WATERFOWL REPORT

With a deep freeze headed toward Arkansas and snow to southeast Missouri, and with the recent rainfall that has filled the public hunting areas in state, habitat conditions for duck hunters this weekend should be the best they’ve been all year.

Duck hunters may have to break ice to open a hole with temperatures expected to drop into the teens tonight and Friday. There will be a light warming on Saturday through the day, and sunny to partly cloudy conditions are expected.

Reports have varied from outstanding duck hunting for some waterfowlers, to others noting their duck hunting and duck sighting as being way off from recent years.

The January midwinter aerial survey conducted by Arkansas Game and Fish Commission waterfowl biologists two weeks ago indicated a big jump in mallards over the December count (from about 326,064 mallards in the Delta to more than 617,000 estimated in early January). The greatest concentration of mallards was in the Bayou Meto and Lower St. Francis survey zones. More than half of all mallards in the Delta were in these two survey zones. Duck and mallard density maps (available on agfc. com) show this distribution pattern, with duck hot spots generally mirroring mallard hot spots.

Hunting has been good in George H. Dunklin Jr. Bayou Meto WMA, thanks to recent rainfall lifting the water levels throughout the area to optimal duck hunting conditions. Northeast Arkansas and eastern Arkansas have seen a good number of ducks, according to some private land hunters. Duck numbers are picking up some in the Arkansas River Valley and around Ed Gordon Point Remove WMA. The aerial survey two weeks ago showed mallards were somewhat evenly distributed among four survey zones in the Arkansas River Valley: East Dardanelle Reservoir, Holla Bend, Petit Jean and Point Remove Plumerville.

Total duck numbers in the state nearly doubled from early December to early January’s aerial survey count. Also, gadwall were the most abundant non-mallard dabbling ducks in the River Valley. American green-winged teal, northern shovelers, northern pintails and gadwall, roughly in that order, were the most common non-mallard ducks in the Delta. Northern shovelers and gadwall were the most common non-mallard ducks in southwest Arkansas.