mhowerton

That is an awesome way to end the season. We had an excellent two week stretch on the bigger lakes and rivers right after Christmas due to the extreme cold. It was the best season in awhile. My retriever definitely earned his keep this season. Im also already looking forward to teal season.

Awesome hunt. Teal are my favorite duck to shoot especially when they come into the decoys in big groups.

I was able to fish a couple hours Saturday afternoon. Water had quite a bit of color from the recent rains. I fished up River from Rim Shoals with decent results. Nothing to brag about. My partner was not impressed. I have been using a new Denali rod which I really like.

Fished with two buddies from high school in July. One of my buddies uncle has a cabin across from Shipps Ferry so we just kept close to there. We caught plenty of rainbows each day and one decent brown. This part of the river has really become more shallow than I recall. I ground gravel much more than I have in the past. The shoal below big creek was very shallow when they turned off the water. I'm headed out this afternoon will try to post another report this evening.

Has anyone seen how they are going to address the moving of boats back and forth between the two lakes in relation to zebra mussels? Are they going to have a system to ensure they are fully dried? Fish Norfork first and then Bull Shoals? Just was kicking this around at the break table today and was wondering if you guys might have heard.

What rod/reel/line setups are yall using for jerkbaits on the White?

After hunting the second week of December in NE Arkansas I didn't hunt until after Christmas due to no ducks and spending time with family. After the deluge of rain we received I headed over to try the flooded timber on the Black River The water was higher than expected. We had to boat into our cabin. We couldn't quite get on the right spot due to some early risers who beat us to the hole. We ended up with a couple of mallards. I had to go back to work after the first and was super busy so I only got to hunt the weekends. It was a crap shoot every time out as to where any ducks were with all the water. We would spend about all weekend running around the lake and river trying to find them with minimal results. Last Saturday afternoon we found about 50 mallards sitting in a creek arm. We came back Sunday only to have them all come back and land 85 yards away. Very frustrating We decided to give it another shot on Friday as the colder weather should have locked up most of the ponds. We had a hunt for the ages. No less than 150 ducks in the decoys and we were picking up at 7:08. We went back yesterday and harvested another 7 mallards before they lake level dropped enough and they caught on to us today. The only plus about having this much water is that I found several different places to hunt if we ever get this amount of water again. Again the old saying holds true that gas kills way more ducks than any decoys or calls.

John, I haven't made it up to swan creek this year. I also never saw the gadwall or teal in this area. Gadwalls make up the majority of our kills, but this year we only killed three all year. There are three of what I call indicator ponds around town that when they have ducks on them it usually means there are ducks in the area and usually they are gadwalls. I never saw a single duck on those ponds all year. I believe that the ducks never made it down here in numbers that they normally do. But we will keep after them for some unknown reason. One more weekend and I am going to head over to the Black River and give it one more try.

John, I agree this season has been frustrating. There weren't any ducks around before Christmas and then after Christmas there was water everywhere. I was ready to sell my all my hunting gear last weekend. Finally had a good hunt yesterday. I'll try to post a season summary later.

FYI Red Landing is unusable. Sand is several feet deep on the parking lot. Buffalo City is fine,but there are no porta Jons

Green wings are very tasty and fun to hunt. I just wish there were more of them around. Very few ducks around in our area. We usually have a decent amount by now, but with no real weather if any ducks are here they are spread thin. But a morning watching the sun come up over the decoys is well spent. Merry Christmas.

Still slow around here. Two teal right after shooting hours and nothing in the sky after that. Doesn't look like much change in the weather in the next week either.

Nice hunt. Glad to see some ducks in the area. Going to get after them on Friday.

nice hunt.

When they published the Arkansas duck dates in late summer I circled this weekend on the calendar and made plans for a hunting trip with my dad and brother. It looked like a perfect weekend after a 10 day split. Late enough for ducks to make it down but not too late that it would be frozen up. The best laid plans of mice and men.... With the weather forecast of 70 degrees and clouds and no good reports from the area we almost cancelled, but we all had made plans so we went ahead. We drove probably 40 miles on gravel roads in the area on Thursday afternoon and didn't see a duck except for on the refuge lake. But you can't kill em at the cabin. We ended up having decent hunts all three days for the amount of ducks in the area. Mainly green wing teal which are a joy to watch barreling towards the decoys. Many memories made with Dad and my brother. Now bring on the cold weather.