that Mike Stelzner gave to him a while back. Tyler has been a loyal C&S user for multiple years now, and the call he used to notch these past two wins will now be used to help Stelzner design a new tone board for some new calls they have in queue.
Needless to say, Heaton may have been a darkhorse at SquadFest, but that won’t be the case moving forward. He plans to make the list of “regulars” something like Benjamin, Niccum, Fields, Stilwell, and Heaton. And we’re excited to watch him do it!
