ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN

Sun sets on best duck season in many years

— After so many great hunts with great friends, my best duck season in many years ended this weekend.

I hunted some marvelous places with some great friends and outstanding sportsmen, and every trip produced a limit. I didn’t get to hunt nearly as much as I would have liked in January, but reports show that duck numbers and hunter success stayed solid all the way to the end.

Like many of us, Alan Thomas of Russellville didn’t hunt as often as usual this year, but he said he had a superb season on Lake Dardanelle. He and his friends got the mixed bags you expect on the river, and ducks of all kinds were abundant.

“I only hunted 11 days,” Thomas said. “Numbers were OK. We killed almost seven ducks a hunt. Anything from five to eight, I’m pleased. It’s been fun.”

Thomas said they got mostly gadwalls and greenwing teal early. Mallards showed up in force later, as they always do.

“I didn’t get to whack any goozels [Canada geese] this year,” he said. “I’m transitioning to enjoying every moment I get and not worrying so much about getting a limit. Still, I whacked a limit five out of 11 times. Of course, some of that had to be achieved through jump-shooting, but I like that. Jump shooting on the river is a-muy-a-buuueno!”

He also got an appetizer for things to come in the spring. It happened Jan. 3.

“I heard turkeys gobbling,” Thomas said. “There were lots of hens cutting and clucking. They just wouldn’t shut up. And then I heard it, and I said to the guy I was with, ‘That sounded like a flippin’ gobble!’ He said, ‘Yeah, I heard it, too.’ I killed five ducks that day and got to listen to turkeys. It was cool.”

A good friend and occasional hunting partner enjoyed a good hunt at Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area last Sunday. He got there well after sunrise, as is his custom. He does that so that he can listen to the shooting and see where all the hunters are, and then walk as far from them as he can. He said he kicked up a lot of ducks walking in. The first place wasn’t very good, so he moved about a hundred yards away. He called down two flights but didn’t kill a duck.

“I couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a barn shovel,” he said. He said he used Winchester Blind Side shotgun shells, but will not use them again, because, you know, it’s either the shells or the gun, and he likes his gun too much. He said he hunted at Bell Slough WMA the previous day and didn’t see a single duck.

A friend in Clarendon said he wrapped up one of the worst seasons ever on the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. Lack of ducks wasn’t the problem, he said, but too many hunters. There are a finite number of traditional and accessible holes in the refuge, he said, and ducks figure out pretty fast what happens if they go there. And while you have to stop hunting at noon, he said people still comb the woods for hours scouting for ducks, so the birds never really settle down.

Speaking of Bayou Meto WMA, a frequent correspondent shared some thoughts about spinning wing decoys and skybusting. He noted that the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission limited the number of shells (15) a hunter can take into Bayou Meto to prevent skybusting, and also limited the size of shot to no larger than No. 2.

“That was supposed to fix it,” he said. He facetiously suggested reducing the number of shells even further, and maybe going to a No. 6 shot size limit to demonstrate the absurdity of blaming bad hunting etiquette on a piece of equipment.

GENTLE REMINDER

A parting thought on duck season. The daily limit of ducks is six in various combinations. The possession limit is twice the daily limit, which means a hunter is allowed to have no more than 12 ducks in possession at any time.

If you have 12 in your freezer, and you go hunting and kill one more, you are in violation because you now possess 13. So, if you’ve been stockpiling ducks for your church’s wild game supper or for a neighborhood cookout, you could be ticketed.

Food for thought as we look forward to next year.

Sports, Pages 29 on 01/27/2013

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