Arkansas has its fair share of well-known and historic duck flyways. Rivers like the White, the Black, the Cache, the St. Francis and even the Arkansas create literal highways funneling ducks to the incredible habitat of the Delta. The state boasts a handful of smaller tributaries like Bayou Meto, Mill Bayou, Lagrue Bayou and Bayou Deview that have attracted ducks for centuries. Mallards love the flooded bottomland hardwoods of east Arkansas, and despite significant losses due to agriculture, enough remains to winter tens of thousands of ducks each year.
With all of the naturally occurring waterways in Arkansas prone to wintertime flooding, one couldn’t imagine anyone taking on the monumental task of trying to create their own. But that is precisely what Stuttgart’s Otis McCollum did roughly 7 miles west of Stuttgart with what is known as the Big Ditch Bottoms. While only 20 miles long and connected to Bayou Meto on both ends, Big Ditch owns perhaps the country’s densest collection of highly successful duck clubs.
“It’s worth the 1,000-mile trip just to see the mallards blacken the sky,” R.M. “Duke” Dubel told his local South Dakota Argus Leader after a 1951 adventure in the Big Ditch Bottoms.
Some names that may ring a bell include Slick’s Stuttgart Hunting Club, Russell McCollum’s Wildlife Acres, which is now Witt Stephens, Jr.’s Screaming Wings, Hildebrand’s Reservoir aka Bam Bam, Bull Sprig, Wild Wings, Bayou Meto Club, QuakerJack, Magnum 12 and Quack Shack, to name a few.
McCollum’s last name should also sound familiar, as numerous connections to the Stuttgart area hunting and waterfowling culture trace back to the family. Otis is a member of the Arkansas Waterfowler Hall of Fame for developing several thousand acres of duck property and being one of the first to balance quality hunting habitat with areas dedicated to resting and holding ducks.
The family tree is far too complicated for this article, but Thad McCollum was one of the founders of the World Duck Calling Championship. Kenneth “Slick” McCollum was a world champion caller, and his legacy guide service is still operating along Big Ditch. Russell McCollum’s Wildlife Acres at the south end of Big Ditch was nationally renowned, and those woods in private ownership are still remarkable. M.T. “Mack” McCollum, Sr. started Mack’s Hardware Store, eventually becoming Mack’s Prairie Wings under M.T. “Marion” McCollum’s leadership.
Visionary Developer
Engineered after World War II to assist area farms with irrigation, McCollum also seized the opportunity to create a manageable way to keep optimal water levels in the bottoms where wintering mallards would annually accumulate. The ability to control the water levels also allowed the hunters to stand beside their favorite tree, versus a floating blind or boat, or even worse, water so deep that a duck would have no interest or access to food.
The man-made canal and complementary levees were constructed using a handheld sight level and a floating excavator, as the bottoms were too wet for too long for traditional equipment to do the work. As chunks of the bottoms were sold to discerning duck hunters and clubs were formed, they individually developed levees at their property lines to create manageable green tree reservoirs (GTRs) with relifts to pull water and pipes to drain water via Big Ditch.
In 1952, Otis McCollum commissioned Fricke and Kazmann, a consulting engineering firm in Stuttgart. McCollum desired to build two reservoirs on the southern end near the confluence of Big Ditch and Bayou Meto and sought their expertise. Otis had already constructed levees for the “Crowe-McCollum Lake,” which is Slick’s, as well as Bull Sprig, Lion Oil Company (now a farm owned by George Dunklin, Jr.), and the Belcher Reservoir (now the Lone Oak Club). He planned to build the two reservoirs of Wolf Pocket, now Miracle Mallard, and Bear Slough, which was Wildlife Acres and now Screaming Wings. The entire project was budgeted to cost $76,450 per the Fricke and Kazmann report. In 2025 dollars, that would be just under a million.
McCollum was also way ahead of his time with the advent of setting aside habitat to allow ducks a place to rest without facing the end of a shotgun. In the November 30, 1951 edition of the Des Moines Tribune, acclaimed outdoor writer Ries Tuttle mentioned, “We were shooting on Otis McCollum’s 2,600-acre artificial reservoir on Bayou Meto, just five miles southwest of Stuttgart. McCollum operates 14 blinds on a 700-acre section of the flooded timber. The remainder serves as a rest area for the thousands of ducks that flock into the timber in the daytime. The refuge section is guarded carefully to keep out all hunters so the ducks won’t leave the region before the season ends Jan. 5, and spoil the hunting possibilities.” The practice is commonplace now and has proven more critical with ducks being increasingly sensitive to human interactions. Fast forward to 2025, and several of the clubs along the ditch provide large rest areas with ample food, cover and minimal disturbance. These areas can work against the hunters in the woods during warm days, as the ducks refuse to leave the sanctuaries.
Why Ducks Love the Ditch
With all of this investment in duck properties complemented by acres and acres of adjacent rice fields on either side of the block of woods, mallards have everything they need. The trick prior to McCollum’s efforts was water. Per the Fricke and Kazmann report, “Until a few years ago, hunting for ducks in the Bottoms was expanded or curtailed by weather conditions. In the absence of adequate rainfall, the hunter and the ducks concentrated in the bayou channels or sloughs where the only water existed. When heavy rainfall had occurred, the bayous — particularly Bayou Meto — and sloughs overflowed their banks and the adjacent ‘Pin Oak’ flatwoods and grassy marshes were extensively flooded, under such conditions ducks flocked into the bottoms by hundreds of thousands and the hunters followed with assurance of a successful shoot.”
The roughly 142,000-acre Big Ditch Bottoms watershed is known for attracting the early migrators, commonly referred to as “Halloween Mallards.” Like clockwork, the ducks descend on this area in late October, early November, and tend to taper off by the first week of January. An abundance of early water and a bevy of healthy red oaks providing acorns that the ducks’ desire are the draw. Toss in productive rice farms bordering the woods, such as Hildebrand’s Geeridge Farm, Isbell Farm, Crosswinds and Feather Farms, which offer the variety ducks covet in close proximity. Throw in the efforts of many Big Ditch clubs to offer highly managed rest areas and strict pressure management; this sub-flyway has everything.
The Future of the Big Ditch
Like most green tree reservoirs in Arkansas, the clubs along Big Ditch struggle to get water off the trees before they leave dormancy each spring. If Big Ditch and/or Bayou Meto are too high, the water has nowhere to go, and some properties’ valued red oaks show signs of damage. Most duck hunters associate with relifts to pull water out of irrigation ditches and into the woods prior to the season, but some Big Ditch clubs have invested in pumps to pull water off rapidly after the season closes.
Management of these remarkable woods will decide if this area maintains its historic consistency. Mallards don’t know property lines, so the club’s collective efforts will go a long way to keeping ducks in the neighborhood, along with the neighboring farms. There is a mix of longtime ownership groups, while others have changed hands or members more recently, and all are competing for more ducks in the decoys.
Matthew Chaffin, whose family has owned Quacker Jack for decades, shares, “The ownership groups along the ditch are actively involved with the off-season practices and not just filling their woods up and hunting for 60 days. Clubs are actively trying to improve habitat.”
At one point, Otis McCollum had over 7,000 acres of duck hunting ground under his control, most of which was in these prized bottoms. No one knows if he envisioned it being divided up amongst so many clubs, as he passed away roughly 10 years after the development of the Wolf Pocket and Bear Slough GTRs. My guess is he would be pretty pleased that the mallards still find the Big Ditch Bottoms desirable. Maybe not at the numbers of their heyday, but it’s still one of the most productive areas on the Grand Prairie and will forever be one of the most legendary.
