Arkansas has the habitat conditions it was hoping for earlier in the waterfowl season, after being covered up by snow and ice this week following similar weather in neighboring states, which would seem to be the ideal conditions to move more mallards and other ducks into the state.
State Game and Fish Commission officials will know more on actual numbers, and if that scenario has proved true, in coming days when the January Midwinter Survey is calculated by the AGFC’s waterfowl biologists flying the state this week.
What they saw the second week of December didn’t come close to measuring up to the long-term (last 15 years) average for that period, but the estimates were still much better than what was counted for the same time in 2023.
Anecdotally, AGFC has heard decent hunting reports from some private clubs in the east-central area of the state with good habitat for the past few weeks and the arrival of some ducks. Just the same, hunters have also complained of “stale” ducks in their area.
The December observations by the AGFC biologists flying transects to estimate waterfowl indicated a couple of large groupings of ducks in the southeast corner and the northeast part of the state and scattered distribution through the central part of the state’s Delta region. Noted duck concentrations in four areas — Bayou Bartholomew-Bayou Boeuf, Black River-Upper White River, Cache River and the Lower St. Francis — accounted for 60% of the Delta’s mallard estimate and 66% of the total duck estimate for the region.
Also, the Cache River zone had an estimated 173,571 total ducks, which made up a third of the total duck estimate.
Heavy snow hit the state, concentrated below Interstate 40, starting Thursday and continuing Friday.
