By Todd Schaller, WWA Vice President & Education Committee Chair
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s June, 2023 Newsletter edition. Photo credit: Todd Schaller.
Have you ever noticed that when a group of waterfowl hunters socialize (in-person or via social media), the theme of the stories tends to vary? Hunters love to share stories about limits, pile pics, banded birds, shots taken, sunrise over the marsh, their decoy spread, the water levels, new species, blind set-up, and/or habitat improvements. But each of us likes to share our story in different ways, and those ways may even change as we evolve as hunters.
A 1977 research study by Dr. Robert Jackson and Dr. Robert Norton, both from UW-La Crosse, may explain why hunters tell their stories in different ways. They studied over 1000 hunters, determining that as hunters mature they often move through five phases of outlook and behavior. While the study is over 45 years old, the five phases, stages or arch of hunters is still an area of interest today:
- Shooter Phase – focused on pulling the trigger and the excitement of shooting.
- Limiting Out Phase – driven by the desire to harvest a limit and posting “pile pics”.
- Trophy Phase – focused on the trophy aspect, like a new species or a lanyard full of bands.
- Method Phase – how they hunt, their gear or equipment is the highlight of their experience. This phase can include shifting to a more challenging hunting style – moving from a motorboat to a kayak or changing the gauge of their shotgun.
- Sportsperson Phase – enjoying the overall experience (friends, natural world) and looking to give back to conservation.
Looking back the over 45 years of my hunting career I can recall each of these stages. Working with hunters during my 30+ year career with WDNR I connected with hunters across the entire arch. My take-away from experience and the study is that the various stages aren’t good/bad or right/wrong. In the end, they’re just different, and most hunters will move across the arch.
Over the next few editions of WWA’s Newsletter, the Education Committee will be digging deeper into this study with a series of articles on the five stages– exploring each phase and what WWA does to connect with its members across the hunter arch.