Mid South Duck Hunting Improves
After struggling last season, Mid-South duck hunters seem happier as current season nears home stretch
Quality of waterfowl hunting in region improved from last year
By Bryan Brasher
Posted December 23, 2012 at midnight
Beaver Dam Lake in Tunica, Miss., is widely recognized as one of the finest places to hunt gadwalls in the entire country.
So when a pair of gadwalls appeared over Mike and Lamar Boyd's decoy spread one morning last week, they calmly instructed one of their customers to take the shot without thinking too much about it.
It wasn't until their retriever jumped into the water and swam back to the blind with one of the birds that they realized they had killed a rare and stunningly beautiful blonde gadwall.
Then they got excited.
"The dog swam past Lamar with the bird in its mouth and he told me I needed to take a look at the bird," said Mike Boyd, owner and operator of Beaver Dam Hunting Services. "I realized right away what he was talking about because it was just an absolutely beautiful bird. A lot of people hunt their whole lives and never see one like it."
Though the bird was killed by one of their paying customers, the man agreed to leave the blonde hen with the Boyds. They plan to have it mounted with a gadwall drake — since that's the way it came in over their blind — and keep it displayed inside their clubhouse forever.
Good, consistent hunting
While not everyone around the Mid-South has been lucky enough to kill a rarity like the Boyds' blonde gadwall, there seem to be many more people who are generally pleased with the quality of waterfowl hunting in the region than there were last year.
Boyd described the hunting in his part of Mississippi as "consistent" with his customers enjoying solid action on a daily basis. With more than a month left to hunt, the Boyds and their customers have killed about 500 birds with a good mixture of gadwalls and mallards.
Reelfoot Lake has always been regarded as one of the finest places for duck hunting in Tennessee, and Mike Hayes of Blue Bank Resort said his guides have enjoyed several stellar days recently.
The Boyds and the Reelfoot bunch even enjoyed good hunting during the high winds that ripped through the area on Thursday — and so did the folks from Ducks Unlimited at the DU camp in Arkansas.
"We had to deal with some wind damage at the camp," said Mike Checkett of Ducks Unlimited. "But the hunting was spectacular Thursday morning in 45-50-mph winds."
Checkett said he'd heard a few reports of the tough hunting that was so common across the Mid-South last year. But hunters with access to water have been plenty happy.
"Those without water are having a rough year, but those with water have been doing very well," Checkett said. "Recent rains have helped put some water on public areas, and the snow in the Dakotas last Saturday moved some new birds into Arkansas."
Duck stamp sales
One method officials from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission use to gauge the quality of waterfowl hunting every year is the number of duck stamps that are being sold — and this year's numbers have indicated good hunting.
Hunters are required to buy Arkansas duck stamps before hunting waterfowl each season.
According to Susan Porter of the AGFC's Fiscal Division, 43,190 resident stamps and 16,809 nonresident stamps had been sold by the end of November. By comparison, there were 41,421 resident and 15,770 non-resident sold by the same date in 2011.
The current Arkansas duck hunting season is open through Sunday and will be closed Monday and Tuesday for the Christmas Eve and Christmas holidays. It will reopen Wednesday and remain open through Jan. 27.
The duck seasons in Mississippi and Tennessee will remain open through Jan. 27 with no more scheduled closings.
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Originally Posted by BOG
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