Photo courtesy of Taylor J. Pardue

 

Waterfowlers are called crazy by many, and sometimes even by each other. Theirs is a sport of brutal conditions and uncertain results. If you ask any of them why they do it, you’re as likely to get a questioning look as an answer. Better to ask why the sky is blue than to ask a man why he suffers so for a bird he loves but intends to kill in order to truly enjoy. Duck hunting is a mystery even to its participants, but the following quotes come as close as any to explaining its incredible appeal. The only way to really understand is to experience it firsthand.

 

 

“He’s an honest and kindly man who asks only of life that the ducks fly often and fast, that he gives them a sporting chance, and that God will let him come back to the marshes again next year.”

– Charley Dickey, “What is a Duck Hunter?”

 

“I shot my first duck only 26 years ago, which qualifies me as a promising novice in a sport that takes a lifetime of learning.”

– Ed Zern, “Wings and Water, Guns and Dogs”

 

“I was as happy with my four big ducks as I might have been with 60, because I had seen enough to shoot 60 and I had shot the ones I wanted the way I wanted to shoot them.” 

– Robert Ruark, “A Christmas Present to Myself”

 

“The canvasback is a now-diminishing duck that was originally created to inspire exquisite decoys and, when it was legal to take them in numbers, gluttony.”

– Gene Hill, “The Meaning of Canvasback”

 

“As I grow older, I am bedeviled by the ambivalence involved in shooting a bird I love so dearly. It is (and, dear God, how I have wrestled with it!) a riddle beyond solution. With it, as with any form of hunting I do, the ritual and trappings and literature of the endeavor have me in their embrace, and I do not enjoy a trip afield with camera half as much.”

– Unknown

 

“I tried to take in everything: the soul-quieting snow; the heft of the mallard in my hand; the wood rattle of my arrows in the quiver as I walked. Everything. All while knowing it might be quite some time until I felt this way again.”

– Bob Butz, “River Notes: Three Days of the Savage Life”

 

“Outsiders call us sadists or masochists; sometimes both. Others — mostly ourselves — describe our activities in romantic, even heroic, terms. We take ourselves very seriously and tend to forget that much of duck and goose hunting is fun and sometimes ridiculous.”

– George Reiger, “The Wings of Dawn” 

 

“‘Might’s well learn not to talk much in the blind,’ he said. ‘Maybe it don’t make any difference, but it takes your mind off watching. And four-fifths of shooting ducks is watching. Shhh.‘”

– Robert Ruark, “A Duck Looks Different to Another Duck”

 

“Why then will I sit on the blind through the long hours of the morning? The ostensible reason is the outside chance of another shot at a duck. But the real reason I suppose is that tranquility of being alone in the marsh, untroubled by the banalities of human society — the frets and frustrations of home, the office, the highway — all completely out of mind for a few refreshing hours. Only the marsh and its life claim my attention.”

– A. Starker Leopold, “Meditations in a Duck Blind”