Romance Lost? Waterfowling in a Connected World

Romance Lost?
Waterfowling in a Connected World

Have we lost sight of duck hunting’s simplest and most appealing charms?

By Kyle Wintersteen

The black ducks arced around the edge of the decoys in precise formation, causing their shadowy silhouettes to disappear and reappear through a slate-gray mist rising off the Susquehanna River. It was my first duck hunt—a high-seas adventure for a 12-year-old, in which men, guns, an enormous Chessie, gobs of Herter’s 72s, and a small bathtub of coffee had been stuffed into a flat-bottom john and motored beyond the lights, sounds, work, school, and other societal drains on the human soul. We were a mere couple miles from our sleepy little town but, in my imagination—no, make that my core—I was in an uncharted expanse hunting the fabled wild ducks said to appear every winter through some combination of magic and miracle from a far-flung territory known to the elders as “Canada.”

The first wave of birds descended sharply toward the center of the spread, trailed closely by the motherlode. The shot was called. Steel was slung. I picked out a duck and fired once, twice, three times and—no way—was it dropping?

The dead, deep chocolate duck splashed down and, with it, any chance I’d ever be something other than a duck hunter. Life was altered … richly and permanently.

But I’ve wondered, hypothetically, what if this watershed moment had occurred in 2025? What if, rather than smiling my way home and savoring the deeply feeling, personal experience, I took to Instagram or Facebook to share it? What if a pic of the bird or retelling of the hunt failed to draw every middle schooler’s prized currency—the positive affirmation of peers? What if a quick scroll of my feed revealed mallards and Canada geese piled high by others—would my single duck have felt diminished, less satisfying, an egg without salt? And would hours upon hours of viewing hunters’ “highlight reels” (nobody has a slow day on social media) have fueled jealousy and led me to start treating waterfowling as a competition?

What I’m getting at—and intend to explore with you in these pages—is this: Has our connected world led duck hunting to lose its romance? Has it caused hunters to quit seeking or become blinded to its subtler splendors? If so, then at what cost in regard to current hunters quitting or new recruits shelving their interest? And can a classic duck hunt’s simple charms and old-fashioned wonders ever be recaptured, retaught, or experienced anew?

Expectations and Frustrations

These sentimental yarns aside, let’s allow a truth: It’s OK to admit that you like shooting ducks. (That bit about being out there for the sunrises and fellowship? Not fooling anyone.) However, according to Joel Brice, Delta’s chief conservation officer, trouble can arise when dropping a few drakes becomes more than a desirable outcome but a need—an issue compounded by its natural progression toward setting expectations for our hunts and comparing our morning’s take to another hunter’s.

“I think there was a period in the late ’90s and early 2000s when hunters’ expectations and realities met,” Brice said. “Waterfowlers were having consistent success—until they weren’t. Yet expectations remain sky-high, perhaps fueled by decades of generous hunting regulations: spring snow goose seasons since 1999, abundant bonus teal opportunities, generous limits for resident Canadas, and, most notably, a streak of liberal season frameworks that began before many hunters were even born.”

Expectations play a larger role in our ability to find joy and appreciate the pageantry of waterfowling than we may realize. You may believe you avoided any anticipation of success, until feelings of disappointment, thoughts of what the hunt could or should have been, and jealousies arise.

“The old saying that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’ is so true,”  said Tyler Coleman of Robesonia, Pennsylvania, whose “Full Circle Waterfowl” is best known for offering elite taxidermy and celebrating nostalgic waterfowling vibes. “You have to search for the simpler reasons you enjoy hunting ducks such as good dog work or admiring duck calls or cooking breakfast for your buddies—the little things that are tougher to find but, once you do, they transform you. And they’re an easier measure to reach consistently than when you’re young and immature and just want to kill birds.”

If you’re disappointed or angry with the experience, it doesn’t much matter whether waterfowling has lost its romance—you couldn’t find it if it plopped into your decoys. A 2024 study in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, titled “Exceeding expectations increases satisfaction among … waterfowl hunters,” reveals the powerful influence of expectations on hunter satisfaction, and the apparent ability of negativity to spread regionally.

The authors wrote that among many waterfowl hunters, “ … Voicing dissatisfaction appears to be a persistent and pervasive cultural phenomenon … irrespective of survey year, including many hunters with high numbers of days in the field and/or high rates of harvest success.”

In other words, shooting a lot of ducks by, say, my beloved Atlantic Flyway’s standards won’t make you happy if you’d mentally prepared to shoot a bunch more. The researchers suggest that waterfowl managers (biologists) “ask hunters about expectations and assist hunters with setting appropriate expectations.”

“If your goal is to shoot a limit during seven out of every 10 times you go out, you’re setting yourself up for anger and disappointment,” Brice said. “You’re never going to pick up on the vibe that long-term hunters tend to find, and that can be a problem. I suspect it’s among the reasons that hunters quit.”

To Brice’s point, Delta Waterfowl and others involved in R3 (recruitment, retention, and reactivation) have observed that first-time hunters who experience immediate, dramatic successes can actually be less likely to stick with hunting.

“How often do you hear someone say, ‘That kid’s hooked!’ after he or she shoots a quick limit of ducks or a big buck?” Brice said. “But that kid or young adult is likely to struggle if they’re intent on replicating that first experience.”

Therefore, Brice says, a public land or other modest hunt that requires effort to bag, if you’re lucky, one or two ducks, can be far more valuable than a guided hunt where success comes easily. The goal isn’t to “spoil” new hunters but to foster appreciation for the process.

“It’s an important lesson for the new hunter to go into hunts hoping to get ducks but not expecting to get ducks,” Brice said. “Every hunt can be rewarding with that mindset.”

This approach can help new hunters discover the romantic aspects of waterfowling that resonate with them—and remind you of your own favorites. But what if this search proves elusive?

It may be helpful to clarify exactly what we’re seeking.

Romance Decoded

First off, we aren’t talking about love here—that sort of romance is covered in a different kind of magazine. Rather, we’re referring to the romance that dictionary.com defines as “the attractive, partly imagined character or quality of something, as an era, a place, or an activity, that suggests adventure, heroism, excitement, glamour, and distance from the everyday.”

“The annual hunt with my best buddies at this special place we call ‘The Meadow’ has that sort of tradition and reverence,” Coleman said. “It’s where I first started hunting at 12 years old, where I shot my first ducks and geese. Every time we go, even though it’s just a pig and cattle farm, the sights and especially the smells of the farm, it takes you back to being a kid again, hunting that pasture. It’s the perfect setting.”

Kate Hunt, the Texas-based owner of “The Duck Huntress” apparel, accessory, and lifestyle brand, offered insights last December while, incidentally, partaking in her vision of romantic waterfowling—a DIY journey plying Oregon’s public waters.

“When I think of a hunt with romance and mystique, it normally involves a public land setting with multiple elements of the unknown—new landscapes, challenges, species, and [hunting] methods,” she said. “It has nothing to do with the actual ‘success in hand.’ Wild places will always make you feel more alive. They awaken a primitive instinct in us and I believe that feeling is truly what we chase as hunters.”

For reasons similar to those cited by Hunt, the adventure of big water such as the Susquehanna River sunrise described in the intro is, for me, the epitome of waterfowling’s romance, with its sense of danger—real or imagined—and separation from civilization. And, more recently, I enjoyed a hunt right outside of town that conjured a similar sensation; I credit the snow falling silently into a lovely little creek-carved canyon, the two fattened drakes I killed over decoys, and especially the quietness of it all—I love hunting with friends, I love hunter recruitment efforts, but I find there’s a meditative sort of peace found only when hunting solo.

Regardless of the means by which that special aura is obtained, it’s interesting that few, if any, hunting scenarios incorporate every attribute covered by the definition. For example, it would be a stretch to say that the hunts described by Coleman and me were “glamorous.” However, Coleman’s hunt at “The Meadow” smacks of an attractive era, place, and activity that’s filled with excitement, while my river and creek outings were appealing scenes with “partly imagined … distance from the everyday.”

Perhaps you would agree that all these examples qualify as romantic experiences. That’s good, as the diversity of options offering such positive vibes may help insulate them from getting bulldozed by progress, physically or metaphorically. Further, when considering modern society’s potential detractors from a romantic waterfowling experience—as we’ll do now—we find that most sabotage at least one or two of the necessary ingredients.

Glory Days (Were They, Though?)

Many hunters seem to pursue an idyllic vision of waterfowling in which ducks are always taken on the wing and over decoys, family and friends commune in cozy blinds with hot coffee and eggs on the griddle, and calls never stick and shotguns never jam and retrievers never break.

The problem for those who pursue that fable (this writer being one of them) is that it exists—and has only ever existed—in a theoretical sense and old Gene Hill books. Critically, however, when we read about or ponder a perfected duck hunting scene, we feel like we’ve experienced it and we feel like we’ve been there, because in our hearts we have. The desire to relive such joys can, if approached with reasonable expectations, draw us back to the blind like iron to a magnet and, when we don’t achieve a hunt that resembles anything like the polished vision in our heads, we can still choose gratitude over disappointment.

Or, we could allow ourselves to feel like failures—and, in turn, miss out on the romance of the day—through drawing comparisons to a day, once upon a time, when this or that spot produced clouds of ducks.

Similarly, waterfowling nostalgia can be a positive, romance-boosting aspect of the hunt—or we can doggedly pursue an impossible standard while over-glorifying some remnant of the past. Indeed, you can lament that the past is gone and duck hunting today is “just not what it once was,” or you can throw on a waxed cotton parka and a Jones hat, toss out a spread of grandad’s old cork blocks, and celebrate your roots.

Hunt recently launched “The Old Hen Shop,” which caters to buyers of old waterfowl decoys, paintings, statues, and other works that her sleuthing uncovers. Coleman’s Full Circle Waterfowl shop also leans into waterfowlers’ love of nostalgia, with throwback clothing, gear, and art. But why is it that we waterfowlers cherish the past in ways that contradict the suggestion that we’ve become “all about the numbers”?

“I think part of why we love that kind of stuff is that waterfowlers are gear nuts,” Coleman said. “And these are items that have changed over the generations in interesting ways and may have been used by a father or grandfather.”

Despite all this, I wonder whether the past was even all that preferable to the present. Would the quality of the early 20th century’s “golden era”—no doubt spectacular, given its high duck numbers and huge limits—offset its transportation challenges, inferior clothing, and lack of readily available shotshells and reliable autoloaders?

In terms of more recent eras, I’ve heard folks including my father talk about the 1980s as if they offered North America’s last truly great waterfowling. Umm, I was only a toddler at the time, but my idea of fun doesn’t include “points system” regulations (excluding the generous gunning it allowed for pintails, bluebills, and certain others), 30-day seasons, and hefty drought-induced declines in duck populations.

Therefore, I wonder if we’ve applied what psychologists call “nostalgic bias” or “rosy retrospection”—a tendency to remember the past more fondly than history warrants—to other eras in waterfowling.

Perhaps the bias is also propelled by the photo relics of early 1900s waterfowling. We’ve all seen the yellowed black-and-white photos of men in coats and ties with absolute hauls of dead fowl spread across the roof of a Model T or the steps of a saloon. It stands to reason that our occasional but repeated exposure to such images would inflate our sense of just how glorious it must have been to be a duck hunter then. However, it’s worth noting that photos were a rare, time consuming, and expensive endeavor 150 years ago. It therefore stands to reason that only banner days were recorded—and can we trust that all the ducks and geese in such photos were shot over a short period rather than gathered over time for the grand photo?

Regardless, if our vision leads us to seek a form of waterfowling that occurred in an era that’s long gone, that’s been greatly exaggerated, or that never actually existed, then why wouldn’t it seem like duck hunting has lost its depth and soul? If this scenario plays out in our subconscious—and for many I believe it does—then it would be one more example of how duck hunters’ unmet expectations can sow frustration and blind us to romance.

Competing for Clicks

Another potential drain on the romance of duck hunting occurs through social media because, interestingly, the modern tech carries a similar risk as our earliest photos of duck hunters: Namely, it greatly overinflates our sense of how many ducks the average hunter shoots. Many waterfowlers overlook or avoid posting about slow days in the blind—though these can of course be filled with plenty of laughs, memorable moments, and other stirring appeals—perhaps due to the lack of “likes” and follows likely to be garnered.

So, what are we to make of a world in which folks are chasing more likes than drakes? Can anyone with a social account find satisfaction in a typical, “real life” duck hunt without feeling cheated when their feeds bombard them with beaming folks hoisting bounties of mallards and pintails?

“I can at times be guilty of posting those ‘pile’ photos, but I try not to because I do feel like there’s this modern-day market gunning vibe to some of them and some people are willing to do almost anything to get them,” Coleman said. “That can make your expectations go sky high, especially for people just getting into hunting. It robs you of the ability to enjoy the hunt for what it is.”

The pursuit of such images is as poisonous, Hunt says, to the person posting as well as to the viewer.

“There are people in the hunting industry who only want to be famous,” she said. “They can have it. It’s not for me.”

Coleman suggests putting the phone down to absorb the experience—immersing yourself in the sights and sounds, the energy, the spectacle of it all—rather than “doing it for the ’gram” in the marsh. Consider avoiding social media after the hunt, so your otherwise perfectly fine day isn’t sullied by the “highlight reels” appearing in your feed.

On another front, social media offers anti-hunters a platform to denigrate, threaten, and bully. This threat to duck hunting’s romance seems to especially target women and children.

“Part of mentoring new hunters in the digital age is preparing them for the fact that a fraction of society doesn’t think we ought to hunt at all,” Brice said. “Online harassment can clearly be an impediment to recruiting new hunters, and it may interfere with the unplugged, relaxing ‘feel’ of a duck hunt for current waterfowlers, too. We as the hunting community can lessen the sting of these insults by raising awareness among our mentored hunters.”

Equally frustrating, a contingent of cynical, misinformed, or jealous hunters are willing to attack their fellow sportsmen and women.

“[There used to be] a lot less, ‘It’s not the biggest, but … ’ posts whether it’s a pintail’s sprig or a deer’s rack,” Hunt said. “You even see that when it’s a stud specimen, because we have been conditioned to No. 1 expect criticism online and No. 2 only express pride in our ‘best of the best’ harvests.”

Negativity and conflict are, of course, detrimental to romance.

Find Your Joy

However, curating the right following and tuning out the “trolls” can make social media a positive experience for duck hunting’s newcomers, mentors, and everyone in between. It is yet another impediment to the richness of waterfowling that can be overcome with tact and a positive attitude.

This theme recurred throughout discussions with Brice, Hunt, and Coleman, factoring heavily into the prevailing conclusion: Duck hunting has not lost its romance—you just have to know where to find it.

That can mean tuning out the noise by reminding yourself that hunting is not a competition. It can require you to consciously avoid comparing your hunts to those of others. You may have to focus more on gratitude and less on expectations.

Experience has taught that if I do such things, waterfowling’s romance tends to find me.

“You must find joy in the process of hunting or you’re bound to be disappointed,” Brice said. “If you’re focused on shooting limits, you might overlook the romance of waterfowling. You might miss the magic.”

Kyle Wintersteen is the editor of Delta Waterfowl magazine.