Waterfowling North America
August/September 2007 Issue

And it Makes Good Pudding, Too
By Doug Larsen

t has been a couple of years since I was in Arkansas to hunt ducks. Normally, I get down there every year; but I had missed a couple trips, so I was pleased to be back down south and just a little bit west of the big ditch during the January duck season. There are lots and lots of good things about hunting ducks in Arkansas. In general, there is just so much duck hunting culture there. You see duck trucks and boats and four-wheelers and little old ladies in camouflage jackets in the supermarkets. Duck hunting and duck hunting people are everywhere in rural Arkansas, it’s part of the fabric. Plus, it’s always fun to be on a duck hunting trip with friends, and it’s fun to get to hunt some extra days after my season is done due to ice.

But while Arkansas duck hunting gained world notoriety long ago by virtue of its green-timber hunting, one of the things I like most about hunting with my friend Pat Pitt and his boys (and their cadre of fast, black dogs) at his little club in the northeast part of the state, is the ricefield hunting. If you normally hunt rice, meaning if that’s what duck hunting is to you, I’m envious. In fact, if you own or lease a ricefield pit, then you are probably going to wonder why I’m writing about ricefields in the first place. After all, no big deal to you, I guess. But they say that people who live in mountainous regions – while they appreciate the views and the beauty of the mountains the first few years they live there – eventually stop looking up and start to take the scenery for granted. So, even if you hunt rice all the time, don’t take those flooded fields for granted. In my mind, they are just about the perfect arena for hunting ducks and geese.

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