There is a recipe to duck hunting in Arkansas. A recipe that culminates into an emotional, addictive experience for hunters like no other.
It comes from the anticipation on a dark boat ride under the arms of oak trees lining their course like soldiers holding their sabers and creating a path to something special in front of them.
They see it in a rice field as the sun begins to paint the sky with light in a daily masterpiece that is never quite the same.
They hear it listening to the music of a natural world in a cacophony of duck quacks, whistling wings, hail calls and feeding chatter that combined create a symphony of music that can raise the emotions of hunters of all ages.
They feel the excitement when ducks come in squadrons working in unison, banking together, greenheads popping in the sunlight like emeralds on top of wings. It is a sight that has mesmerized hunters forever.
Hunters are drawn to this scene and assume a relationship with these wild creatures, talking and singing to them with their calls while sharing the same wet and muddy environment.
That relationship is a key component to what makes Arkansas special. It’s a relationship that goes much deeper than a heart-stopping scene of mallards working their way through the arms of pin oaks or across the levees of golden rice stubble.
For the mallard it’s not the calls they are falling to, rather the ground the caller is standing on, and what it is beneath that blanket of water.
There is a recipe to creating all of that. And in Arkansas, it is changing. The cake is excellent when baked just right, not so good when some of the ingredients are forgotten.
That can be a big deal to a state that enjoys, according to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC), a $70 million economic benefit each year from the duck season that runs 60 days. A $1 million a day influx to the state cries for the recipe to be just right.
Arkansas is the Duck Hunting Capital of the World, a title that has been ingrained in the state’s reputation since the early 1900s.
It’s a title many have taken for granted, with many assuming the only ingredient to great duck hunting was to just add water. In some instances, the simple idea is expanded to include rice and acorns. According to Mickey Heitmeyer the recipe is far more complicated. Heitmeyer is the country’s foremost waterfowl expert when it comes to waterfowl and wetland biology, growing the reputation as Dr. Duck. He has helped transform thinking about wetland and waterfowl habitat for more than four decades.
“We have rice fields, and we have timber left, but it’s not the same as it used to be,’’ Heitmeyer said. “The rice fields provide only a fraction of the food that they used to have. There are still trees there, but they’re not the same trees, and they’re not healthy. We still have some good quality forest, and I think we’re doing a better job, thankfully some education has occurred, but still so many people take advantage of it. You can’t just go put water on a bunch of trees and think you’re going to kill ducks. It’s just not going to work.”
Heitmeyer has been leading the way on education around the needs of migrating ducks. But the “just add water” to “rice and acorns” mantra is slow to overcome within the rank and file. In the last few years, he has been part of a group of biologists studying if duck distribution has changed in the winter.
The answer to that question has implications to Arkansas. Duck hunters with more than a decade of experience of getting their feet wet in the chase of mallards have all seen changes, but are mostly unaware of why those changes are taking place. In their mind, the state has all the necessary ingredients: water, rice and acorns.
They believe the changes are the fault of something else causing them to cast blame on everything from the government to the equipment young hunters use, from spinning wing decoys to sky-busting shells. The truth lies elsewhere. And most of the time, it is right under their feet in the untapped potential of the muddy ground they are standing on.
“Duck distribution has changed in the winter!’’ Heitmeyer said. “There’s a lot of different factors involved with it. But there are what I call the big three. The landscape has changed from the north to the south. The climate has certainly changed, you wouldn’t know it this year when we had the real cold weather, and wet a little bit early. But the trend line is certainly there. The climate is changing.
And then the last thing is hunting pressure. When you lose habitat, or you don’t have as good a habitat, and every pot of water’s got a gun sticking out of it. Well, after a while, the birds are going to go someplace else.”
The coupling of those three things jumble-up the recipe in harsh ways. And many of them have caught land managers and hunters flat-footed.
Hunting pressure has always been present in Arkansas. It comes with the reputation. But even that has changed or ramped up in ways. And like most things in America, someone has found a way to capitalize on that pressure.
“The economics of hunting, as you know, sometimes we don’t like to talk about it, but you and I know it’s there. I mean, the amount of pressure that’s there to sell stuff,” Heitmeyer said. “And now with social media every kid in the world thinks they can be a duck commander or whatever. And we have machines and equipment and things that you and I didn’t have when we were growing up, and the duck has no place to go to get away from things.”
That’s where the other two of the big three take its toll. Regardless of where you sit on the climate change debate, there is no debate that climate does change, whether it’s cyclical or for other reasons. Duck hunters three decades ago were aware of the “snow line,” which was basically from middle Missouri north, an area of the country that you could count on being covered with snow during the winter months. From a duck hunting perspective, that means all the available food would be covered, leaving the only course for a duck to head further south, primarily Arkansas.
But snowfall in those critical areas has decreased since 1930, when records first started to be kept. Meanwhile farming practices have changed drastically. To top it off, when Arkansas waves the flag of economic value to the tune of $70 million a year, other states pay attention. Unencumbered by the “just add water” mantra, they are managing and building better habitat all with the idea of getting a piece of the cake using their own ingredients.
“We never heard of corn being grown in the quantity it is in South Dakota, North Dakota, now even in Canada, until 10, 20 years ago,” Heitmeyer said. “Obviously rice has shifted. There’s a lot more rice growing now in Missouri than there was 20 years ago. And then a variety of things changed too, like with rice and corn and everything else. We have newer varieties earlier, maturing, better harvesting methods and equipment, and all that.
“At the end of the day, by the time the mallard gets to Arkansas, there’s really not a lot left out there. There’s a rice field, but there’s not much food. And when they get shot up all the time down there and the harvest rates go up, it’s only a matter of time that the number of birds going there is going to decrease.
“When they have enough water and food and temperatures are still OK why would they go south? I mean, there’s nothing that says the duck has to go to Arkansas.”
That last statement is almost blasphemous to an Arkansas duck hunter, but the truth nonetheless. With all these changes, Heitmeyer believes in order to make duck season better while stemming the impacts of the big three, fundamental changes need to start taking place in Arkansas. The financial implications are huge and worth it.
The first step is making the state more hospitable to traveling ducks, which mostly revolves around habitat improvements with a healthy dash of education from every layer of duck hunter from the rank and file to the upper crust. The recipe is no longer rice and acorns and just add water, but attention to when and how long water is flooded and how deep, as well as with an attention to what can be done with rice fields after the harvest.
Some of these things are in play already. For example, already several duck clubs best described as Green Tree Reservoir clubs are, with Heitmeyer’s direction, intensively managing their trees from roots to the leaves. This means the right type of trees and the right amount of water, along with many other things. But to explain the depth of importance to the minutiae, when you walk through the woods of flooded timber, you will see floating and sunken, leaves in varying degrees of decomposition. It doesn’t look like much at first glance; but as each of those leaves breaks down they produce energy or fuel within the water that further creates an eventual food chain of organisms, commonly called invertebrates. The presence of high-protein invertebrates is critical for wintering waterfowl in building up reserves to get them back to the breeding grounds. They are especially important for the hen, to build a strong eggshell to ensure that once there, she can continue to produce a clutch of eggs.
Something as simple as degrading oak leaves rarely enters the minds of duck hunters but their importance to the recipe is huge.
And farmers, always leading the way in conservation, are getting involved. In Arkansas County, Jay Coker, Rick Hampton and George Dunklin’s farms are basically adjacent to each other and in many ways manage their farms in concert with waterfowl in mind.
Coker, a lifelong hunter, farmer and current Chairman of Producers Rice Mill, points to the fact that those earlier maturing varieties of rice, also provide the potential for a ratoon crop or second-growth rice. If left standing after harvest, the rice will produce another panicle or head of rice that will have mature grains on them, potentially up to 30 bushels per acre or 1350 pounds of food per acre. There is added value in keeping the stalks of plant in shallow water as possible, which subsequently grows the invertebrates (mosquito larvae, sow bugs, spiny-headed worms, etc.) in the same way as the decaying leaves. Other farms are doing the same but more need to get on board.
“The decision a farmer has to make is based on a balance of economics versus conservation,” Coker said. “Is it better for his financial footprint to go ahead and do his land prep in the fall and get his fields better prepared for the next years planting season? Or is there incentive for him to leave the stubble undisturbed and provide waterfowl habitat?”
For today’s farmer, there is a cost to delaying tillage, the stubble doesn’t degrade as quickly and it takes more time and resources (tractors, equipment, labor, fuel) in the spring to prepare a seedbed. The levees that helped hold the irrigation water during the growing season, and are required to be left standing to provide winter flood water for waterfowl also have to be dealt with. They must be knocked down and smoothed in order to have a level field for the next season’s crop.
Other crops like corn and beans don’t require levees. They are furrow irrigated and require a smooth surface. After the harvest, a farmer either knocks down the stubble and smooths the ground in the fall or winter, or he has to do it in the spring.
“The more work you push into spring, the more your window shrinks with regards to getting the crops planted in a timely manner,” Coker said. “Thirty days delaying of planting beans could easily cost the farmer 20 bushels an acre or basically $280 an acre. That could be his entire profit.”
That’s where many of the issues lie, the balance of needed crops and better habitat for wildlife and waterfowl. There aren’t easy answers to the questions of how to blend it all together.
The AGFC is beating the drum for a $15 million conservation tax-credit that would help incentivize land owners of all types to manage and create better wildlife and waterfowl habitat. The wheels of change move slowly.
“Some actions or tasks are simple and effective, such as closing pipes or blocking ditches to catch excess water and flood certain areas,” Coker said. “Others are more complex such as building levees, installing drainage structures, delaying tillage and more. But with public-private partnerships and other incentives such as tax credits, government-backed cost-share programs and more, it can help push the landowner and the farmer in the direction of increasing habitat. Economic returns to time and trouble go a long way towards getting people involved and active.
“If that’s not enough, imagine the thought of our youth not ever getting to experience the sight of mallard ducks circling a rice field or dodging tree limbs as they land in flooded areas.”
That thought is what drives those like Coker and Heitmeyer to continue pushing for a different mindset for everyone else who dons camouflage in the fall or just likes to see the wonders of a waterfowl migration.
“I’ve told a lot of people that in the future, whether you kind of like it or not, it’s going to require better management, both of the habitat and people, because the days of just going out, putting water on the ground, those days are over,” Heitmeyer said. “We know a lot about what the ducks need and when they need it and where. And it’s going to take the AGFC to make improvements, the Fish and Wildlife Service to make improvements, duck clubs to make improvements. And the general hunter’s going to have to accept and learn that for the greater good of everybody, that certain things are going to have to happen.
“If not, the good clubs are going to stay good, the mediocre clubs are going to struggle, and the ones that were kind of marginal, they’re going to fall out, just because they can’t compete. And the ducks, well, they are going to go where the habitat is.”
It’s an old recipe, and it bears repeating: The cake is excellent when baked just right, not so good when some of the ingredients are forgotten.
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