Hunting rubber ducks might not be at the top of everyone’s to-do list, but for some students, it is their main pursuit outside of the classroom. Whether it be through music, crafts or the great outdoors, college kids everywhere enjoy a good distraction from their studies and a community to enjoy it with. Duck Hunt UTK is just one of the fascinating clubs UT offers that provides that distraction and community.
Currently run by Cade Walker, a transfer senior studying mechanical engineering, Duck Hunt has few rules and is fairly simple.
The basic premise of the club is the hiding and hunting of rubber ducks around campus. There are only a few restrictions: nowhere inaccessible, unnecessarily dangerous or behind a locked door. When a member hides a duck, they post on the club’s Discord channel to let others know and perhaps offer a riddle or small clue as to the duck’s whereabouts. As students are able, they compete to see who can find the duck first. The cycle repeats from there unless the finder wants to keep the duck, which is a perfectly acceptable practice.
Points are collected for each duck and added up at the end of the year, but there are no real incentives because it has led to excessive competition in the past. Instead of competition, a preferred focus is exploration. As club members put it, the club serves as an excuse to run around campus.
This campus probing is extremely important to members. Ducks have been hidden all over the school, but notable hiding spots include crawlspaces, the nursing building and the bridge between HSS and McClung Tower. A certain duck was found strung inside a pipe and dangling off the bridge. This particular duck’s retrieval brought up some safety concerns and caused the implementation of rules against “danger ducks,” a term used to describe any duck that might cause potential harm to the finder.
Now, students warn others through the Discord channel about ducks that might pose a threat, such as tree climbing. But no need to worry — the previously mentioned duck was retrieved with a ladder and no injuries.
Events like the Halloween Hunt and the Grand Rally are simple as well. Halloween Hunt involves group members searching for the person with the highest “found duck” count who has hidden themself on campus. They are usually found within 20-30 minutes. The Grand Rally is a collective effort to find all remaining ducks before summer begins when they’re inevitably lost or picked up by janitors.
Duck Hunt offers a lot to its many members, including Montserrat Pacheco, a sophomore studying chemistry.
“Honestly, the community,” Pacheco said. “Our community is kind of spread out around campus … it’s not just Hill people.”
Other members chimed in, saying majors from all colleges are involved and the club has sparked multiple friendships and study groups outside of meetings. Teams can also be formed within the club in order to save time on hiding or finding ducks.
“Another one of my favorite things about the club, though, is how you can tell … people’s personalities a little bit based on how they hide and hunt ducks,” Walker said. “… A lot of my ducks tend to be … more difficult in weird ways. I enjoy making more challenges.”
Duck Hunt meets every Monday in Walters Academic Building, Room M415, from 6-8 p.m. Duck Hunt is home to about 60 truly active members, although there are more than 350 people on the Discord server. Meetings typically consist of 12 members and are not mandatory. To join, students simply have to join the Discord server and look up “Duck Hunt” under the UT student hub.
