40 Years of WILDFOWL: Words from Worth

At age 82 and with advancing Parkinson’s—which has a notable effect on what I am able to do outdoors, I increasingly spend time thinking back on the long trail I have been making my way along. Recently I got an email from WILDFOWL editor Skip Knowles, asking me to contribute something for the 40th Anniversary issue. That brought back a flood of good memories.

I first started shooting at doves in Florida in 1948 with a BB gun. In 1951 I had moved up to a double barrel .410 and bagged my first game bird, a mourning dove, near Lake City, Florida. Over the years I added 53 more species of native and introduced game birds to my list. If I am correct, that is all but one in the U.S. and Canada, including Hawaii. The one I didn’t get was the snow partridge of Nevada and I made four trips trying to bag one. As for waterfowl, I need six species: Mexican duck, king eider, black bellied tree duck, fulvous tree duck, emperor and tule goose. There is no question that these species will remain on my “didn’t get” list.

Especially good memories took place during the 18 years I was contributing editor for WILDFOWL. The first issue of WILDFOWL was August-September 1985. I wrote an article on layout boats for it. For the second issue I wrote an article titled On The Wings Of The Western Cans. It was illustrated by famed artist David Hagerbaumer, a close friend of mine. 

WILDFOWL was among the first of hunting and fishing magazines to devote itself to a single topic. Prior to it, most magazines covered the complete spectrum of outdoor activities. If an individual’s major interest was waterfowling, he or she would find only a few articles a year dealing with it. With WILDFOWL they could read exclusively duck and goose hunting. The magazine was an instant success. So much so, the company that owned it started a magazine for upland hunters, WING & SHOT.

Prior to contributing to WILDFOWL I had written articles for many mainstream general interest outdoor magazines, but with WILDFOWL I was able to write just about waterfowling, by far my favorite of the hunting, fishing, and trapping I did. This was made better by the editor I worked with, Roger Sparks. Magazine editors vary greatly in temperament, knowledge, and overall ease to work for. 

Roger was an avid waterfowler, did a lot of hunting, was easy to work with, and supplied me with many good suggestions. I feel that Roger deserves great credit for forming WILDFOWL into the excellent magazine it is today. Unfortunately, when WILDFOWL was purchased by another company in the early 2000s, Roger was let go and replaced by an editor I found impossible to work for. I left and became field editor for Delta Waterfowl, retiring in 2024 after 21 years.

The years I was with WILDFOWL were my most active in terms of travel, meeting other hunters, and gaining from the experience. For overseas trips I hunted in New Zealand, England, Scotland, Iceland, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Australia, Siberia and a host of states in the U.S. Memorable days for sure! On trips I made a habit of taking copies of WILDFOWL to give to our guides. They were always met with great interest, especially in foreign countries. In Siberia I gave copies and a wood duck decoy, made by Oregon’s Ron Saylor, to the President of the Siberian Game and Fish  Society. And once in Saskatchewan I was totally surprised when a game enforcement officer knew who I was prior to checking my license. He said he recognized me from photographs he had seen in WILDFOWL.

But the standout years I was with WILDFOWL began in 1988 when my wife, Marge, and I made our first trip to Alberta. We soon included Saskatchewan into yearly trips for the next 26 years. We encountered duck and goose hunting likely impossible to top. For example, on our first trip to Alberta’s Grande Prairie region we quickly learned to scan the horizon for “smoke.” From a distance that is what it appeared to be, but in fact what was making it was a vortex of mallards coming down in a field or lake. On these trips, generally two to three weeks, we used a motorhome, a travel trailer, a van camper, and a pickup and camper. However, with these we were always dealing with wet, muddy Labs. In 2007 we purchased a house in the village of Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan at an unbelievably low price. As a bonus we were able to use it in the spring for walleye fishing. We sold the house in 2014 and that ended our trips to Canada.

The top days in those 26 years? Whew! That is almost impossible to list. Such as one morning Terry Shaughnessy, Marge, and I each shot our limit of 20 Ross's Geese in less than 45 minutes. It was like the entire sky was geese, all pouring into our decoys.

And for almost the past 50 years my major hunting partner has been my wife, Marge. She and the various Labs we have owned. I am frequently told just how fortunate I am to have Marge. Only they fail to put enough emphasis on fortunate.

I am certain when I say that many waterfowlers view WILDFOWL as a valuable addition to our days spent afield. It has a rich 40-year history, and there will be an oncoming new generation that will benefit from future issues. Very simply, it is a magazine that belongs to us.

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