To Those That Participate on FB Duck Hunting Groups

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson

Administrator
Staff member
Does the Spam not drive you away? I popped over to a few duck hunting related boards I've not visited in quite some time and holy crap the spamming going on is on a whole other level and most of it is from within the duck hunting industry like guide services, lodging, gizmos, and personal stuff for sale that you find in the classifieds. I checked out a duck call board and 90% of the posts were from a single supplier of turning blanks. Good grief I clicked off that as fast as I could. Nothing but SPAM. Is peddling goods all these communities are these days? Jeez, after ten minutes of surfing those groups I see nothing that would make someone want to hang out there.

One thing I want to add is thanks to everyone that made a donation over the past twelve months. We have a bill coming due with our software vendor and paying it, along with our monthly ISP bills is of no concern. We have the needed funds thanks to everyone who contributed. These contributions are vital to keeping this site up and running and very much appreciated. Otherwise, we'd be at FB eating a steady diet of SPAM.

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I walked away from FB for good about 12 months ago for that very reason... well, that and watching the way people were treating each other over political differences. There used to be a great call making forum, but it shifted to FB and died off probably 10 years ago now - a big loss, in my opinion. I miss some of the smaller call-making communities I'd joined on FB, but not enough to deal with the spamming BS. Thanks for keeping this forum running, will contribute again soon.
 
I was a Facebook member for about ten minutes. They said that I had like 500 friends. Knew that was a lie because I can count the number of true friends on one hand. RM
 
I only keep tabs on one Facebook hunting group "Duck Hunters of Newfoundland". The administrator of the site declines any posts for expensive hunting gear which are almost always scams. Some scam posts can leak through and they are usually obvious and the admin does take them down when they are persistent. I know the administrator really enjoys the group, I wish I had this group when I was a waterfowl manager as I think it captures the pulse of Newfoundland duck hunters. I'm sure his least favourite job is dealing with spam.
 
Scott

I have no doubt there are some good groups, especially ones that are actively moderated. I was just taken back by the amount of posts that were pure spam on several of the forums I surfed today. I'll be honest, I've never really liked FB and have always preferred communities run by individuals and not mega corporations so when I saw the spammy content I made the effort to point it out here where Carl and I don't allow that.

Early on after I joined FB I got scammed on a router attachment purchase that when it arrived it was made of cheap plastic and in a million parts with no instructions and not the nice machined aluminum tool in the picture and videos advertising it. Turns out the seller was overseas and would not refund my money. It was a scam plain and simple. I reported it to FB and nothing came of it. They got their ad money and I'm an insignificant voice amongst millions so it isn't worth their time to take any action. The only reason I haven't closed my account is I do use FB MP, which also sucks, for buying/selling used machinery and have some fraternity brothers and family members I keep in touch with. Other than that for the most part I think of FB as a net negative on society and take pot shots at them when the mood strikes.
 
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There is good and bad everywhere. I have found local dck hunting FB pages that have zero ads and spam. Quite a few. Those that have constant ads and other crap I just don't visit. I'm not missing much.

As far as being scammed, let your credit card company handle it. If they say they can't do anything, ask to be directed to their customer retention/customer service group. Say you want them to make this right, per their policy, or you will leave for antoher card that wants your business. Works pretty much everytime.

I do appreciate your site Eric, been on it since its first baby steps.

Mark
 
I use FB to keep up with friends and family, and to browse MP. And to see some cool fishing posts from all over the world.
But I no longer get involved with political “dialogue”.
Nor is it a source of “news”.
 
Mark W said:
There is good and bad everywhere. I have found local dck hunting FB pages that have zero ads and spam. Quite a few. Those that have constant ads and other crap I just don't visit. I'm not missing much.

As far as being scammed, let your credit card company handle it. If they say they can't do anything, ask to be directed to their customer retention/customer service group. Say you want them to make this right, per their policy, or you will leave for antoher card that wants your business. Works pretty much everytime.

I do appreciate your site Eric, been on it since its first baby steps.

Mark
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Let me point this out. Everything you say is true, however it is all a PAIN IN THE ASS to deal with and the risk of doing business on FB exceeds my thresh hold. Either Meta doesn't care enough to run those folks out or the problem is too big and just a reflection of the world we live in. When I stand back and look at what I see there I don't think the platform is doing the world a net positive.
 
While it's not a duck hunting group, I do run a deer hunting group on Facebook that has over 85,000 members in it. Let me tell you what. It's a full time job keeping the spammers, women of the night, keyboard warriors, and political posts out of the group. You've never seen such a mess in all your life! The number of people that argue over politics to the point of losing lifelong friends for someone that doesn't even know your name is mind boggling. What ever happened to you never discuss politics or religion in public? That's one thing I love about this group. There's none of that BS here. This is my retreat from Facebook....

Fred
 
Eric Patterson said:
Let me point this out. Everything you say is true, however it is all a PAIN IN THE ASS to deal with and the risk of doing business on FB exceeds my thresh hold. Either Meta doesn't care enough to run those folks out or the problem is too big and just a reflection of the world we live in. When I stand back and look at what I see there I don't think the platform is doing the world a net positive.
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This I understand all too well. Some days I am up for a battle and many days I am not. Medicare screwed up a $180 claim and I don't know if I have the energy nor time to try and get that back. Yes, it can be a PITA. Spent days with TMobile over many mistakes they made on our account. Was worth it as the errors were over a thousand bucks but it took a ton of time and much frustration.

Mark
 
Havent had any forms of social media in 7ish years. Dont miss it in the slightest. Life has been real good without it! About the time I noticed guys finding my truck and duckboat and sitting on interstate exits looking for it is when I stopped all postings. Amazing guys would rather put in the work looking for a guy vs going and scouting their own birds. No joke, there was a joker who did just this. Took him all the way into Texas, stopped at a Gander mountain parking lot, to which he then came and called me all kinds of names and told me he knew I wasnt killing birds in our own state. Told him he got me, at which point I waited an hour or so, drove back into my home state and settled on an afternoon hunt instead.

Im still very known, and I try my best to stay out of the way of people noticing me. My truck has changed but my rig hasnt in many years. Two years ago, I was scouting a lake, saw someone pulled over and I stopped to make sure he didnt need a tow in or need any help. I would never leave anyone stranded. The birds were very late in that area, food would freeze up hard. They really wouldnt even fly to the feed until 9 am. The guy recognized me, no issues, says he stopped to pee and was ok. Next day I pull up to the ramp and 8 other boats already launched. State guy that had seen me a bunch of times, came and asked what was going on as he hadnt seen that many boats at the ramp since the summer. Told him birds must of showed up lol. Because of the ice shelf, and the only way to get to the birds was to let some thaw happen for a couple hours, I went buy all 8 groups, all their decoys randomly spread out along the lake side, and ran right into the little hole I found. I shot my birds in 45 min. Last one launched, first one back to the ramp. I heard about that for many weeks after through many sources and how it was the talk of many social media pages. Blows me away the envy that runs around fowl sometimes. Stealthy and low key is the only way Ill ever play this game.
 
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I used FB and FB MP significantly. I prefer MP to Craigslist as I can peruse the profile and determine whom I choose to reply to. The pages I follow have very little spam, and what does appear usually get removed. I admin one page myself, along with Anthony Babich, specific to South Bay Duck Boats, and find it easy to manage, though we are fewer than 1000 members. Mostly I monitor reginal hunting pages and decoy pages. I do a little internet scouting by monitoring the VA birding page too ;)

I really take advantage of the local buy nothing site, both to obtain many things for the grandchildren, but also to pass on much that has life but not worth the hassle of selling it. It is very local and so only a few miles radius, so neighbors.
 
I personally think social media has ruined hunting or is close to doing so. Too many fake guys looking for likes instead of learning how to hunt. All about “pile pics” and bands instead of learning about the animal you’re hunting and understanding what they do and why they do it. There’s numerous local guys by where I hunt on Long Island that are infatuated with social media. Spot busting and collaboration with other “social media hunters” to gain followers or whatever is now the norm. I don’t understand the point of the whole thing to begin with. Who in their right mind would think it’s a good idea to take a person you hardly know that you met through a phone to your local public or private spots, put it on the internet, and then trust them that they aren’t going to tell people. But the best part is, the same “social media hunters” are all the first to complain about over pressure and too many guys… I wonder why!
 
Wyatt Russo said:
I personally think social media has ruined hunting or is close to doing so. Too many fake guys looking for likes instead of learning how to hunt. All about “pile pics” and bands instead of learning about the animal you’re hunting and understanding what they do and why they do it. There’s numerous local guys by where I hunt on Long Island that are infatuated with social media. Spot busting and collaboration with other “social media hunters” to gain followers or whatever is now the norm. I don’t understand the point of the whole thing to begin with. Who in their right mind would think it’s a good idea to take a person you hardly know that you met through a phone to your local public or private spots, put it on the internet, and then trust them that they aren’t going to tell people. But the best part is, the same “social media hunters” are all the first to complain about over pressure and too many guys… I wonder why!
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+1 to ruining hunting, and fishing as well. The FB sportsman experience is mostly about bragging. I shot a limit. I caught a limit. I got a new job, I got a raise, I'm so smart. Look at my photo, I'm ProStaff (my personal favorite). A reasonable question is typically answered in a patronizing post by a blowhard posing as an expert, who learned the answer not long before by trolling other threads. Rarely does someone with experience chime in anymore, as they understand the consequences of being a good guy. The marketplace is ok, it's the only online site where I've ever listed anything for sale.

That being said, Duckboats.net is technically "social media", so let's not lump them all together. And as much as I like the real names rule here, the majority of FB posters use their real names. It's the culture of the page, exacerbated by commercialization, which tends toward anarchy on FB. Here, Eric set a high standard and has consistently stuck to his guns when googan hordes threaten the gates. Unfortunately, even DHBP has lurkers skimming posts for info on hunting locations. One photo with metadata can burn a nice spot. I think we all get that, and therefore play our cards close. I'm going hunting tomorrow afternoon, at the, uh,.....nevermind. ;)
 
SJ Fairbank said:
+1 to ruining hunting, and fishing as well. The FB sportsman experience is mostly about bragging. I shot a limit. I caught a limit. I got a new job, I got a raise, I'm so smart. Look at my photo, I'm ProStaff (my personal favorite). A reasonable question is typically answered in a patronizing post by a blowhard posing as an expert, who learned the answer not long before by trolling other threads. Rarely does someone with experience chime in anymore, as they understand the consequences of being a good guy. The marketplace is ok, it's the only online site where I've ever listed anything for sale.

That being said, Duckboats.net is technically "social media", so let's not lump them all together. And as much as I like the real names rule here, the majority of FB posters use their real names. It's the culture of the page, exacerbated by commercialization, which tends toward anarchy on FB. Here, Eric set a high standard and has consistently stuck to his guns when googan hordes threaten the gates. Unfortunately, even DHBP has lurkers skimming posts for info on hunting locations. One photo with metadata can burn a nice spot. I think we all get that, and therefore play our cards close. I'm going hunting tomorrow afternoon, at the, uh,.....nevermind. ;)
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Well said sir! VERY WELL SAID! I tell people all the time, if I tell you where im hunting or the area im hunting, good chance im lying to you. I get the best facial reactions, but thats about as honest as I get with anyone asking for information. Its actually bad at this point. I have pretty rough trust issues when it comes to those I hunt with. My best friend who i shared and ran the state with for 12 years has left to another state. He came back a couple weekends ago to hunt with me again, and he asked why I wasnt linked up with anyone yet. I just told him, I dont trust anyone and I cant find anyone that i trust enough that wouldnt burn down all our hard work or blow up information online. Guess im old school in that mindset, but id rather risk the long runs and the crazy places I go, by myself, before I let any young gun in on the information I know to be successful here.

I think where I struggle the most, is I truly do love watching a young man learn and figure things out the right way. They always say to teach the next generation, and its fun to watch light bulbs go off. Theres one young lad that I have mentored about 4-5 seasons now and I do trust him. Ive had more fun watching him grow and do things all the right way. Learn to call, learn to decoy, learn to pattern migrations and fowl. I would love if I could do that more, but the culture around the young generation has me so shy to do so. They just want to show up buddies and show success instead of learn the hunt and the art of trickery and base their success off that.
 
I really appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts and some great points have been made. Let me add a few more of my thoughts to the mix.

@Scott Gilliland I think you should start the FB Nunavut duck hunters page. I'll join if you do because I don't know a single duck hunter from there and would like to.

@Fred McIntire I'm just happy that moderating a community that large still allows you time/energy to hang out here.

@William Reinicke I had a partner like that once, we were two solo hunters that joined forces, and the memories from those years are priceless. He passed away at 59. I also aged and when my son's friends wanted to hunt with us letting them join our little crew was one of the best duck hunting decisions I made.

@SJ Fairbank thank you for the compliment and I couldn't agree more with your post.

@Dave Diefenderfer you and @Anthony Babich have a good thing going with your South Bay group and please don't let my sour puss words be any shape or form of criticism for your community. I read your group and it is how things should work. As for FB MP my two main gripes are the search engine there returns stuff I did not search on and have no interest in while burying things I did search for pages and pages down the list. Further, and this may be more of a generational thing than a FB one, but I get so sick of folks making an offer that have ZERO plans to follow through with payment. They are merely wanting their curiosity satisfied. I am of the school if you offer someone X dollars for an item you intend to pay the seller X dollars if they say yes. Plus there is a lot of no shows and ghosting going on there. I found CL to be much better in these aspects in spite of not having any idea who I was speaking to. CL is now dead largely to bad actors abusing decent folks. Can FB MP be that far behind? A well thought out alternative could end FB MP popularity pretty fast IMHO.

I'll add these thoughts to what has been said. I pay attention to social media and participate somewhat on Instagram. I see something repeating there that happened on forums 20 years ago. Communities of average folks with common interests gathered in numbers to spawn a lot of activity. Then sponsors came in droves and changed the landscape. They posted better pictures and "cooler" stuff to market their goods. Some started getting fan-boys and a lot of "average" members seemed intimidated by the "pros" because maybe they felt like what they had to offer was now sub-par or they didn't have a fan base or street cred. Take a look on social media these days and the content drivers are commercial outfits. Sure seems to me like the average Joe doesn't post like they once did because perhaps the folks in the business have resources to create better pictures and videos. I'm not saying the "pros" are doing anything wrong, I'm just saying the avg. Joe is a spectator more than a participant. Maybe folks like it that way. I don't know. What I do know is I'm much more interested in what the average hunter is doing in their workshop than watching another kill video or pile pic. But that's just me and I think a lot of you too.
 
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It is well known that the social media companies encourage envy to drive their business models. I browse FB and FB Marketplace. I still don't understand the logic behind Marketplace other then to keep you on the site for longer then you want.

I also worry all the videos of hunter behavior are easy pickings for the anti-hunter groups to use against us.

Rick Lathrop
 
Eric Patterson said:
@Scott Gilliland I think you should start the FB Nunavut duck hunters page. I'll join if you do because I don't know a single duck hunter from there and would like to.
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Hey Eric, The Inuit are very active on FaceBook. I am a member of one group "Inuit Hunting Stories of the Day". They post a lot, but not much of interest. I think you really need to join a group at the community level. There are Inuit that post on the Duck Hunters of Newfoundland group. When when they post there is usually a good conversation as everyone is curious about how each other hunt eiders.

But I don't think I'll be starting a FB group -- I already spend too much time on the screen.
 
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