In 1920, the Arkansas bag limit for wild ducks was 25 per day.
Pause here to let that impress Friend Hunter.
We've heard that in the olden days, massive waterfowl migrations darkened the sky above the Mississippi River corridor. So, reading the November 1920 Arkansas Gazette and Arkansas Democrat, one might hope to see duck-goose solar eclipses treated as a given, like some seasonal public utility. But the olden days were already long gone 100 years ago.
Hunting season for ducks, geese and snipe opened Nov. 1, 1920. The Gazette reported on Dec. 30 that woodcock were less numerous, and so the daily limit for those would be six per day and their season would end Dec. 31. This was an error. The next day, the Gazette quoted a federal game warden that, no, woodcock were off the menu.
At least, I believe that's what the story meant. Literally, it reported that birds called "woodchucks," or "summer ducks," were off-limits that year.
How grand it would be to see flying woodchucks today, their bulky shadows wobbling in stately progress above the glinting marsh, like big bumblebees or tiny C-130s.
Federal warden E.V. Visart advised hunters that some of those woodchuck birds would likely be on the streams, but hunters must not shoot them. Also, night hunting was illegal, even in the rice belt.
The first laws intended to protect woodcocks in the late 19th century failed to ban market hunting. In 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act ended market hunting and imposed federal regulations that eventually allowed woodcock numbers to recover (enough) to permit regulated hunting.
Ducks and geese were plentiful but not enough to blot out the sun. A Nov. 8 interview with Judge Lee Miles, a member of the still young Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, defended hunting by noting that since an international association of hunters had bought waterfowl breeding grounds in Canada, duck and goose numbers were improving. (Deer numbers were a different story in 1920. He said hunters should take care to leave some in the woods.)
That long-ago duck-goose season lasted until Feb. 1, 1921. Game wardens were enforcement officers, and overzealous hunters could be fined $200 for each violation. On Nov. 8, the Gazette reported that Visart had arrested five young men from Hazen who had killed three ducks after sunset. A U.S. District Court judge fined each of them $12.40.
Coverage of duck hunting perked up after the woodchuck gaffe. Nov. 14, the Here and There in Arkansas column reported, "Thousands of wild ducks and a few geese became confused by the lights of Newport a few nights ago and flew around and around over the town for about an hour."
Nov. 29, someone using the byline "Nimrod II" filed a long feature about his experience as a guest of one Will Boyd of Lonoke County whose hunting party stayed in a shack owned by John Shinley and Frank Parvin at a small lake about 50 miles southeast of Little Rock:
Some day, a writer with combined talents as a naturalist, sportsman, poet and humorist will indict a book describing the perils and pleasures of duck hunting in Arkansas. This book will not be complete unless one chapter is entitled "The Battle of Belcher's Lake," and has to do with those hardy adventurers who swarm to this alleged sylvan retreat.
The Gazette first mentioned Belcher Lake in 1896. Three prominent men from Lonoke County reported fishing was very good at camp there. Another mention came in November 1916, in a report about the funeral of one Frank Cloar, 34-year-old grocer from Sweet Home shot while duck hunting "on Belcher's Lake 12 miles south of Carlisle."
Nimrod describes how to reach the lake: "One winds through long lanes in the rice fields and dim roads in the woods flats, repeatedly losing the way and all sense of direction and finally arrives entirely by accident."
The lake was only three-quarters of a mile long, about 250 yards wide and about 5 feet deep — "in water," Nimrod writes, adding, "how deep the mud strata below the water is a matter for conjecture."
But it was the rendezvous of millions of mallards coming off rice fields.
Long before we arrived we heard the roar of battle reverberating through the woods and the faint echoes wafted back by the guns of the hunters on Cooper's Lake to the north of us. Later we found the ducks sailing serenely through this hail of shot with seldom a casualty, and probably with supreme contempt for both the marksmanship and judgment of the shooters.
Hosts Shinley and Parvin, "contented bachelors," greeted "the boys" enthusiastically, and it was great to be indoors. "A dozen automobiles were parked in the woods beside the road, and while we partook of the fat of the land and roasted our shins by the blazing fire, the rabble at our castle gates ate canned sardines and salmon and shivered in drenched circles around the camp fires."
Memory loves to dwell on the Homeric feasts in John Shinley's shack.
Did they eat ducks? No. They ate sausage, frog legs and fish flavored with strong onions, washed down with black coffee. They couldn't sleep anyway because people kept playing with their duck calls.
With the break of day the guns began to roar again. One amateur waded to where he could get a clear view and came back excitedly, "My Gawd!" he exclaimed. "The lake is alive with ducks!"
But it was just decoys, so many decoys. A duck shooter stood behind every tree.
The eager Nimrods sprinkled shot over each other and bandied profane language across the lake.
As the ducks sailed, sometimes 100 yards high, the guns would roar and the callers would squeak, Nimrod writes, "quack — quack — quack — boom — boom — boom — quack — quack — quack — boom — boom — boom — quack — quack — boom — boom."
Automatics rattled like machine guns and their war was punctuated by the roar of the pump guns and the sharp bark of the 16s and 20s. We counted 25 shots fired at one lone duck as he passed down the middle of the lake.
They didn't get the duck, either.
Parvin was a taciturn man "with a glaring mustache, which he twisted to a point at the end when he paused to cogitate over the serious affairs of life." Asked why he wasn't hunting, he said the "amatoor" hunters might decide he was a drake. At night, when his guests worked on their calls beside his fire, he drew the shades so "those cowboys" couldn't take aim.
Meanwhile, more hunters arrived all the time. Skyshooters blasted at anything that moved, preventing the ducks from settling beside the decoys. The decoy owners "sat in their blinds and expressed their rage in language too sulphurous for these Christian pages."
In November 1921, well-heeled duck hunters formed a club, the Belcher Lake Hunting and Fishing Club, and bought up 240 acres in Lonoke and Prairie counties, including the lake.
They limited membership to 25 and took up control of hunting and fishing in the area. They built a clubhouse, and Shinley was resident manager.
The Belcher Lake club lasted for decades, and hunters came from around the nation. You can read more about it in a real estate description from its sale in 2015.
There you go, Friend Hunter. Ducks.
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