Ask any avid duck hunter their favorite part of the sport, and they’ll tell you, in some fashion or another, it’s the camaraderie that keeps them coming back year after year. In fact, there’s little that can dampen the spirit of a hunter during peak season.
In recent years, however, a divide has emerged between hunters, in the shape — or sound, in this case — of surface-drive motors.
Surface-drive motors, commonly referred to as mud motors, are made for more shallow waters and can take on thicker, vegetation-laden waters than the traditional outboard motors can manage. Because of this, hunters are able to get to places that are typically more difficult to traverse.
Whereas outboard motors are water-cooled, surface drives are air-cooled like lawnmowers.
Arkansas hunters have been debating whether the use of mud motors should be regulated since at least 2017. When the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission conducted their public comment survey for the 2018-19 season, the topic of banning surface-drive motors was put on the survey for consideration as Commissioners had received several noise complaints about the motors. The AGFC took the pulse of public land hunters again on this year’s survey, and input leaned slightly toward some form of regulation of surface-drive motors on state-owned properties.
Many hunters feel the noise from the motors upsets the hunting grounds and disturbs the ducks, sometimes preventing them from even stopping in popular hunting areas.
Others argue the fault lies in the mud motor users more so than the motors themselves, saying hunters are making their own paths through carefully managed land and disrupting the habitats needed for ducks to be comfortable.
A Look at Both Sides
To Anthony CassinellI, mud motor usage has gotten a little out of control.
“The biggest complaint from all sportsmen is the… noise pollution of mud motors,” he said.
Cassinelli said his father always taught him to be quiet when out on any type of hunt.
“There’s absolutely nothing quiet about a mud motor,” he said. “The noise from a mud motor quite possibly could be the most unnatural sound you will hear in nature. That would be one thing — from all aspects, not just a hunter aspect, but from a sportsman’s aspect — that really sticks with me.”
On the other side of the argument are those who want to keep surface drive around.
While he can see where the noise-level complaints come from, Josh Bradley is pro-mud motor usage. Bradley, owner of SeeLite, an outdoors company in Russellville, not only uses the motors but has outfitted many customers with them as well.
“They are loud… but to be honest, I feel that the migration itself has shifted,” he said. “I feel like the duck numbers in Arkansas have been a bit lower than we’re used to in the early, mid-’90s and early 2000s. It’s made people want something to blame.”
Bradley said there are hunters that go in “and bust up rafts of ducks that are resting and run their mud motors in a foot of water all the way back up to feeding and resting and mating ducks,” but was adamant that it was a small number of outliers exhibiting that behavior.
Ultimately, Bradley said he attributes the complaints to “duck hunters being a little sensitive to any change” and in this case, the “change being the number of ducks.”
“We’re to the point now where it’s not ‘Do I like mud motors?’ To say we’re going to ban mud motors — that’s a significant impact on jobs in America, from design and manufacturing to the base metals and materials used, all the way through sales. Because of that, with the amount of motors that people like GatorTail and Mud Buddy and Go-Devil… they put out, it would be unAmerican for me to say I want to limit these because it would impact them.”
When conversations surrounding mud motors get heated to the point of newly imposed regulations, motor manufacturers feel it.
Kyle Broussard, owner of GatorTail Outboards, said not all surface drives can be included in the noise argument.
“Not all surface drives are loud. I can build a 25-horsepower Honda that’s way quieter than a 40-horsepower GatorTail. I can build a 23-horsepower that is even quieter. It’s quieter than outboard motors,” Broussard said. “I can make this [motor] as quiet as you need it to be if noise is the factor.”
The issue, according to Broussard, doesn’t lie with the type of motors he makes. It lies with “the human being running the product I sell. And I can’t control that. We are getting the blame for things that are out of our control.”
Current Arkansas Game and Fish Approved Regulations
- Outboard motors of more than 25 horsepower or surface-drive motors of more than 37 horsepower and air boats may not be operated on Dr. Lester Sitzes III Bois d’Arc (excluding Dr. Lester Sitzes III Bois d’Arc Lake), George H. Dunklin Jr. Bayou Meto, Shirey Bay Rainey Brake (excluding Shirey Bay, Horseshoe Lake and Hill Slough during non-hunting activities), and Steve N. Wilson Raft Creek Bottoms WMAs.
- Boat motors over 10 horsepower are prohibited on St. Francis National Forest WMA.
- Boats with motors greater than 50 horsepower and airboats may not be operated on waters on Henry Gray Hurricane Lake WMA during duck season.
- Effective Sept. 1, 2023, factory-installed or factory-equivalent exhausts are required for all boat motors on Bell Slough, Beryl Anthony Lower Ouachita, Big Lake, Camp Robinson, Cypress Bayou, Cut-Off Creek, Dave Donaldson Black River, Dr. Lester Sitzes III Boid d’Arc, Earl Buss Bayou De View, Ed Gordon Point Remove, Frog Bayou, Galla Creek, George H. Dunklin Jr. Bayou Meto, Harris Brake, Henry Gray Hurricane Lake, Petit Jean, Rex Hancock Black Swamp, Seven Devils, Steve N. Wilson Raft Creek Bottoms, Sheffield Nelson Dagmar and Shirey Bay Rainey Brake WMAs. Outboard motors must not be ported (e.g. holes drilled) to allow exhaust to evacuate above the water line at any point during operation.
