Micah in the SAE house about the time he founded Msducks.com
By: Hannah Riggs
Ducksouth has become a name that is known and deeply loved by many users across the internet. While there are users that have been a part of Ducksouth for many years now, not all know how the site came to be what it is today.
Micah Walker, who is the founder of Ducksouth, formerly known as MSDucks, has a background rich in hunting. Originally from Holmes County, he grew up hunting ducks as well as deer, dove, and other game. After high school, Walker attended Ole Miss. Now he has finished his residency in family medicine at The University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS and is married with four children.
Walker began thinking about the website in his Ole Miss days as a sophomore in 1998 while in the SAE fraternity house.
“I basically had insomnia, with their always being so much going on in the house. And I’ve never been the one just to sit still and not doing anything, so one day I was just sitting there and said to myself ‘I’m going to learn how to build a website,”” Walker said.
At this time, the internet was just now taking off, and there were no things like Google or some of the other more modern internet sites we are accustomed to using today. There were, however, a few online duck hunting sites out there, but only a few were forums, and they were either based out of locations far away or revolved around a variety of different topics; Walker was involved in a lot of these forums.
“MSDucks was one of the first geographically oriented forums in Mississippi. It started out with basic information on hunting; how to get a permit, etc. But I had a core group of guys that were with me and were already on the internet and in forums, and all of a sudden it was like the site just took off,” Walker said.
MSDucks began doubling in size, and in five years had up to almost 20,000 members. Many of the guys got to know each other personally on the site through the forums and began hosting things like crawfish boils and other events for members. Through these events, something special began to form within MSDucks: its unique ability to bring together men of all different walks of life who shared in the same passions, and through this it has helped its members build lifelong friendships and hunting partners with other users on the site.
“The highest points of the site to me have been the relationships and friendships that have formed between members over the years, it’s a true sense of comradery that is amazing to watch happen,” Walker said.
