Ask an Arkansas duck hunter about a mixed bag, and they’ll picture a strap filled with gadwall, teal and shovelers alongside their prized mallards and pintails. Heading into this fall, "mixed bag" better describes the mood.  Surveys in the Prairie Pothole Region, where most of Arkansas’s ducks are hatched, indicated fair habitat at the start…

This year’s extended triple-digit summer may already seem a memory, but the results of volunteers stepping up to help maintain Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wildlife management areas will be evident as hunters begin making their way to the woods later this fall. Sixty-six volunteers sacrificed their Saturday, Sept. 12, to help clean up litter,…

The inaugural year of the Arkansas Legacy Lunker program has been a rousing success, but there’s one more detail left to complete before the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wraps a bow on year one and begins preparing for year two. The inaugural Legacy Lunker Awards Banquet will be held at 6 p.m. Oct. 29…

Drought conditions have left many Arkansas lakes a few feet lower than normal, but they’ve boosted construction efforts to complete the new spillway and dam at Craig D. Campbell Lake Conway Reservoir, which just passed the three-year mark in its planned five-year renovation. The completion of a bridge over the auxiliary spillway and delivery of…

Hunters can help the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission with wildlife management by sharing their experiences through the AGFC’s free Deer Hunting Observation Survey, available in the AGFC app on their smartphone.  According to Blake Sasse, Nongame Mammal Program Coordinator for the AGFC, the survey began in 2004 as the “Bowhunters Observation Survey.” It was…

The first weekend of the Arkansas alligator hunting season, Sept. 18-21, yielded 150 gators across the state’s three alligator management zones. The second chunk of the hunt is set for sunset Sept. 25-sunrise 28. Most hunting takes place on private property; hunters apply for permits to hunt public land during July.  Alligator management zone 3,…

Eleven game wardens joined the ranks of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Enforcement Division at their official graduation and swearing-in ceremony Sept. 11 at the Antioch Baptist Church in Conway.  The graduating class of wardens began their training May 10 at the H.C. “Red” Morris Training Center east of Mayflower. They received 835 hours…

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s Division of Rural Services is offering more than $690,000 to Arkansas schools to teach conservation education this year, thanks to grants funded entirely by hunting and fishing violation fines collected during the last year. According to AGFC Chief of Education Mary Beth Hatch, the…

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission unanimously approved the official name of the state’s latest wildlife management area as Pat Fitts Oakwood WMA at its monthly meeting held Wednesday at the Bill Thomas Wynne Economic Development Commission Building and Technology Center in Cross County. Pat Fitts Oakwood WMA was added to the AGFC’s hunting opportunities…