The waterfowlers’ state
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour once described duck hunting this way: “The camaraderie and collegiality you get in duck hunting is totally different from other hunting because you’re together and form a bond of shared experience. You may be an ambassador or a governor. But when you duck hunt, you can always be a 17-year-old.”
I’ve reached that age when hunting is no longer about the number of ducks killed. It’s more about spending time outdoors with friends and, if I’m lucky, seeing new places. I’m more likely to take a pad and pen to the blind these days rather than my shotgun. When I’m invited to an Arkansas duck club, I want readers to be able to experience a place they’ll never visit.
That said, the presence of large numbers of ducks is important to the east Arkansas economy. And those numbers have been declining in recent years. Breeding conditions haven’t been good in the prairie pothole region of Canada. Combine lower populations with a fall drought that left Arkansas without the water that hunters are accustomed to each winter.
Next, throw in the late arrival of snowstorms in states to the north such as Missouri and Iowa. Ducks had mild conditions, no snow cover, and plenty of food up north until January. There was no reason for them to fly south.
Arkansas’ regular waterfowl season ended at sunset Jan. 31. Only during the final three weeks of the season did most areas have the water they needed. Snow had finally fallen in big amounts in Iowa and Missouri. Heavy rains came to Arkansas.
In its Jan. 24 update, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission noted: “Anecdotal reports received by AGFC staff were that hunting was wrapping up exceptionally well throughout the state. In two aerial surveys, one in early December and another in the first week of January, mallards and total duck numbers in the Arkansas Delta were at significantly low levels, partly because of the extreme dry conditions throughout the region during fall and early winter.
“The duck hunting success was not only in the Delta but even in southwest Arkansas and on Millwood Lake, where a report said that while hunters were having to break ice to launch and load up earlier this week, they reported a fair amount of ducks.”
Brett Leach, AGFC’s waterfowl program coordinator, said at the time: “We’re finally getting favorable conditions across the state with all the rain and should have a strong finish to the season. With the warmer weather and additional water across the landscape, birds will start dispersing into the new habitat being provided.”
Webb’s Sporting Goods at DeWitt reported to AGFC: “It looks like we’re going to finish out a strong duck season for 2023-24. We have a lot of migratory birds in the area of DeWitt. We have a little bit of a rise on both the Arkansas and White rivers. Plenty of ducks are being killed and limits reached. Geese are still abundantly available in the area as well.”
That last sentence is key. While duck numbers are declining, millions of geese that once wintered along the Gulf Coast south of Houston now spend the season in Arkansas. Goose hunting has never been part of the Arkansas cultural fabric like duck hunting, but we have plenty of smart business minds involved in the waterfowl business. Guess what they’ve discovered? Outof-state visitors will come to Arkansas for geese as well as ducks.
The nationally famous Mack’s Prairie Wings at Stuttgart now sponsors what’s known as the World Championship Snow Goose Conservation Hunt early each February. This year, what the AGFC labels “the light goose conservation order” began Feb. 1. There are no limits during the special order, which runs until April 25. Hunters may use unplugged shotguns and electronic calls.
The Arkansas Waterfowl Association explains the special season this way: “Light geese can be a nuisance to Arkansas farmers. They have become so abundant that in some places they are damaging ecosystems and other wildlife found there. … Increased hunting opportunity is the first wildlife management tool biologists turn to because it costs very little to implement and is much more socially accepted—especially when a valuable protein source will be put to good use—than other population control measures.
“Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry processes and distributes the geese from the World Championship Snow Goose Conservation Hunt to those in need. Organizations, businesses and churches of many denominations have joined hunters to transform an abundant light geese population into a renewable food source for the hungry.”
Even during duck season, I now see more and more photos on social media from commercial operations that take customers out to hunt geese after the morning duck hunt. This is the future of Arkansas waterfowling: continue improving habitat for ducks while making geese part of the equation.
Attitudes change. Like geese these days, ducks once were considered a nuisance by farmers. Bill Hope planted a plot of rice as an experiment near Stuttgart in 1902. The results were good enough that other farmers followed his lead. Stuttgart Rice Mill Co. was incorporated in March 1907 and completed in October of that year, just in time for the harvest. It made a profit of $16,000.
In 1921, the farmers’ cooperative that’s now Riceland Foods Inc. was formed. By 1926, the University of Arkansas had opened its rice research center at Stuttgart. With rice came millions of ducks. The late Wiley Meacham of Monroe, long one of Arkansas’ most notable duck hunting guides, told me he first started shooting ducks because his father said they were eating too much rice.
By 1936, the year the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest began at Stuttgart, hunters were flocking to Arkansas from across the country. Wingmead, which became known as the nation’s finest private club for waterfowl hunters, was established near Roe in 1937 by Edgar Monsanto Queeny, the son of the founder of Monsanto Chemical Co. in St. Louis.
Queeny spared no expense, and had plenty of money to spend. By the time he retired from Monsanto in 1960, it was the third-largest chemical company in the country.
Plans for the home at Wingmead were drawn in 1937 by a prominent St. Louis architect. The home was built in 1939. Queeny and his wife would come to the Grand Prairie each October and often stay until March. Guests, including the likes of Walt Disney and Nash Buckingham, arrived on Friday in time for a black-tie dinner. They hunted ducks on Saturday and Sunday mornings, hunted quail on Saturday afternoon, and departed on Sunday afternoon.
Arkansas duck hunting received even more publicity in December 1956 when Claypool’s Reservoir near Weiner, which had been purchased by Wallace Claypool of Memphis in 1941, was used by NBC for a live national broadcast. Dynamite was used to scare up millions of ducks.
In his foreword to the book “A Million Wings,” professional golfer Davis Love III writes: “I learned that being an outdoorsman was not just about hunting. The sportsmen I met were truly stewards of the land. They were involved with Ducks Unlimited, marsh projects and property management. I was immediately pulled into that contagious culture, so I was committed to conservation very early. … This is what outdoorsmen do. They work together to make a difference for wildlife and embrace the preservation of precious habitat for all time.
“Like in golf, the big clubs and the professional game are a small part of the whole story, but they motivate people to grow the game. The families and the members in these clubs are the ones who motivate the rest of us. They’re the ones who are growing the sport.”
Arkansas will continue to be one of the top places in the world for waterfowl hunting. We have too much tradition, too much habitat, and too many smart people working hard to be otherwise. We’re just going to have to make geese a bigger part of the recipe going forward.