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Hunting Information
Arkansas has the most liberal combination of hunting seasons and bag limits found anywhere in the United States. Archery deer season, for example, is traditionally a continuously running five-month season beginning October 1 and ending February 29. Statewide deer bag limit is four per season and additional deer can be taken using special permits. Arkansas instituted a revolutionary 3-point rule for deer hunting beginning with the 1998-99 hunting season. The new rule is designed to better balance overall herd sex ratios and age distribution. The 1998-99 deer harvest proved to be a state record with over 175,000 checked at wildlife check stations. Incidentally, this equates to a near 50% success ratio among Arkansas deer hunters.
But deer aren't the only game found in The Natural State. Arkansas is known world wide as the duck hunting capitol of the world with the nation's largest population of migrating mallards. Thousands of hunters cross Arkansas's hospitable borders each year to experience the thrill of watching a flight of ducks bob and weave their way through pristine flooded timber into a set of decoys flanked by a natural blind. And if flooded timber isn't your thing, flooded rice and soybean fields are always nearby.
Arkansas may best be known for ducks and deer, although a new state record spring wild turkey harvest was registered in 1999. Arkansas also enjoyed its first modern day elk hunt in 1998. Small game is found in abundance throughout the state from the fields and thickets surrounding the Arkansas River to the hills and hollows of the Ozark and Ouachita mountain ranges.
Finding a place to hunt can be a traumatic experience in others states, but is no problem is Arkansas. Leading the way for public hunting opportunities are over 100 state controlled wildlife management areas including the duck hunting paradise, Bayou Meto. The Ozark - St. Francis National Forest is more public hunting land found in Arkansas, and this one area is larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. The Ouachita National Forest is also located in Arkansas, and is even larger than the Ozark - St. Francis! These national forests, combined with over one hundred state controlled wildlife management areas, makes Arkansas one of the top southern states in amount of land available for public hunting.
For more information visit:
Arkansas Game and Fish The Weather Channel
www.agfc.state.ar.us/ www.weather.com
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