After ten and a half months of waiting, the always-anticipated Arkansas duck season is upon us. After some marginally positive news from the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) this August, a slight uptick in the mallard population has hunters hopeful. The May Breeding Population Survey (BPOP) noted an 8% increase in mallards over 2023, which is still down 16% over the long-term average and one of the lowest counts since the early 1990s. Hunters from that era will remember those as the last of the thirty-day, two-mallard limits.
PRODUCTIVITY
But we don’t hunt the BPOP as it doesn’t include the hatch-year birds. The USFWS doesn’t perform fall flight surveys any longer so we have to rely on anecdotal observations of those north of us to have a glimpse of how production went. Prairie Canada did receive some early summer rains but that arrived too late for breeding ducks to find much habitat. Banding data supports that Arkansas ducks primarily come from Saskatchewan. That area was down 31% year over year and 30% for the long-term average for the May Pond count. Mallards also come to Arkansas from Manitoba and Alberta, which were better but still down roughly 15% on the long-term average. The bump in mallard BPOP numbers came from unusual places known for poor nest success well north of the traditional breeding areas.
While mallard populations continue to limp along, the season will be another of the 60-day, 6-duck variety for the Mississippi Flyway. That makes 28 seasons in a row. Arkansas’s season begins Saturday, November 23rd, and runs through Tuesday, December 2nd. The second split will begin Tuesday, December 10th, through Monday, December 23rd, then takes a short break for the Christmas holiday. The final stanza runs from Friday, December 27, and completes on Friday, January 31, 2025. The ever-growing popularity of hunting Greater White Fronted Geese, aka specklebellies, mirrors those exact dates, BUT the limit was reduced to two this season.
HABITAT STATUS
A warm, dry summer and fall has Arkansas in a bit of a hole from a habitat perspective. Water is better than last season but there is still not enough on the landscape to hold a big push of birds, especially with the late flooding policy on the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AGFC) owned properties. One bright spot will be Dave Donaldson Black River WMA, as recent rains have allowed those bottoms to fill, and the AGFC agreed to hold that water earlier than planned. Hunters in that area should experience significantly more huntable acreage than in recent seasons. And considerably more hunters, as this may be one of the few public hunting opportunities in the state.
It will be interesting to see the effectiveness and impact of electronic decoys, including the controversial spinning wing decoys, being allowed in Arkansas WMAs again. Will it improve hunter success or cause more tree-topping and shooting swing ducks? The devices are still banned on the National Wildlife Refuges. I suspect there will be lots of complaining after the season and questioning why this was allowed again, seemingly out of nowhere.
The Cache River looks decent today, but according to the forecast at Patterson, by the time the season opens, it will have fallen to less than five feet. As of this writing, the White River at Clarendon is at 24 feet but will have dropped to around 20 feet come opening day. These are not ideal conditions for those who like to hunt those river bottoms.
Another thing to watch this season is the amount of fall tillage in East Arkansas. With harvest occurring earlier and earlier each year and the dry summer Arkansas experienced, there seems to be more and more acreage already worked up for next spring’s planting season. Fall tillage turns rice fields full of waste grain and invertebrates into fields of dirt without benefit to ducks or geese. With duck energy days (the number of ducks that can obtain daily energy requirements from an acre of foraging habitat for a day.) reduced due to shrinking habitat and early harvest, can Arkansas hold a population of ducks like the “good ole days”?
POPULATION
There are some pockets of mallards in the state, but they are concentrated, and with the recent mild weather and full moon, they are not moving much during daylight. Colder temps are hurdling towards Arkansas midweek, but will it be enough to put enough ducks over decoy spreads this weekend? It’s hard to say how much this front will push ducks into the state. The forecast for Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is that it will get bitter cold this week and next, with no temperatures above freezing into early December. It’s the same for North Dakota. Will that push the ducks to Arkansas? It surely will, but how many stop at the improved habitat in Missouri and so on? Weather in north central Missouri matches ours for the foreseeable future, so there will undoubtedly be some “short stopping”.
I’m having difficulty giving a firm position on how I think this season will go. There are so many variables in play, and even with the season starting Saturday, it’s too early to tell. Arkansas needs more water, but not too much that the ducks spread out all across the landscape. Arkansas needs colder temperatures to make ducks active and forage for food. Colder weather up north, complimented by snow cover, is also crucial. In a La Nina forecasted year, snowfall north of Arkansas is possible, but who knows when it comes to weather?
A SIMPLE ASK
One request I’d make to duck hunters this season is to pass on mallard ens if possible. Arkansas came very close to voluntarily reducing the hen limit to one but, at the last minute, decided to remain with the two mallard hens in the limit framework. Some estimates are being floated in USFWS Mississippi Flyway Council circles that there might only be one million mallard hens in the current breeding population. That sounds scary low to me, and sex ratios are starting to get well out of whack, with four to five drakes for every one hen. Logically, how does the mallard population bounce back if there aren’t enough hens to lay eggs? Harvest may not matter when there are 10 million mallards, but when that breeding population has nearly been cut in half since 2017…, it seems like it would matter, and a growing group of waterfowl scientists believe the same.
AWAY WE GO
Best of luck this season. Manage your habitat and pressure to put the odds in your favor more days than not, and the season may turn out favorable. Those are the controllables while the weather is not. Please follow along this season as we plan to provide more incremental updates. Podcast fans, be sure to follow The Standard Sportsman podcast for weekly updates and engaging conversations during and after duck season.
