Ark Wild Winter 2015

ARKANSAS WILD -of-

DUCK TALES STORIES & FIASCOS

+ gentlemen's guide GIFT IDEAS FOR EVERY OUTDOORSMAN

WINTER 2015 arKANSASwild.com ARKANSASWILD.COM | 1

A F i r s t -C l A s s t i m e ... e v e ry t i m e .

America’s #1 Trout Fishing Resort is Gaston’s. Our White River float trips for lunker trout are legendary from coast to coast. We do the work. All you do is fish – in style and comfort. Then there are the extras that make “resort” our last name. First-class lodging. One of the South’s finest restaurants featuring a spectacular view. A private club. Tennis and a pool. Nature trails for mountain biking and hiking. A conference lodge for your group meetings or parties. Even a private landing strip for fly-in guests.

1777 River Road, Lakeview, AR 72642 870-431-5202 • Email gastons@gastons.com Lat 36 20’ 55” N Long 92 33’ 25” W 2 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

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ARKANSASWILD.COM | 3

CONTENTS WINTER 2015 WWW.ARKANSASWILD.COM ¸ FAcebook.com/ArkansasWild

37

LEGENDS OF THE WILD

24 SHADOWS ON THE WHITE RIVER

28 GONE MUDDIN’

32

53 DUCK TALES

61 2015 GENTLEMEN’S GUIDE

DEPARTMENTS 12 OUTDOOR ESSENTIALS 16 WILD THINGS 18 GAME & FLAME 22 FIN & FEATHER 64 TOP GUIDES 66 OUT & ABOUT 4 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

Conservationist, canoe operator and avid outdoorsman Mike Mills finds peace on the Buffalo River. Read more about Mills and eight more Arkansans being honored as our 2015 Legends of the Wild, beginning on page 37.

PHOTO BY RETT PEEK

RAZORBACK ROUNDUP

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 5

ARKANSAS WILD WWW.ARKANSASWILD.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ARKANSASWILD REBEKAH HARDIN Publisher rebekah@arktimes.com MANDY KEENER Creative Director mandy@arktimes.com MEL JONES Editorial Director melanie@arktimes.com KEVIN WALTERMIRE Art Director kevin@arktimes.com ADVERTISING ELIZABETH HAMAN Advertising Sales Director elizabeth@arktimes.com

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LESA THOMAS senior Account Executive lesa@arktimes.com RHONDA CRONE Account Executive rhonda@arktimes.com PRODUCTION WELDON WILSON Production Manager/Controller ROLAND R. GLADDEN Advertising Traffic Manager ERIN HOLLAND Advertising Coordinator GRAPHIC DESIGNERS BRYAN MOATS MIKE SPAIN SOCIAL MEDIA LAUREN BUCHER lauren@arktimes.com OFFICE STAFF ROBERT CURFMAN IT Director LINDA PHILLIPS Billing/Collections

ARKANSAS

KELLY LYLES Office Manager

IS OUR HOME.

ANITRA HICKMAN Circulation Director

KEEP IT CLEAN. KeepArkansasBeautiful.com 6 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

201 E. MARKHAM ST., SUITE 200 LITTLE ROCK, AR 72201 501-375-2985 All Contents © 2015 Arkansas Wild

Explore one-of-a-kind, American made pieces, conceived and crafted by our founder. Our Paul Michael Company Exclusive pieces are made from locally harvested wood and other reclaimed materials, handcrafted, and finished at our woodshop in arkansas.

www.PaulMichaelCompany.com 800.732.3722 | Lake Village, AR ARKANSASWILD.COM | 7

8 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

CONTRIBUTORS BRAD ALLEN Brad Allen won the World's Championship Duck Calling Contest in 2010, 2012 and 2013. He is the owner of Elite Duck Calls in Searcy, Arkansas. He resides in Judsonia with his wife, Melissa, and daughter, Hannah.

STEVE BOWMAN Steve Bowman is currently the director of digital content for JM Associates and an editor for bassmaster.com. He is the former outdoor editor for the Arkansas DemocratGazette (1987-2001) and was recently inducted into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame. He has published three books, including The Arkansas Duck Hunter’s Almanac.

SCOTT W. MANLEY, PH.D. Scott Manley, director of conservation innovation for Ducks Unlimited, is actively engaged with private industry, agricultural producers and public resource managers to find solutions that have both positive bottom-line impacts and quantifiable ecological benefits across the southern United States’ working agricultural landscapes.

JERRY MCKINNIS Jerry McKinnis is the host of The Fishin’ Hole, the longest-running fishing show in television history. What began as a regional show made its way to the national level when Jerry teamed up with ESPN. He went on to develop the popular ESPN Outdoors block of programming for the network. Jerry’s business firm, JM Associates has been called the network’s best friend by ESPN. In 2010, the longtime B.A.S.S. member teamed up with Don Logan and Jim Copeland to purchase the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society from ESPN. A resident of Flippin, Jerry is now known for being one of the most influential figures of the outdoor fishing industry.

GEORGIA PELLEGRINI Georgia Pellegrini is an entrepreneur, author, TV personality, chef, public speaker and outdoor adventure host. Georgia hosts women's Adventure Getaways around the country and has been featured in the New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, HBO Real Sports and many more. She is a contributing writer for the Wall Street Journal as well as many other magazines and newspapers. When she's not on Jimmy Kimmel, Today Show or eating 15 courses of strip steak on Iron Chef, you can find her on an ATV riding along the banks of the Mississippi in pursuit of bacon.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 9

CONTRIBUTORS CONTINUED RICHARD LEDBETTER Besides having numerous magazine articles and music reviews appear in state publications over the past decade, Arkansas native Richard Ledbetter is also the author of two historic novels, The Branch and the Vine (2002) and Witness Tree 1910 (2011). He appears as a featured player in three Arkansas-made full-length films.

DEVIN O’DEA Co-owner of Fayettechill, the Fayetteville-based outdoor clothing and lifestyle brand, Devin O’Dea focuses his creative energy on developing the company’s media, marketing and digital presence. His mission in life and in business is to contribute to as many individuals’ sense of adventure, ambition, happiness and sense of wonder as possible.

JOHN MCCLENDON Monticellonian John McClendon grew up hunting the woods and waters of Drew County where his preoccupation with ducks originated.

An accomplished storyteller, McClendon loves to share sentimental memories and humorous observations involving the outdoors. “The hunting culture and traditions here in Arkansas aren’t centered solely on just finding and killing game,” John notes. “It’s really all about making stronger connections to everything in life.”

ON THE COVER: Freddie Black, one of this year's Legends of the Wild, and his blue tick hound, Rodney. Photography

by Rett Peek in Pickens, Arkansas.

WILD PHOTOGRAPHERS

Stay In the

TREE

One out of three deer hunters will fall from a treestand in their lifetime. That perfect 20-foot tall vantage point can become a 20-foot disaster in a split second. Be sure to wear a full-body safety harness any time you’re in a treestand.

Visit stayinthetree.com for more treestand safety tips and videos.

10 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

MATTHEW MARTIN

Matthew Martin is a photographer based in Little Rock. When he’s not behind the camera or on a film set, Matthew spends his time traveling, enjoying the Little Rock food scene and spending time with his dog Deltron. He shot this issue's Game & Flame, starting on page 18.

RETT PEEK Rett Peek is a photographer based in Little Rock. His work can be seen locally as well as nationally. He is also the father of two kiddos, Luca and Levi, and they love spending time outdoors, whether it’s camping or hiking up Pinnacle Mountain. He shot this year's Legends of the Wild, starting on page 37.

ARKANSAS WILDLIFE The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission magazine.

Subscribe Today –

to keep up with the outdoors in The Natural State.

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Visit www.agfc.com or call 501-223-6351. Cookbook is $10 at any AGFC nature center or AGFC headquarters in Little Rock; $13 if ordered by mail.

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Combo Special: Both books for $25 over the counter or $30 by mail.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 11

OUTDOOR ESSENTIALS

DUCK AND COVER

You’ll be prepared for the blind and beyond with our picks from Mack’s Prairie Wings in Stuttgart

BY MEL JONES

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and gold Elite Cache single-reed duck call.

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folding pocket knife and black leather Buck sheath.

2. Black

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4. MPW’s

Geridge WindTamer full-zip wool sweater, with hand-warmer pockets and waxed cotton elbow and shoulder accents.

7. Columbia

6.

12 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

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O li be r te ds usta chukka-s tyle Mo inab gado Hi bo ly ma ot, Fair Trade Cer tified de in E thiopia of 100-percent goat leath er.

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Flare Gun Flannel III longsleeve plaid shirt with Omni-Wick technology and embroidered MPW feather.

PHOTOS BY BRIAN CHILSON/STYLING BY MANDY KEENER

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Our birds are top flight.

It’s not how high they fly, it’s where they land!

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Now Booking 2016-17 Season Field Leases and Season Lodge Leases Kimberly Freeman, Owner | kim176@comcast.net | 501.690.0164 | www.elmslodge.com ARKANSASWILD.COM | 13

OUTDOOR ESSENTIALS 1.

Photo-realistic camo

Scent-free ZXT Rubber

2.

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7.

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Merino wool offers ultimate warmth Scent-injectable body

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HOT SPRINGS' ORIGINAL OUTFITTER 1. Fayetteville-based Plythal Lethal Layering System’s lightweight, insulated Prima-Heat vest, with fleece-lined pockets and an extra-high collar.

2. Lacrosse’s classic green Grange rubber boots, 100-percent waterproof with a Chevron Cleated Outsole for unparalleled traction.

3. Smartwool’s extra-heavy overthe-calf wool hunt socks with full-cushion leg and foot for all-day comfort and protection.

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4. Acme high-frequency dog training whistle.

5. Dokken’s DeadFowl Trainer teaches dogs how to hold and carry game birds with a soft, lifelike body, and hard feet and head to eliminate aggressive head shaking.

6. The newest addition to Echo Calls’ lineup, the ODB (Old Ducky Breaker) blows loud for longerdistance calling, but comes down to a soft close in quack.

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7. The ultimate one call that does it all, RNT’s original call in ivory was made to produce a wide range of sounds and withstand the harshest weather possible.

REST. 8. Easily haul five birds with MPW’s leather game strap with solid-brass details.

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WILD THINGS

PIG PROBLEM The ever-increasing feral hog population is causing statewide damage

BY MICHAEL ROBERTS

Despite its status as the mascot for the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the razorback hog is not a native Arkansas species. First introduced into the state by European explorers in the 1600s, feral hogs have long been a part of the Arkansas landscape.

While populations remained relatively small and contained to bottomland hardwood thickets in southern Arkansas for much of that history, the past two decades have seen a dramatic rise in the wild hog population, something experts attribute to the purposeful release of the animals into the wild for sport hunting.

Feral hogs have been sighted in each of Arkansas’ 75 counties, and their innate intelligence and ability to eat nearly anything makes the animals a particularly difficult species to control. Damage to row crops, the spread of diseases like brucellosis—a bacterial infection also known as Mediterranean fever—damage to forests due to rooting, and direct competition for food with native species like whitetailed deer, wild turkey and bobwhite quail are all significant issues that farmers and sportsmen in the state face from feral hogs.

The University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension defines feral hogs as any “domesticated swine that are released into the wild accidently or purposefully for sport hunting.” Seeing one of these animals in the wild, it may seem at first that there is only a passing resemblance to the typical domesticated hog, because within only a couple of generations, the pigs undergo some pretty extreme physical changes.

Thick, black fur often develops, particularly along the back (giving rise to the name “razorback”), and snout elongation is common. The most dangerous change that happens with feral hogs, though, is the growth of knife-sharp tusks that can gore a human or dog with just one twist of the hog’s head.

Arkansas has recognized feral hogs as a problem for many years, and in 1998 organized a Feral Pig Task Force to help educate the public. Because the pigs are not considered wildlife, controlling the population falls under the purview of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, which has full authority over the control, suppression and eradication of the animals. In addition, agencies like Cooperative Extension hold periodic classes and seminars for landowners and hunters to learn how to rid themselves of feral hogs that might be disrupting agriculture or other activities.

16 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

For many hunters, feral hogs are not seen as a nuisance species at all, but rather prime sport. Feral hogs are quick, strong and very intelligent, making them a challenge to hunt—something many hunters welcome. For hunters on private land, feral hogs can be shot or trapped year-round, day or night, by anyone with permission to be on the land and a valid hunting license. Public land rules are somewhat stricter, limiting the hunting of hogs to firearms bear, deer or elk season, from 30 minutes before sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset.

Hunting is only one method of controlling feral pigs, and experts with both Arkansas Game and Fish and Cooperative Extension both maintain that hunting is ineffective for true population control.

Hogs travel in groups called “sounders,” and if a group sees one or two of its members killed by hunters, they tend to learn methods to avoid hunters in the future. Trapping has proven far more effective, especially methods by which the entire sounder is captured. Hogs taken must be euthanized on site, as transporting live feral hogs is illegal in Arkansas.

In the balance between land use for agriculture, timber and hunting, an invasive species like the feral hog can cause extreme disruption. Given the adaptability of the razorback hog, there’s no doubt that the animals will be with us for the duration, but control of the species is vital for maintaining a good balance in our open spaces.

For a full list of public areas where hunting hogs is permissible, visit the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission at agfc.com. For information about trapping feral hogs, as well as a schedule of feral hog workshops, visit the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension site at uaex.edu.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MIKE WINTROATH, ARKANSAS GAME AND FISH COMMISSION

Feral hog destruction of corn crops.

Photography by Rett Peek.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 17

GAME & FLAME

DUCK BLIND TASTE TEST

Arkansas Wild gets the story on the legendary duck blind sandwich at Wildlife Farms

BY MEL JONES PHOTOS BY MATTHEW MARTIN Wildlife Farms, about 20 miles from Stuttgart and a stone's throw from the White River, covers almost 2,000 acres—including 5 1/2 miles of river frontage— full of old-growth hardwood timber, oxbow lakes and flooded fields, all managed for the benefit of waterfowl.

It’s in a sizable duck blind in the middle of one of these lakes, a couple of miles out from the lodge, where we find ourselves being schooled in the art and legend of the duck blind sandwich.

The thing about the duck blind sandwich is that there’s no written recipe. It’s a family tradition that began with Sykes Harris, Sr., who started making it in his own duck blind in Arkansas City. The late Harris’ daughter Sally, who co-owns Wildlife Farms with her husband, Daniel Barnett, Sr., says her dad often took clients of his wood flooring company out to hunt, and notes that “More than a few business deals were made in that blind over duck blind sandwiches and coffee!”

Nowadays, the guides at Wildlife Farms are carrying on the tradition, making the sandwich for the hundreds of hunters who land in Casscoe to hunt each year.

David Barnett, Sally and Daniel’s son, has been a fulltime guide since 1998. By his best guess, David says he makes an average of five sandwiches a day, for around 60 days every year. That’s about 5,100 duck blind sandwiches—5,102 if you count the two he made for us, just a few weeks before the season is due to begin.

At its most basic, it’s a ham, egg and cheese sandwich.

At its heart, the duck blind sandwich is a family tradition that has been passed down through the generations and shared with many. It’s a memory making experience, as David notes, “I remember being in the blind with my granddad when I was eight or nine, watching him cook the sandwich and us eating it. That’s always stuck with me.”

If you have the opportunity to experience this family treasure, we can guarantee it’ll stick with you, too. And like so many of Wildlife Farms’ repeat customers, you’ll be planning another trip before you even leave the place.

18 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

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David Barnett navigates the waters at Wildlife Farms.

(Inset) One of five blinds on the property.

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WWW.ROCKTOWNDISTILLERY.COM 1216 E 6TH STREET, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72202 ARKANSASWILD.COM | 19

Season ham with Slap Yo Mama Fry the eggs

Add a dash of hot sauce Finish the sandwich in the skillet

20 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

duck blind sandwich (makes 2 sandwiches)

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Ingredients 4 slices of white bread Miracle Whip 2 slices of ham 2 eggs 2 slices American cheese 1 stick butter Slap Yo Mama seasoning Salt and pepper Louisiana Hot Sauce

Prep the bread Spread each slice with Miracle Whip and top one with cheese.

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Heat the meat On a hot buttered skillet, cook the ham—seasoned with Slap Yo Mama—until desired doneness is achieved. David trims the ham into a square, so it all fits nicely in between the bread. Transfer each slice of ham to the slice of bread with the cheese.

Put an egg on it Crack the egg on the skillet and let it fry. Season with salt and pepper, trim into a square and place each egg on the ham and cheese. This is when the hot sauce comes in—give the egg a splash or two, then top it off with the other slice of bread.

Finishing touch Make sure the skillet is still hot and buttered. Place the sandwich on the skillet and cook it a minute or two on each side, like you would a grilled-cheese sandwich. Place the finished sandwich on a paper towel, and enjoy.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 21

FIN & FEATHER

WETLANDS & WATERFOWL Conservation efforts ensure Arkansas will remain a vital haven for wintering ducks

The Mississippi Alluvial Valley, of which Arkansas is a part, is the most important wintering area for mallards in North America. Indeed, in a typical year, Arkansas often has more ducks around than anywhere else in the country during the winter, making our state a vital part of the waterfowl ecosystem—and a popular destination for hunters from around the world. But like many of our wild spaces, the wetlands on which those ducks depend have come under increasing pressure from expanded development and the state’s agricultural needs, prompting government, corporate and private groups to increase efforts to maintain and improve these vital areas.

“Arkansas is one of our priority states,” says Tim Wallis, who coordinates activities in the state for conservation organization Ducks Unlimited. “We work with our partners like Arkansas Game and Fish, the USDA and private landowners to help sustain wetlands for future generations.” It’s a model that has worked well for the group, which helps plan projects and solicits donations from corporations and private individuals, much of which is matched by federal funds provided by the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. The results are clear: $48.7 million raised toward conservation efforts, which translates into improvements for more than 358,000 acres of waterfowl habitat in Arkansas.

Some of these projects, like the Bayou Meto Waterfowl Management Area (WMA) in Arkansas County, are managed by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission as public lands. Bayou Meto is one of the largest state-owned WMAs in the country, providing hunting and recreation grounds for natives and visitors alike. To improve the area, Ducks

22 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

Unlimited and its partners made upgrades to 1,162 acres of wetlands, including the installation of a new water delivery system with more than two miles of underground pipeline to ensure a constant supply of water to the area.

Conservation also extends beyond public areas.

Groups like Ducks Unlimited are well aware of the need to balance hunting and recreational use of Arkansas’ wetlands with farmers’ needs to produce crops like rice that represent a vital part of the state’s economy. To do this, the group works with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program to assist landowners and producers to create sustainable uses for soil and water in area watersheds. Such programs not only benefit wildlife, they also allow Arkansas farmers to use resources like water with greater efficiency, something that saves landowners money in operating costs and can potentially increase crop yields.

“We try to make sure that waterfowl doesn’t suffer for growth,” says Wallis. It’s a balancing act of land-use needs and tight budgets that often proves challenging to Ducks Unlimited and its partners. Theirs is a common-sense approach that seeks input from hunters, landowners, scientists and government agencies alike, all in the name of securing the duck habitats that make up such a key part of the life cycle of waterfowl in North America.

It’s a mission that not only ensures that Arkansas will remain the winter duck capital of the world— it also guarantees that everyone who comes to our state to enjoy the beauty and bounty of our wild spaces will be able to do so for years to come.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MIKE WINTROATH, ARKANSAS GAME AND FISH COMMISSION

BY MICHAEL ROBERTS

WHEN YOU WANT TO CALL ON A LOCAL TEAM.

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SHADOWS ON THE

PHOTO COURTESY OF KENNETH L. KIESER

white river

Trout-fishing guides have long been looked after by their predecessors

BY KENNETH L. KIESER

There are unexplainable shadows on the White River that run through Missouri and Arkansas. Richie Hays, White River guide for Gaston’s Resort, is well aware of these shadows that few see. Some may even feel these apparitions that refuse to leave while others never believe they exist.

After 17 years of guiding, Hays lives and breathes the White River. He knows that the shadows are there and perhaps someday he will join them. I have spent many hours there and may someday be a shadow on the river too, joining a big crowd. Many shadows with unknown names and faces started the White River history centuries ago.

Spirits lurk on the White River.

24 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

Congratulations to our friends and

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white river ghosts

Men, women and children used the river for survival long before dams created this cold-water chute that now supports rainbow and brown trout survival. Native Americans fished and hunted this sacred place and likely thanked their God for this special place.

Eventually pioneers took over, no doubt still thanking God for nourishment and fresh water. These pioneers brought civilization to the region and by the 1920s, when a dollar was still worth a dollar, guides found they could be paid for a day’s fishing. Many are now likely shadows.

Early guides on the White River worked hard for their pay, between $2 and $10 a day. After cooking breakfast, most used long wooden jonboats to propel clients down the river in search of goggle-eye, green perch and bass. Then, after a long day of guiding, camp was set up with fresh fish, steak or chicken for dinner with potatoes and beans or whatever they decided to haul down river and grill over an open fire.

Jim Owens, out of Branson, Missouri, and well into Arkansas, was likely the most famous guide on the river. The Jim Owen’s Boat Line started in 1935 and catered to thousands of sportsmen by the late 1940s for a rate of $2 a day that eventually ballooned up to $10, a fair amount that many were more than happy to pay.

His wooden jonboats were not equipped with a middle seat so fishermen could comfortably sit in director’s chairs and drink iced beverages. Owens even brought portable toilet seats for the more delicate anglers.

Eventually he scored the highest paying clients. By the late 1940s he owned more than 40 jonboats with almost as many guides, likely several of the shadows that follow Hays up and down the river on every guide trip with Owens leading the group.

Many changes have occurred since the wooden jonboat days. The White River in Arkansas is a trout fishing mecca. This narrow chute of chilly water from the depths of Bull Shoals Lake was once a meandering warm-water stretch that moved flat boats of settlers and their possessions to a hard, often challenging life of settling in Arkansas’ Ozark hills. Many attached their small log homes to the boats to be reconstructed on arrival. Residents soon learned how to fish the White River waters for precious food.

Trains and roads eventually brought tourists from cities to sample the so-called simplistic Ozark life.

Opportunistic men started guide services in wooden jonboats with push poles to take tourists down the river in search of goggle eye, various types of perch and bass, but this drastically changed.

Congress authorized construction of Bull Shoals Dam in 1941, but World War II delayed the project.

The new contract was finally signed and construction started on July 9, 1947, and finished four years later at a cost of $76 million, plus $30 million for the power system. Water released from the Bull Shoals chutes eventually made the water too cold for most fish species, but perfect for trout.

Today the White River can boast of monster German brown trout and large numbers of rainbow trout. Bass, goggle eye and green perch may still be found on stretches miles away from the dams, but now White River guides mainly show clients how to catch trout. Chances are some of the earlier customers and guides before the dams are now shadows too.

“I love the history of guides on the river,” Hays says.

“Some of the guides I worked with are gone; they just never had a feel for this river and only wanted a pay check. Many of the guides I work with now love the White River and will likely stay.”

Hays is a successful guide because of his patience with novice anglers, including women and children.

In fact, many beginners insist on Hays as their guide on return trips and Gaston’s White River Resort makes that possible, even though the business has a successful staff of many guides that share their river secrets with co-workers, like a select society.

This group of guides loves the river and will likely be shadows watching younger guides and clients many years from now.

Hays relies on experience when adapting to changes while finding trout for his clients. Problem is, the best fishing areas can quickly become unproductive.

Sometimes trout feed in deep holes and then switch to feeding in shallow areas. How long the dam is releasing water and how much always determines feeding changes.

“You have to fish at least six years on the White River before you can consistently catch fish in any condition,” Hays says. “Every condition affects fish in a different way. You have to be aware of water being released and weather changes too. Fluctuating weather patterns determine how and on what the trout bite that day.”

But for me, watching Zane Wheeler and his buddies, Michael and Hunter Taylor, all under 10-years-old, having fun catching rainbows on the White River is a reminder why there are many shadows on the river— or maybe not shadows, but kindred spirits. Either way, most who discover this special place never want to leave and return whenever possible for the rest of their lives—or possibly forever.

he knows that the shadows are there and perhaps someday he will join them.

26 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

Locally Grown.

Feeding your family.

Feeding the world.

"With a predicted global population of over 9 billion by 2050, women must continue to educate and empower future female farmers to grow food for a growing world. We accept responsibility to contribute to a sustainable and quality food supply while acting as advocates for agriculture. It is because of our progress that women not only have a seat at the table in the agriculture industry, but provide food for it as well." —Jennifer James, member, Arkansas Rice Federation Photography by Rett Peek.

www.arkansasrice.org

facebook.com/ArkansasRice

@ArkansasRice

@RiceArkansas ARKANSASWILD.COM | 27

GONE MUDDIN’ Richer mud makes for better hunting, more money for Arkansas hunters, farmers and landowners

BY KD REEP Hard to believe that after spring’s deluge that mud would be a concern for Arkansas’ hunters, farmers and landowners, but it is just the thing to sprout more money into the state’s economy.

The Arkansas Mud Drive is a way for farmers and landowners to improve both soil and water quality without costing them a cent, but another benefit is driving more economy to rural Arkansas via hunters, wildlife watchers and conservationists. By closing water control structures within 14 days after harvest, farmers and landowners will reduce the amount of sediments, nutrients and pesticides that leave crop fields and enter watersheds. This not only saves money in herbicides, which would otherwise be washed away, but also impacts water and soil quality in Arkansas and as far away as the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help

“These fields attract several species of shorebirds and waterfowl, which are targeted by birdwatchers.”

28 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

reduce the hypoxia zone. Additionally, flooding fields after harvest allows weed seeds to decompose or be consumed by birds, reducing herbicide costs in the spring.

“By closing the structures, the land will be flooded naturally by rain water, and that will provide more wildlife habitat, keep valuable sediments and nutrients in the field, and reduce spring weeds. The Arkansas Mud Drive, which seeks to have farmers pledge their flooded acres, is a way to highlight the good conservation work a lot of Arkansas farmers are doing and educate the state’s youth on how farming and wildlife habitat can be mutually beneficial,” says Michael Budd with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It drives attention to the practice and the problem, and it offers a remedy. Farmers are getting hit hard for a lot of the world’s conservation and natural resources problems so it is in their interest to document the good work they do.”

Besides the fact that it is important for farmers and landowners to document the positive contributions they make to conservation, participating in the Arkansas Mud Drive will improve the habitat for ducks and

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MIKE BUDD

Flooded fields mean more waterfowl will flock to the area.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 29

A few inches of water in harvested crop fields make a valuable habitat.

other wildlife, which will attract hunters and wildlife watchers.

“These fields attract several species of shorebirds and waterfowl, which are targeted by birdwatchers,” Budd says. “With more flooded fields in the late summer and throughout the winter, birdwatchers will have more opportunity to travel, and when they do, they’ll spend money locally on lodging, dining, shopping and entertainment. Trip-related expenditures by wildlife watchers in 2011 were $35 million so more wildlife-watching opportunities will certainly boost the rural economy for farm-dominated areas of the state. There also are plenty of duck hunters hoping to find more flooded fields, too, so this is an opportunity for landowners to increase hunting opportunities and farm income through leases. Even fishing will improve as keeping the soil in the fields will enhance water quality and increase sport-fish populations.”

Combined, row-crop agriculture, hunting, wildlife watching and fishing generate about $4.5 billion in economic activity for Arkansas per year, and according to 2011 Census Bureau data, hunting in Arkansas generated $1 billion for the state’s economy. Factor in the number of duck stamps sold in Arkansas and the average expenditure per day per hunter, and the economic contribution of waterfowl hunting alone is around $2.5 million, which is significant considering that duck hunting season is only 60 days long. By implementing this one practice—which costs nothing to pursue—it can bolster the economic impact of all of these sectors at the same time.

“By participating in the Arkansas Mud Drive, late summer and fall rains will flood harvested crop fields and hold an inch or two of water, which will provide valuable habitat for migrating shorebirds that move through Arkansas from July through October,” Budd says. “This creates a haven for birds needing to refuel in Arkansas on their journey from the tundra to South America. It’s rare there is something a few can do to positively affect so many, but the Arkansas Mud Drive is it.

By keeping soil and nutrients in the field, that keeps money in a producer’s pocket instead of the ditch. By attracting wildlife to your land, you create an opportunity to utilize your fields for income during the off season. Hunters have more places to go, and small towns benefit from their travel dollars. More money poured into local economies helps all of us in the state.

And the infrastructure is already in place. We just have to use it.”

For more information about the Arkansas Mud Drive and to follow the conservation work of Arkansas’ farmers, landowners, hunters and wildlife watchers, follow the Arkansas Mud Drive on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/ ArkansasMudDrive, Michael Budd at 870-940-0681 or e-mail michael_budd@fws.gov.

30 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

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RAZORBACK ROUNDUP Friends, family and dogs gather for annual hunt that’s equal parts fellowship and competition

Following weeks of winter weather in south Arkansas, Saturday, March 7, 2015, finally ushered in the first hint of spring with warmer temps and clear skies. Remaining snow accumulations and wet, muddy conditions did little to dampen attendance at the Arkansas Dog Hunters Association Second Annual Razorback Roundup. It proved a perfect day to get out and enjoy the sunshine with a large turnout at the former National Guard Armory in downtown Fordyce. Pant legs tucked inside their rubber boots, some 500 hog wranglers and interested onlookers watched the culmination of a 63-hour hunt that began at midnight Wednesday ranging over the woodlands of south central Arkansas.

Much in the same manner as a fishing tournament, 3:00 p.m., Saturday marked the deadline for 45 competing teams to bring their variety of field-dressed wild sow, boar and barr hogs to the weigh-in. The final tally saw 100 hogs delivered to the scales. The event was conducted in coordination with Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry. According to AHFH executive director Ronnie Ritter, the harvested hogs were divided between two meat processors, Randall’s of Fordyce and Starr Processing of Eagle Mills, who produced one ton of finished, ground pork sausage. The unseasonably cool conditions during the hunt helped keep the harvest from spoilage.

Fordyce Mayor John MacNichol said all the meat went to several Fordyce and Sparkman food pantries to be distributed among deserving families. “This is an outstanding, well-run event with an important purpose—helping feed those in need,” he said. “We hope to keep it going for many years to come.”

The hunt included five categories of competition. The five largest hogs went to the Porkin’ Ain’t Easy team, with a total of 669 pounds weight. Outlaw Hog Dogs took second place with 659 pounds, while third went to Southern Hog Dogs with 612 pounds. Largest tusks category at three-inches was awarded to Little River Combine, who also carried the day for biggest single hog at 214 pounds. Porkin’ Ain’t Easy had the largest sow at 163 pounds. The final category of biggest barr (a male hog who was previously caught, castrated and returned to the wild, causing the animal to grow larger with less wild flavor to the meat) was awarded to Backwoods Boar Busting for a 311-pound specimen.

A total of $6,200 was given out to the winners. Arkansas State Police were invited to participate by providing polygraph tests to all finalists ensuring contest rules were strictly adhered to.

32 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

“The funnest part for us is getting to hunt with our wives and they’re as woods-wise as we are. They catch and stick pigs right along beside us.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RICHARD LEDBETTER

BY R IC H ARD L E D BET T ER

Even kids get in on the fun with a pig-catching competition.

The "Porkin' Ain't Easy" team.

The winners are announced.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 33

The competition included five categories, such as biggest barr and largest tusks.

(Facing page) Razorback Roundup is a family friendly event.

In addition to hog categories, there were also raccoon treeing competitions, as well as largest coon and most coons taken for the same 63-hours period.

The day included pig-catching events for youngsters that provided rousing entertainment for all. “My only disappointment with the weather was that we had to cancel our hunting dog field trials,” said organizer and ADHA president Jeromy Sullivent. “That would have brought at least another 300 attendees for the accompanying awards ceremony originally set for Saturday afternoon.”

Despite this year’s dog field trial cancellation, Sullivent is confident that the event as a whole can only continue to grow. “This competition is only going to grow bigger. Next year we’ll be including fox hunting field trials on a 600-acre hunting facility near Grapevine.” He pointed out how hunting programs focus attention on feed plots, high-tech gear, guns, ammo and all other commercially marketable forms of hunting. Taking game the old fashion way with dogs and a knife doesn’t generate near as great of profit margins for TV sponsors.

“Nowadays people in our society don’t understand dog hunting to a very great degree. We’re trying to put the sport out there in a positive light and show how ours is a family oriented, Christian-based endeavor that brings people together in good fellowship,” Sullivent said. “Its great for kids because they’re not as prone to sit quiet and still in a tree-stand for hours on end. With dogs, there’s conversation, interaction and camaraderie. Its a very social sport.”

“Back in the day when dogs were regularly employed to gather game, folks didn’t have a lot of 34 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

money. They wore everyday clothes to hunt in and counted on their dogs for more than just sport. They used them to put meat on the table. Traditional dog hunting is definitely a huge part of our shared heritage. Dog hunters today are a dying breed. We’re trying to keep the sport alive and get young people involved to pass along the tradition.”

Christian James of Saline County has a day job as maintenance and operations supervisor for multinational Saint-Gobain Corp. He and his Porkin’ Ain’t Easy team members—wife Tony James, Randy Holloway and Michelle Logan—were the overall winners, pocketing $2,200 in combined prize money.

They each additionally received commemorative brass belt buckles, trophies and Southern Cross dog gear gift certificates. “My wife and I are dog people.

She’s been raising bulldogs for the past 16 years. We go to all the shows and find its something we enjoy doing together,” James said. “Tony’s dad was a big coon hunter and she grew up knowing more about dogs than most men. She’s also a registered nurse, so that’s very handy for keeping our animals in tip-top shape and treating any injuries they encounter.”

Asked about the three-day hunt leading up to their final success, James said, “We started looking for sign at midnight Wednesday. It was sleeting heavy and then turned to snow. I don’t know if we’d have done as good if not for the weather. The bottoms flooding with rain and snowmelt worked to our advantage, pushing hogs on to the higher ground of our lease (Carder Deer Camp). Once we figured out how to work with conditions, the snow made it real easy to find fresh tracks. We’ve got great

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That kept them fresh and allowed them to hunt throughout the entire 63 hours. When the chase hounds bayed a pig, we’d send in the bulldogs and they grabbed it by its ears while we went in and stuck it.” As with any good hunter or fisherman, he couldn’t help but add, “You should have seen the one that got away!”

Regarding the family friendly nature of the sport, he added, “The funnest part for us is getting to hunt with our wives and they’re as woodswise as we are. They catch and stick pigs right along beside us.” James concluded his remarks saying, “I don’t think people understand what all goes into a long weekend like this.

We started packing three days prior to feed and house our dogs properly in winter and it takes at least a day to unpack. But its not for the money, we do it for love of the dogs, how much they enjoy doing it and for the chance to display all the talent they possess.

And it’s a great opportunity to spend time with friends and family out in the woods. Like I said, we love it!”

It’s a symbiotic relationship, providing benefits to either party.

When the dogs do well, people likewise benefit. And on top of everything else, together they provide a vital service helping keep habitat destroying, exploding feral hog populations in check.

Razorback Roundup is scheduled for the first weekend in March each year.

For more information check out arkansasdoghuntersassociation.com or call Jeromy Sullivent at 870-484-1775.

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FREDDIE BLACK Chairman, Arkansas

Congratulations on being named a

LEGENDS of the

WILD Member FDIC | simmonsfirst.com 36 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

HONOREE

As Arkansans, we are incredibly lucky to have access to some of the most remarkable outdoor spaces—and their accompanying activities—in the country. We are also very fortunate to have stewards around the state who care for and promote everything the Natural State has to offer, from fishing and hunting to mountain biking, canoeing and conservation.

Arkansas Wild is proud to recognize our second annual Legends of the Wild. Nominated by their peers in the outdoor community, these

six individuals—Freddie Black, Jennifer James, Forrest Wood, Ed and Sue Hawkins, and Mike Mills—have changed the Arkansas outdoors.

Arkansas also lost three of its most beloved outdoorsmen this year. Jim Gaston, Cotton Cordell and Butch Richenback each made a major impact on the state with their work.

They each leave a legacy that will continue to influence us for many years to come.

On the following pages, friends and colleagues pay tribute to each legend and their contributions to the Arkansas wild.

Photography By Rett Peek

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 37

Freddie Black: The Commish (and his hunting dog, Rodney.)

38 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

freddie black “Oh my Lord, oh my Lord,” Hillis whispered. In the next field we could barely make out a set of dark crimson tail feathers moving through the high grass.

We moved quickly toward the wild turkey, along the levee with our backs bent low, in single file, three of us: A farmer named Greg Hillis, a man I was first introduced to as “the Commish,” and me.

We are an odd group, me half their size, trying to keep up in too-large-for-me, full army camouflage that I borrowed from my brother’s closet. The others in proper hunter’s camouflage with 12-gauge shotguns slung over their shoulders, a couple of plastic turkey decoys dangling from their backpacks, turkey callers clenched between their teeth. They climbed up the hill beside the field; I stumbled after them in the oversize rubber boots that they bestowed upon me to save me from the snakes. We sat panting behind a tree trunk while Hillis unwrapped a piece of camouflage fabric attached to plastic stakes and positioned it in front of us as a blind. We waited. “Okay,” the Commish said. “This bird’s gonna get to meet Miss Georgia.

He’s gonna have Georgia on his mind….”

It was a series of serendipitous introductions, really, a divine aligning of the stars that introduced me to Freddie Black. I had cooked for his cousin Paul Michael from time to time and during one of those dinners, as I glazed a series of Paul’s freshly hunted wild duck breasts with orange gastrique, he overheard me saying that I wanted to hunt. “Hold on now, Georgia,” Paul said as he sauntered over with a wide-eyed, soulful look, a cigar pressed between his thumb and forefinger, which he pointed at me now, saying, “I’ve got just the man to teach you. My first cousin Freddie Black; we call him ‘the Commish.’”

Paul went on to explain that “the Commish” takes his nickname from the governor-appointed position he had held for many years: commissioner of game and fish for the State of Arkansas, and that he would be honored to introduce me; and then, in the same breath, Paul moved past me, intent on finding three perfect tomatoes for the Panzenella Salad he had been talking about for some time. It was then that Paul's wife, Debbie, leaned over to me, a glass of Bollinger balanced in her left hand, and said conspiratorially, “Down there, the Commish is a bigger deal than the president of the United States.”

Many months later in early spring, I was introduced to Freddie Black at an Arkansas hunting camp, the night before a turkey hunt. He was sitting on a tree

stump, holding a large Styrofoam cup filled with ice and whiskey in one hand, and cradling a thick cigar in the other, staring into the fire with a serious expression. He looked up as they introduced me to him, paused, then offered me a drink and a seat by the fire.

“You ever shot a gun?” he asked, still staring into the fire, his voice settling onto his words like molasses. “Um, no, not really,” I said, glancing sideways, feeling the other men at the camp peering at me curiously.

“This 20-gauge should work pretty well,” he said, opening the shotgun leaning against his chair to look down the barrel. “My daughter learned on a four-ten because it doesn’t kick, but it’s hard to kill anything with it. The first thing you gotta decide, do you want an automatic or an over an’ under, which is a double barrel—the classic hunting bird gun. Quail hunters, they all shoot over an’ unders, that’s just kinda the old European influence. For you I would use a 20-gauge.

It’s a good turkey gun if you can get ’em close.”

“Okay, that sounds good,” I said, wanting to fit in as much as possible but clearly failing simply by the way I looked in my button-down shirt and J. Crew blue jeans.

We didn’t talk much after that. We just sat there and sipped from our Styrofoam cups and chewed on the crushed ice. “I’ll pick you up at five tomorrow morning,” he said as I finally got up to leave. Then he paused and gave me a sober look from his dark eyes through tinted spectacles. “Are you sure ’bout this?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said, my voice unrecognizably high pitched. “A’right then. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

Freddie Black never asked me again if I was sure, or ever doubted me at all for that matter. He has a special generous spirit and a passion for the outdoors that is deep within his marrow. It makes him a skilled, patient and encouraging teacher. He did tremendous work as commissioner to improve the state of hunting in Arkansas, including his role in building up the Arkansas Youth Hunt Program.

And he inspired me to have the career I have today, which has allowed me to in turn teach other women to hunt around the country. It was the faith he had in an unknown girl who showed up awkwardly to a hunting camp one night that set something special into motion. And I have no doubt he has done that for many people, probably more than he will ever know.

By Georgia Pellegrini

ARKANSASWILD.COM || 39 39 ARKANSASWILD.COM

Jennifer James: Farmer & Conservationist

40 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

jennifer james

You can most often find Jennifer James in the fields around Newport, Arkansas, where her family has farmed for four generations. Though she was born to farming, Jennifer pursued a more formal education to complement her roots. She graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a bachelor of science in agricultural business. That education helped her contribute to the family business when she took her spot at the H and J Land Company in 1994. Through that company, Jennifer, her father, brother, husband and son all work together to produce rice, soybeans, corn, grain sorghum and wheat on approximately 6,000 acres.

Her son Dylan, 15, handles mowing and maintaining roads, turn rows, levees and the yards around the office and house. Her husband, Greg, focuses on rice and handles on-farm improvements and conservation practices like those cost shared through USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) programs.

“Greg doesn’t get the recognition he deserves,” Jennifer said. “I’m the face of the conservation efforts, and he’s the one that gets everything done.”

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Greg started developing the farm for waterfowl habitat. At first, he had personal motivations. He wanted to have a place to hunt waterfowl with friends and family. As he learned more about the compatibility of managing ricelands for waterfowl, he started focusing more on conservation and profitability reasons.

Her brother, Trey, is the corn, beans and sorghum guy. He is involved in deciding the crop mix, where to put it and how to grow it. On the farm, he runs the crew with terrific motivation and great people skills. He also operates a ground rig spraying company independent of the farm.

But her father, Marvin, is still heavily involved as well. “Dad’s been really good at allowing me and Trey to handle most of the day to day operations and planning,” Jennifer said. “But he’s right there for consultation, and he often guides us with that gut feeling you just get after a lifetime of farming.”

Having all of her family involved in the daily running of the farm allows Jennifer to invest more of her time in ensuring the “big picture” future of farming, not just for her farm and family, but for everyone. She has had extensive involvement with the Field to Market program, which allows farmers to benchmark themselves with other growers on measurements including water quality, water quantity, greenhouse gas emissions, soil loss and energy use. The program also allows a farmer to understand how making certain changes in their field practices can affect overall sustainability. This

partnership enables Jennifer to sit at the table with groups like Kellogg’s, Mars and Anheuser Busch to better understand rice end-users and act as a liaison to local agriculture. She identifies as a grower and portrays where food originates in the field to fork process.

“I think it’s really important for our end users to know what we’re doing to protect and steward the land. They need to know that we really do care about the health of our land,” Jennifer said.

As an active member of the Arkansas Rice Federation, Jennifer is also the chairman of the USA Rice Sustainability Committee, appointed by the USA Rice Federation chairman. “I’m a farmer first, and I want to stay in business and still be here years from now, so economic sustainability is important. But it’s also important that the land, water, soil and environment are here and healthy so that we can make a living on it,” she explained. “As the chairman, I get to bring that to the table in other discussions and with other audiences.”

You can hear the passion in her voice for both farm and family when she adds, “It’d be fantastic if my son can come home and farm if that’s what he wants to do one day.”

She served on the USA Rice Communications Committee to help craft and mold the perception consumers have of the rice industry across the nation.

She was also chairman of the USA Rice National Outlook Conference Planning Committee for six consecutive years, during which she coordinated the networking of 600+ agriculture representatives annually.

Closer to home, Jennifer is an active board member for the Arkansas Rice Farmers where she advocates on behalf of growers across the state on local and federal levels. She is also active on the Jackson County Farm Bureau Board and was appointed by the Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture as the Young and Beginning Farmer representative for the Arkansas Agriculture Board.

Leading by example, Jennifer and her family work diligently to implement sustainable farming practices throughout their operation. They utilize polypipe irrigation methods, which decrease water and energy use by 20 percent. Their involvement with the H2O initiative helps encourage other farmers to be proactive and apply responsible irrigation methods on their farms as well.

The James family has contributed mightily to Arkansas farming and its environmental sustainability.

Through Jennifer’s engagement in advocacy and outreach efforts, they are spreading conservation conscious farming methods across the country and bringing an understanding of farmers’ roles in conservation to the table.

By Scott Manley

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 41

PHOTO COURTESY OF RANGER BOATS

Forrest Wood: Hero & Boat Builder 42 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

forrest wood

This is a story about a man who is famous from coast to coast. However the people of Arkansas got lucky when he decided to set up shop right in his own back yard, and call the “Natural State” home his whole life.

This is a true country gentleman who always has, and continues, to affect lives while creating a culture. He didn’t change a culture, he created one and I was lucky enough to be around and watch it happen.

Folks, here comes Forrest Wood. That name alone sounds like a hero right out of an old western movie doesn’t it? But this is a living hero, cowboy hat and all.

So I was about to get the shock of my life as I pulled up to the Ranger Boat plant one morning in 1971. This company was only a few years old with an uneventful beginning in downtown Flippin, Arkansas. That was where, in the back of a gas station, four or five people, led

by Forrest Wood, built a half-dozen fiberglass boats and Ranger was off and running.

The operation showed promise so Forrest moved out of the “grease rack” to a small building just outside of town. This new location must have employed several dozen people now and there must have been a good number of boat orders in hand, when that small plant burned to the ground. That was May 4, 1971, and May 5 was when I showed up and not being aware of the fire until I saw the results, I was as I said, floored.

On this particular day Forrest and I had planned on floating Crooked Creek for some television content and that brought me to the Ranger headquarters. Now I’m meeting him on a charred concrete slab and that’s where I’m at when I see his pickup headed my way.

Now when he bails out of that truck wouldn’t you expect to hear some…“What a disaster this is”…“I give up”…etc.? That’s how most people would have reacted.

Not Forrest though. His four wheels are now up on the slab and he says, “I told those guys to clean this place up but they went too far.”

I would quickly learn that his papers with the new boat orders had been saved, and the plans to rebuild were in the works. He was spending more time making everyone feel comfortable about the future than he was worrying about what had happened. That’s what a great leader does, and yes, we still went to Crooked Creek.

Of course the plant was rebuilt and over the years the product that came out of its doors has arguably done more for the growth of bass fishing than any other product that I know of. Sure, Forrest is retired now but he will always be the heart and soul of Ranger Boats.

But let’s dig a little deeper. Forrest was born right there in Flippin, next to the White River in the Ozarks and economically speaking, times were really tough.

You see, the big dams that would change the lay of the land in that part of the Ozarks, were several years away.

So Forrest, whose goal was to become a farmer, was spending a lot of time behind a mule-pulled plow. I guess the greatest thing he would ever do was done during his high school days. He fell in love with Nina Kirkland.

Now you know how romantic those cowboy movie stars are. Well Forrest fit the mold. He took Nina smallmouth fishing on their dates. Must have worked— they married in 1951, and raised four beautiful daughters.

But back to the ’50s and Forrest’s dreams have hit a roadblock. Farming has hit rock bottom and Forrest and Nina are finding it hard to make ends meet. Matter of fact they have added some debt to their problems.

So here is how he handled those tough times and as the old saying goes, “let this be a lesson to you.” Forrest, from day one, has always worked his fanny off. He is a relentless man when it comes to getting it done, and doing it the right way. He normally works slow and steady, thinking everything through and is as honest as the day is long. The combination of all those things got him through the ’50s and the toughest stretch of his life.

In order to climb out of the hole, Nina and Forrest packed up and went to Kansas City for about a year. They worked hard, saved enough to pay off their debts, then returned home. At that time Forrest went to work in the construction of Bull Shoals Dam. This is so ironic to me. Forrest is pouring concrete into this giant of a project, Bull Shoals Dam. That dam will turn the White River into a trout fishery like no other, and the trout fishing will then change the lives Forrest, and a nation full of bass fishermen, forever.

Yes, he will become a legendary river float-trip guide but that’s only the beginning. That river was brutal on the wooden jon boats that were used on those float trips.

So our hero decided he could build one out of fiberglass.

Forrest had been tinkering around with that material in the mid ’60s and he turned out a winner with that first glass riverboat. Now instead of lasting one or two years like a wooden rig, the fiberglass model could last for many years. Maybe forever.

Still one step to go. One very large step. Forrest started showing some talent with his fiberglass work. About this same time he was showing some real vision and had a pretty good sense about the bass fishermen’s needs as well. In 1968 he built the very first Ranger Bass Boat and folks, that takes us back to the grease rack in the back of that filling station in Flippin.

Now this is how I think we should end this. Forrest Wood, at a young age, had the goal of becoming a farmer and raising cattle. His beloved river, the White, lead him to building boats, where he became famous and successful enough that he could go back to farming and raising cattle.

Talk about holding on to your dreams.

By Jerry McKinnis

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 43

Ed & Sue Hawkins: Trail Builders

44 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

ed & sue hawkins

Have you bushwhacked through thick brush, become snagged and tangled by thorny vines and slapped in the head by branches while trying to get to a scenic vista? Now imagine attempting that on a bicycle. Sometimes taking the trail less traveled can be treacherous—unless it’s a trail maintained by volunteers like Ed and Sue Hawkins.

I first met the pair at an Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship Series (AMBCS) race in Mena. I’ve had the privilege to ride on the wheel of Sue and enjoy Ed’s sweet potato pie topped with homemade yogurt and cookies that he sends to our ladies mountain bike weekends. Their story and the incredible change they’ve introduced to their adopted state is astonishing.

The junior high school teachers from Tuscon, Arizona, always loved the outdoors. They spent their summers backpacking and canoeing across the Rockies. Ed was very involved in the Sierra Club— even serving as the chairman of the Grand Canyon chapter. They sought to live in an environmentally sound way and became intrigued with the “backto-land” movement. They began hatching a plan to become self-sufficient farmers. In 1980, (Ed, 40 and Sue, 32) they found the perfect place to realize their dream—a 40-acre homestead in the Ouachita National Forest.

Life in the Natural State was a lot different than the life left behind. They raised farm animals and bees. Sue made cheese and bread and canned the vegetables they grew. Just as they thought it couldn’t get any better, Sue discovered she was pregnant with their son, Nicholas. Reality soon modified the plan.

Needing a dependable income source, they purchased more land to raise cattle and chickens. And in 1991, Sue returned to teaching middle school.

Both avid runners, they began competing in local races. Soon, Sue was organizing events. Ironically it was members of the running community, Mike and Sue Kelsey, who introduced Ed and Sue to offroad cycling. They loved the sport but there was a problem: no trails.

Their property is surrounded by national forest. At that time, the area contained fire roads and hiking trails. Existing trails didn’t allow bicycles. Wanting more places to ride, they started building trails. Soon, Mike decided they needed more help and organized the Ouachita Cycling Club (OCC).

Eventually the cyclists, hikers (Friends of the Ouachita Trail) and the National Forest Service came up with a plan. They would open some trails to bicycles for a five-year trial period. In an effort to introduce riders to the Ouachita Trail and the

Womble, The Ouachita Challenge was born. Before long, they realized that the trails were getting a lot more use and cyclists were gathering and volunteering to work on the trails. The plan was deemed a success!

The Ouachita Challenge continues today raising thousands of dollars and bringing hundreds of new riders to the area.

Ed and Sue enjoyed many victories in AMBCS races, and national and international competitions. Ed has one gold medal and three silver medals in the 2002 to 2005 Union Cycliste Internationale World Cup races.

He raced in 14 National Off-Road Bike Association events and won five first-place medals and three second- and third-place finishes. His medals were recently on display in the Different Spokes exhibit at the Old State House Museum in Little Rock.

As exciting as this is, they believe building is more satisfying than winning. Trail advocacy, maintenance and the involvement of others in the sport are their legacy.

Recognized by the Arkansas Trails Council and the Friends of the Ouachita Trail in appreciation of the years of volunteerism, they remain humble. “This couldn’t have happened without the contribution of the National Forest Service, the Arkansas State Parks system and local clubs. Because of these parties, we have stellar trails and Arkansas has become a cycling destination,” said Ed. Now that Arkansas boasts many miles of wonderful trails, maintenance is the concern.

“These trails will not survive without volunteers… and we need more of them,” said Ed. Consider this a call to action.

The couple has also begun working with the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide (afps.org). Almost every family is touched by mental illness on some level. This hit home last June when they lost their son, Nicholas to suicide.

“It’s often the stigma of mental illness that prevents people from seeking help. This organization is working diligently to produce education materials to gain awareness of this illness. Through the ‘Out of the Darkness’ events, they are funding researchers striving to learn more about the brain and mental illness,” said Sue. The couple continues to work on trails and attend rides around the state. They promote the sport and spread the message to get people of all ages on a bicycle. Ed believes that riding reduces stress levels and improves self confidence and self image. He’s printed up flyers of Albert Einstein riding a bike that says, “E=MC2. I thought of it while I was riding on my bicycle.”

By Dena Woerner

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 45

Mike Mills: Buffalo River Paddler & Patron 46 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

mike mills

I first met Mike Mills at a coffee shop in north Fayetteville, just on the outskirts of Highway 412.

Although the setting was slightly off—you’re more likely to find Mike somewhere deep in the Buffalo, nestled near his shop, the Buffalo Outdoor Center (BOC), or peacefully roaming the region—the meet was as comfortable and productive as first engagements go.

Mike and I were meeting to establish a partnership between my company, Fayettechill, and his nonprofit, the Buffalo River Foundation (BRF). For me, it was an exciting and new kind of professional collaboration.

For Mike, it was simply another movement in a series that had been going on for four decades, one in which community growth and environmental conservation were the focus of the energy and effort of all involved.

Rather than discussing lofty ideals, Mike guided the conversation toward simple goals that would guarantee a beneficial partnership. We set forth a series of apparelcentric social initiatives that focused on creating art that heighted the beauty of the Buffalo. The design would be screen-printed on our shirts and sold at a price that included a direct donation to the BRF. Together we created a link that would allow individuals to support, experience and represent an important piece of the region’s outdoors.

In the years since meeting Mike, I’ve found that this is not typically an easy feat—accomplishing socially altruistic goals intermittently using traditional business practice. It is often financial concerns that take up the bulk of our time, money and attention. That, or more personal needs often absorb and direct the mass of what we make of our lives. But not always. Mike’s life demonstrates that a more balanced approached toward social contribution is available. When you take it slow, with quality and community in mind, each step forward is mindfully and intentionally crafted.

Mike is truly a legend, and certainly of the wild variety.

His ability to center his efforts on the big picture is remarkable. As a result, Mike is an active and storied section of the Ozarks’ history. In 1976, after completing graduate school at the University of Arkansas, Mike founded the BOC, and in doing so set the basecamp for serving, welcoming and guiding more than 1.7 million guests around the Buffalo River region. As a result, the BOC and its associated rental services have been a consistent source of tax revenue, employment and donations that have made positive, community binding contributions to Arkansas’ outdoor culture.

None of this happened by accident. After founding the BOC, Mike served as the director of tourism for Arkansas Parks and Tourism from 1982-1986, where he learned the professional inner-workings of the outdoor industry at an accelerated rate. At first, his goal with the

BOC was plainly to survive. He didn’t set out to make a fortune but rather wanted to position himself such that he could live and work outdoors, motivated by the serene sense of happiness that always accompanies experiences in nature.

If you ask Mike why he’s so passionate about the Buffalo, he will tell you that the peace you find while floating down the Buffalo River is truly, in his mind, a piece of heaven.

He has traveled down the Buffalo more than 100 times and notes that he has yet to experience a trip in which he hasn’t found that peace where he is able to breathe in the air, take in nature and feel a deep sense of passion for the wild world around him. It is clear he is motivated by these moments and looks to share them in one way or another with all who visit the Buffalo River region.

From my perspective, Mike has built his success on two axioms: Community engagement and high-quality service and products. Although Mike admits that it took him some time to learn that relationships were a key to successful business, he has been acting in a community relationship-oriented manner from the get go. He shares his knowledge and resources for the sake of others’ well being, characteristically at a fair rate, and always at firstclass quality.

Beyond guiding the BOC with his principles, Mike’s legendary status has been more recently substantiated in a whole new direction through the BRF, the nonprofit aimed at protecting and improving a national treasure. After a long history with conservation efforts, projects and organizations throughout the Natural State and beyond, Mike found himself surrounded by a serious network of leaders in the outdoor community and in ownership of a small easement in the Buffalo River watershed. This scenario set the stage for Mike to evolve the slowly dissolving Buffalo River Stewardship Foundation into the BRF to become a reinvigorated and realigned nonprofit collective of eco-conscious and proactive individuals. In relatively short time, Mike developed the BRF into a small, but nimble in the effective sense, team of leaders in the Buffalo River region. Mike says they are just getting started, and 2016 promises to be their most ambitious and substantial year to date.

The Ozarks are prepared for success and prosperity in the 21st century and a large part of that is the result of Mike Mills’ efforts. It’s a story that has been spinning more than 40 years, and is of no doubt of legendary status. It’s good to know first-hand that Mike doesn’t plan to reduce the ambitions of his outdoor activities down any time soon. The best thing we can do to support Mike is to take a step back, see what he has spun and learn how we can best work together to preserve the hidden gems of the Ozarks.

By Devin O’Dea

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 47

jim gaston Ask Jim Gaston “How are you doing?” and he would reply, with that mischievous Gaston grin, “I got up today!” What he really meant was that he was alive, going to get as much out of life that day as possible and he said that right up until the end.

Jim Gaston was a legend in his own time. He understood tourism as an industry before the state did. He was a marketer and he even understood that before the state did. Jim was always one step ahead.

Advertising, the Internet, social media were just a few of his cutting-edge legacies. He was there before us all and telling us we should be there too. His greatest accomplishment was taking a small troutfishing camp on the White River to "America’s #1 Trout Fishing Resort" and dragging tourism in the state of Arkansas with him.

Jim was never afraid to speak his mind. With a very quick wit it was unwise to counter him, his smalltown antidotes would always come back in a f lash.

Many a politician found that out the hard way. I remember when his e-newsletter would be comments from “Manford” his favorite dog. Written from a dog’s point of view, they could be critical of us humans, chastising, loving, stating simple principles or very to the point. Manford even had his own website and the brains of Jim Gaston.

His passions were a life-long list. He was an aerobatic pilot. His instructor, Marion Cole, said his instincts were the best he had ever known. After entertaining at many airshows and walking away from two crashes he hung up his wings. Then he went on to building jeeps, the kind with big tires, big engines and lots of rock-climbing ability. One, he called Snoopy, had this phrase painted upside down on the back: “If you can read this please turn me back over.” It was just Jim. You may know of his generous support of the Arkansas State University Mountain Home campus.

It changed the college. Perhaps you have seen some of his collections in the Gaston’s restaurant—bicycles, small outboard motors, antiques, watches and pens.

His photography was focused on his travels from around Arkansas to around the country and world. He experimented with different mediums just because they were there. His book, An Ozark Perspective, presented a small sample of his work. What ever Jim chose to do, he did it to the max!

48 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

PHOTO BY JAYSON COTTER

1941-2015

Spring 2013  Arkansas Wild | 9

Jim was dedicated to the trout fisheries of the White River. He received many honors—the Legacy Award from the Outdoor Hall of Fame, of which he was also a member—Executive of the Year from Arkansas Business, Tourism Hall of Fame, and too many others to list here.

I was there the night Jim received the Tourism Person of the Year award at the Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism. As he stood at the podium in his seldom-worn gray suit, he thanked the audience for the honor and told them that the best thing that ever happened to him in his life was meeting his wife Jill, and then sat back down.

By Mike Mills

cotton cordell 1928-2015

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANGLER WEST TV

The image of Cotton Cordell sitting behind an overly cluttered desk, with chips of wood scattered across his pants and his hands whittling away at a new lure is shared by many. It’s a mental picture: An old man who never really appeared all that old, mostly because he had an indelible smile etched on his face, sitting at his desk and whittling.

Through that smile his lips were always telling a story and those around him were almost always laughing.

In January 2015, Cotton Cordell passed away at the age of 86. His legal name was Carl Richey Cordell, Jr. But to the millions of fishermen who still have his lures in their tackle boxes and scattered on the front decks of their boats, he was known simply as “Cotton.”

He was responsible for such classic baits as the Red Fin, the Gay Blade, the Hot Spot and the Big O. Lures that still carry the name that many associate as just a brand name— Cotton Cordell. But to those who knew him, he was more than just a name on a package.

Jerry McKinnis, one of three B.A.S.S. owners and longtime host of the Fishin’ Hole, said the fishing world lost one of its true greats. “He was possibly one of the biggest lure designers there ever was,” McKinnis said.

“He was responsible for so many great lures, and he was just an all-around good guy. I think a lot of us may have taken for granted through the years just how important he’s been to fishing.”

Nicknamed “Cotton” because of his white-blonde hair, Cordell worked as a fishing guide and commercial fisherman in central Arkansas during the late 1940s before entering the lure-making business.

There are people in this world you run across who forever give you the impression that no matter how much notoriety, how much money, how many accolades come their way they will never change. Cotton Cordell was one of those people. His dusty little shop with the cluttered desk with half-carved creations and pants littered with shavings was about as glamorous as he would ever want to be.

Cordell was inducted into the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in 1988, the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame in 2002.

His first lures were actually what many referred to as buck-tail jigs. The initial ones came from World War II Air Force survival kits. He would buy the kits from military surplus for 25 cents, throw away everything but the jighead inside and then wrap it with dog hair cut from his English setter.

“Back then we didn’t have any deer around here,’’ Cotton said many times. “So I’d just take a wallop of hair from my dog. I had the baldest dog in the country.”

The idea that Cotton Cordell Lures was started on the back of an English setter was humorous to him. But it was a constant reminder that with hard work and some creative thought he could get places in the world as long as you stayed positive. And he was never afraid to make a change to a lure if that’s what the anglers wanted. The best example of that is the Cordell Spot. It was the first of the lipless crankbaits and shows how creative Cotton actually was. Even in those days, a crankbait was supposed to have a lip to make it dive.

Today, there are countless lipless crankbaits, virtually all of them with rattles in them. The most popular of those, Rat’L Trap, centers its name on the rattles the bait makes.

But for Cotton, the original Spot was never supposed to rattle. The bearings in the bait were glued there as ballast and weight for the bait to get down in the water column. He would find out how important those weights-turned-rattles would be by accident. He had sold a gross of Spots to a tackle store in Mississippi. When the tackle store owner called and wanted to return them, Cotton gave him a call. “He wanted to send them back because they didn’t rattle,’’ he said. “I told him, ‘they aren’t supposed to rattle.’ He told me, ‘they are if I’m going to sell them.’”

Fishermen were buying the Spots, but before they would purchase the bait, they would drop it on the floor to knock the ballasts out of the glue. If they didn’t break loose, they’d put them back in the package and try the next one. Others were taking the baits home and hitting them with hammers, if they didn’t rattle they would bring them back.

“We stopped putting glue on those weights after that,’’ Cotton would say.

There were many of those stories Cotton would tell while sitting at his desk, whittling and smiling, and of course creating the next thing that could take the world by storm, with or without rattles.

Even in his older days, he never lost the fire for creating lures that fish would bite. “I would almost bet that up until the day he passed, he had a piece of wood in one hand and a pocket knife in the other,” said Bobby Dennis, a current product development and marketing specialist with Luck-EStrike who worked for Cordell from 1972 to 1980. “He was always whittling on something, working on that next idea.

He was one of the last true hands-on guys who understood the lure-making process from start to finish.”

By Steve Bowman

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 49

PHOTO COURTESY OF STUTTGART CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

butch richenback 1946-2015

In order to describe Harry “Butch” Richenback, you cannot simply paint a verbal portrait of one man. You must understand that he was two different men. Not only that, these two personalities were polar opposites that somehow defied the laws of conventional thought, emotion and perhaps physics, to blend seamlessly into one larger than life individual. He was a student, a teacher, a Marine, a mayor, a youth baseball coach, a champion duck caller and the most revered duck call maker in history. He was not a father, but rather a father figure to countless children over the span of many years. He was often loved. He was often hated. He was always Butch.

His exterior was tough. Imagine if General George S. Patton had been a duck call maker instead of pursuing a military career. His hard-nosed, no nonsense approach to his craft made his calls the standard in the industry.

An apprentice of legendary call maker Chick Major, he founded Rich-N-Tone Calls in 1976. He was an innovator who designed calls that were smaller and easier to use.

They had a unique shape with a mouthpiece inspired by a Coke bottle. He used a Mylar reed rather than the rubber version being used at that time. He is also credited with turning the first call made of acrylic. Each call was perfect. Any imperfections and the call would be sawed in two and discarded.

He approached duck calling competitions with the same intensity. He won the Junior World Championship in 1957, the World Championship in 1972 and the Champion of Champions contest in 1975. However, it was his coaching of competitive callers that produced an even greater legacy.

He was a molder of champions. His calls have won over 100 World Championship Titles and countless state, regional and youth contests. For Butch, calling competitions were serious business. There was no time for mincing words when evaluating a caller’s ability. If you did not want Butch’s opinion, then you better not ask. Brutal honesty was his only form of communication. Whether you were a competitive caller or simply a hunter in search of the perfect call for the field, it was his way or the highway.

Despite his gruff exterior, tough talk and moodiness, Butch had another side. Where most individuals with these qualities tend to avoid children, he had a soft spot for them.

Following honorable service in the Marine Corp, Butch was the director of the Stuttgart Youth Center from 1969 to 1994. He instituted an annual Youth Duck Calling Clinic in 1969. The clinic lasted four weeks, and the kids would then take the World’s Stage prior to the World’s Championship

50 || Arkansas Arkansas Wild Wild ¸ ¸ WINTER WINTER 2015 2015 50

Contest to perform their newly acquired skills for the crowd of proud family and friends. During the clinics and youth seminars he performed throughout the country, it was not uncommon to see Butch give a call to a kid in need.

In his eulogy of Butch, Marion McCollum, owner of Mack’s Prairie Wings, said, “Butch gave away a fortune in duck calls to kids over the years. A fortune!” The kids flocked to him in such a way that he was labeled, “The Pied Piper of Stuttgart.”

Butch was equally involved in working with the youth baseball team in Stuttgart. He coached high school, as well as, several parks and recreation teams, and American Legion. He often reached into his own pocket to pay for equipment if the funds were not there.

Butch loved Stuttgart and sat on the city council for eight years and was elected mayor in 1994. He held that position until health issues forced him to step down in 2006. After suffering heart attacks, his condition had deteriorated severely. He received a heart transplant in 2006. This did not keep Butch down long. With his second chance in life, he quickly resumed his work and continued working with the youth. After a valiant fight, Butch would succumb to a rare form of lung cancer on June 29, 2015.

I can personally say that Butch was a friend and mentor to me. That will always be one of the true honors of my life. I spent many hours with Butch watching him work on calls while helping me become a better caller. We traveled together and passed the time talking about the art of duck calling and life itself. I, like many competitive callers around the country, have my fair share of “Butch stories.” These stories are swapped around the campfire like young boys trading baseball cards. His direct, unrelenting approach to life created many comical scenarios that have reached near mythical stature. They could easily fill a best-selling book if ever compiled.

Butch lived in a modest home and was a man of modest means. He didn’t worry about monetary investments. He invested in the lives of thousands of children. Many of these are adults now with children of their own. These investments will continue to produce dividends for many years to come.

Butch Richenback was inducted into both the Arkansas Game and Fish Hall of Fame and The Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame in 2005. He was also given the Duck’s Unlimited Jerry Jones Sportsman Award in 2012.

He remains the most respected duck call maker in history.

He is a true legend, truly missed.

By Brad Allen

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ARKANSASWILD.COM | 51

52 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

s o & fi

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From Duck Land, USA

STOR IES AND PH OTO S BY J O H N M CCLEN D O N

John McClendon’s retriever Tango takes a break from the hunt, alongside friend Paul Griffin. Read about the legacy of Tango’s grandmother, The Juice, on page 57.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 53

D

"

f G o o n l du G -

addy I’m cold!” came through the January pre-dawn darkness in a whisper.

Barely enough light was gathering that I could just make out little hands gripping the Stevens single-shot .410 as if it was the most valuable gun in the world.

The hands looked like half-sized cloned copies of my own and the gun—although inexpensive even when new and showing nearly 40 years age now—was indeed more valuable to me than if had been made out of solid gold.

My son was eight and on his first duck hunt as a shooter. Oh, he had accompanied me on many previous hunts but always as a spectator. He had been coming out to the duck blind with me since the required equipment checklist included a sippy cup and Humpty Dumpty pillow. But this day was different. On that clear and windy winter day he would pass through that threshold every hunter must cross when drawing blood for the first time.

The shotgun in his grasp was the very same that I had once held on a similar day some 38 years earlier. My father had bought the little gun for me at a hardware store in an era when there were still hardware stores and guns for sale inside them. He let me carry the gun from the store to his truck and I remember thinking it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, only to be terrified by the kick from its recoil later on that very afternoon. Old timers say that “confidence can be found at the bottom of a box of shotgun shells” and there were plenty of number 8 shells shot for practice that summer. When duck season arrived I had to stand up on the boat seat just to be able to see over the solid-sided boatblind hiding us among cypress trees in a south Arkansas slough. The duckweed on the water’s surface was frozen into an icy green sheet and the mallard’s body made a perfectly round hole when it broke through with a crash. Standing tippy-toed in oversized rubber boots covered by frost I was completely transformed with one shot from that little gun. I had become a real duck hunter.

With those memories in mind, I spent two months’ worth of fall Saturday afternoons working with my own son to shoot the gun and build his confidence.

54 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

Old timers say that “confidence can be found at the bottom of a box of shotgun shells.”

Teal began arriving first and by legal shooting time the air was alive with the sound of sailing wings; ducks of all species seemed to appear from everywhere and nowhere.

But by January his eyes still held a hint of doubt and the cold water seeping over the top of his low little boots didn’t contribute any enthusiasm. We had forgone the relative comfort of a permanent blind in favor of a rice field levee edge—ankle deep in ice water and our backsides buried in sticky black mud that was as cold as death. Sacrificing comfort meant gaining another 10 yards of distance closer to the ducks’ preferred landing area. I considered it to be an equitable trade-off considering the inexperience of my apprentice. He did not agree.

Teal began arriving first and by legal shooting time the air was alive with the sound of sailing wings; ducks of all species seemed to appear from everywhere and nowhere. The boy made attempts on mallards and gadwalls and even a pintail drake without success. I knew his feet were freezing and his shoulder was bruising even as I hail called to yet another passing pair. These responded with a hard bank and instantly I could see that they were widgeons. “Get ready,” I whispered in between sing-song notes blown into a widgeon whistle. A gust of northwest headwind slowed the bald pate to a stall on final approach. The duck was low and the wind was strong and for an instant hung in mid-air as if suspended by string. It was all that an 8-year-old boy with a homely little gun needed to cross over: In an instant the old hardware store .410 had delivered a second generation into the realm of real duck hunters.

As the widgeon’s lifeless body splashed down among our decoys my arms shot up in unrestricted triumph. It was more exciting than any single hunting memory captured before or since and I was clearly much more elated than the actual shooter. Subsequent hunts delivered even more magic: The next weekend the boy knocked down a gadwall in the very same cypress as my own first successful hunt and the following year on Thanksgiving he shot a mallard drake while perched in the blind squarely between his grandfather and me. The very same man who gave me the hardware store gun. Their ages are separated by nearly 70 years, but they are forever bonded thanks to a gun worth more than its weight in gold.

Johnny McCle ndon and his first m allard.

Johnny’s first hunt with the "gun of gold."

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 55

56 | Arkansas Wild 存 WINTER 2015

A

fternoon sweat ran down my forearms soaking the old hickory handle of the shovel as it bit calluses into my hands. Dinner-plate size leaves fanning out from the ancient sycamore provided shade over two quiet graves and now a fresh one in the stifling summer woods. This was a hunter’s holy ground at the edge of a cypress slough where I came to lay old friends down in cool clay.

I had gotten the call while on my way home from business in Virginia. My wife had called to tell me the vet had arrived and said there was only one thing left he could do to relieve the anguish. We had known this day was coming, but its arrival was still surprising and horrible in that way death collects the innocent. The voice on the phone was sad but calm and deliberate as I walked toward the departure gate. There was no conscious thought of what she was saying, but none was necessary: this was the end. Our Labrador Retriever—the best hunting partner I had ever known, or likely would ever know—would be dead by the time we got off the phone.

The Juice had become a part of my life just shy of 14 years earlier. She was a “finished” dog when I got her, meaning she had been completely professionally trained before I ever came into the picture. And at over a year old and raised completely in a training kennel there was little puppy left in her, or so I thought. She lacked the more classical looks of the ideal lab and being of British blood had that sort of short-legged look the variety seems to favor. Upon going to see the dog work at the trainers for the first time, I told a buddy who had made the trip with me that I was unsure—the dog was an outstanding retriever—but not much to look at.

I soon found out what The Juice lacked in beauty she made up for in ability and desire. She would chase downed birds at lightning speeds for what seemed like miles without the first thought of giving up. Her feats became the stuff of legend among my friends and hunting guests. Once while hunting a rice field she disappeared completely out of site across 200 acres of levees and water on the trail of a winged— but very much alive—pintail. Temperatures were in the mid-20s and we decided to pack it in with not the first idea where dog or duck had disappeared.

Upon arriving almost an hour later at the old shack where we had parked the truck, there sat The Juice waiting on us with that perfect bull sprig securely in her mouth.

The longer we were together the closer we became and although she loved my wife, she was a clever and jealous girl. Saturday afternoon four-wheeler rides with both my wife and the dog on the back, The Juice would steadily inch her way over, creeping her way between the two humans; eventually pushing my wife nearly off the seat. On hunts she would follow hand signals only after she had given up trying to find lost birds on her on. She would turn with eyes that said, “Okay dad, I give up. Show me where it is.”

But those times were rare, her nose was spectacular when it came to ducks or donuts.

When she was about 6-years-old, she was attacked by an alligator. A genuine warm-weather threat for dogs at our hunting property—The Juice had wandered too close to the canal behind the camp house late one August evening and into ambush range of a 10 footer. But somehow that baked potato body and toothpick legs squirmed their way free. Nineteen stitches and trips to two different veterinarians later, she survived and was ready for opening day of duck season by the time November rolled around. The next summer she was lost for two days, hit by a car, found under miraculous circumstances by my mother, and diagnosed partially paralyzed. An ordinary dog would certainly have been sidelined, but this was no ordinary dog. She had six more seasons of glorious retrieves before she finally retired. By that time the heart was willing, but the body just couldn’t do it anymore.

For over 13 years she was my shadow. A constant presence never more than a few feet away at home or afield. Her coat had been as black as a crow in a coal mine until just the last few years when gray whiskers started to frost that smiling square muzzle. She was the very definition of joy: A living, breathing, three-dimensional example of the word; hobbling across the yard to greet me at the gate until the very end. The tick-tick-tick of her four paws crossing our hardwood floor every morning before sunrise was just a memory now, although when our house was quiet I could close my eyes and hear it still.

The grave ready, I looked at the faded and torn tartan plaid dog bed on the ground beside me covering a motionless shell that had once quivered with anticipation and exploded with energy. We had been through it all. Alligator attacks, puppies, a newborn baby, an apartment, two houses and one very mean tomcat. We had made over 300 hunts together. Her life had been a gift: An existence completely free of complaint, or malice, or judgement of any kind. Even my absence at her death felt forgiven now. It was a gift only a dog was worthy enough to give.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 57

FiascoS

When your boat won't float.

it comes to duck hunting, it goes without When saying that Arkansas is uniquely positioned.

Hunters from across the nation appreciate that the Natural State comprises the best part of the lower end of the Mississippi Flyway “funnel.” At this latitude the entire migration compresses, concentrating ducks over the eastern half of the state like no other place in the world.

The downside might be how the Arkansas weather pendulum can swing between steamingjungle hot and ice-storm cold. At times we seem to endure far worse weather extremes than either our northern or southern neighbors, and no group anywhere in the state feels it more than Arkansas duck hunters.

Proper pre-season preparation usually begins in August, which happens to coincide with the peak comfort zone of mosquitoes, snakes, chiggers, ticks, wasps and even alligators; making hole clearing and blind brushing uncomfortably hot at best and downright dangerous at worst.

Extremely cold weather can be a demon in and of itself. Discovering one’s four-wheeler axle frozen solid (to the point that the running motor at full throttle will not turn it) is something only waterfowlers understand intimately. Every duck hunter has found themselves kneeling in the dark behind a trailered jon boat trying to chisel ice out of the drain plug hole; and they might be the only souls willing to brave weather cold enough to freeze an outboard motor fuel line solid. And if that doesn’t win the crazy prize, bringing that same frozen fuel line inside the camp house (yes, still containing gasoline) and attempting to thaw it by the roaring fireplace just might.

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of an old college buddy I joined Athimthetoinvitation hunt a rice field he had leased in Jefferson

County. An arctic front was expected to blow in the evening before and he surmised we could likely get in a great shoot before the flooded field froze solid. The thermometer showed 17 degrees when we unloaded my (recently purchased) four wheeler at the field before daylight that morning. The showroomnew ATV effortlessly skimmed through the shin deep water of the buckshot field and in a just a few minutes we were set up and ready to go. I saddled up to take the bike and hide it on the far side of a large levee that surrounded the field. My buddy assured me the drainage ditch was on the other side of the levee from our location. But just as I got within a few yards of the levee I noticed the water getting deeper.

Before any course corrections could be made, the ATV literally disappeared beneath me. Struggling to swim in waders over the faint glow of headlights still shining from the muddy depths below, I could faintly hear my buddy shout a message from across the field containing the words “…ditch…” and “…not sure…”

I shouted back my own special message which he understood most clearly despite the high wind.

Four wheelers can freeze quite solid when dunked in water and then exposed to temperatures in the teens complete with 25-mile-per-hour winds. Solid things are hard to move unless of course the desire is for them not to move. Then (for reasons unknown to modern physics) on the way home for example a completely frozen and inoperable four wheeler will easily slide out of the back of an open tailgated truck and into the middle of the highway on a very, very cold day in Jefferson County.

When your w heels fall off.

“If you don’t ever stop, then you can’t get stuck!”

When you're @#? creek.

*

up

is no man-made invention both so loved There and hated by duck hunters as the outboard

motor. It has been the single greatest asset ever invented to access the prime areas–remote or otherwise–where ducks desire to be. But this marvel of modern engineering has a dark side.

If a machine can have a personality, then many outboards could be diagnosed schizophrenic. Or perhaps they are connected to some geographic phenomenon unknown to science. How else could one explain a motor that operates perfectly while cranked at home the night before a carefully planned hunt, only to refuse to start for no apparent reason mere hours later at the launch ramp? Some of these machines are possessed by calculating demons, waiting for their owners to reach the furthest and most remote destination before spitefully stranding them with failures of mysterious origin. There are no unsuperstitious duck hunters. None that own outboards anyway.

don’t ever stop, then you can’t get stuck!” is a favorite expression of my hunting partner. It is Ifa you delusional statement that I have heard him proclaim for 32 consecutive years now. He is the very

same man that has stuck two-wheel drive trucks, four-wheel drive trucks, cars, motorcycles, ATVs of all kinds (including amphibious six wheel drives), tractors, boats, and even lawnmowers. He once called me to help pull out his wife’s SUV–which he had gotten stuck right behind their suburban home.

There exists no buckshot mud farm road or wallowed out swamp ’sippi hole that he fears or finds uninviting. His propensity for the art of becoming bogged reaches zenith during duck season, when he enthusiastically accelerates head on into stretches of bottomless muck with total disregard for payload or passenger, allegedly all in the name of reaching his prey.

Anything between a duck hunter and a duck is just something to overcome and one who has never been stuck–and stuck bad–hasn’t been doing it very long (or has never met my buddy).

he beloved phrase “Mo ’Lap” among Arkansas duck Thunters is one of mysterious origin. I first heard it as

a teenager conjured by the old drake master of southeast Arkansas himself: the great Jimmy Baxter. “Mo ’Lap” might be best described as “achievement of the legal limits of a desired species of waterfowl by an entire hunting party in an extremely rapid and exciting way."

Variations are flexible as verb, adverb or pronoun. For example a particular hunt that appropriately fits the definition could have been a “Mo ’Lappin'” waterfowl on such a hunt could have been “Mo ’Lapped”, and a particular location where such an outstanding hunt occurred might be properly referred to as “Mo ’Lap City.”

The younger generation of our sport have unfortunately begun to abuse the phrase–using it for virtually any hunt where legal limits are achieved. However, a true “Mo ’Lap” involves as much about how the limit was taken as it does actually getting the total number of ducks allowed by law. Some hunters hunt for years before actually participating in a “Mo ’Lap” but once experienced, it is something never forgotten. (Improper usage will be reported to Mr. Baxter.)

“If a machine can have a personality, then many outboards could be diagnosed schizophrenic.”

When you 're stuck in a rut.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 59

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- 2015 -

‘Tis the season, and we’ve got the goods for discerning dudes who appreciate a day in the woods and an evening around the campfire

PHOTOS BY BRIAN CHILSON

Keep cozy by the fire with this classic, generously sized Faribault wool throw. The Hatchet Plaid style, shown here, was inspired by a 1960s pattern from Faribault’s archives. $175; faribault.com

Packaged in whiskey bottles and made with 100-percent pure plant-based ingredients, MANREADY Mercantile’s Tub Elixir and Tub Soak are packed with essential oils that will relax and rejuvenate you after a hard day’s work. $28; manready.com

Recognized as one of the best-designed objects in the world, an Opinel knife is equal parts art and function. Made in France, the Slim No. 15 folding knife boasts a beechwood handle and a narrow, flexible six-inch blade that’s ideal for fileting fish. $25.95; opinel-usa.com

Handcrafted from vintage and reclaimed fabric, these pocket squares by New York to Nashville will add a dash of hipster style to any look. $27 each; nytonashville.com

Whether you’re chopping wood at your campsite or prepping for the zombie apocalypse, Hardcore Hammers’ newest hatchet— the Hardcore Minihawk—is a lightweight and efficient tool. It has an 18-inch American hickory handle, with a light, 17-ounce head and a 2 ¼-inch cutting blade that allows for a faster swing and greater accuracy. $42; hardcorehammers.com

* All items on this page available from Rich-N-Tone, Stuttgart.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 61

- 2015 -

Juvenile fish are called fingerlings, and are, well, about the size of a finger—hence the name of the Mollyjogger fingerling fish knife. The diminutive knife has a sculpted chrome handle, a two-inch stainless-steel blade and comes with a leather lanyard. Packaged in an old-school Kraft box, it’s a great little gift for your favorite angler. $10.50; mollyjogger.com and Rich-N-Tone

From Springdale-based Piltdown Packs, the Hustle is a true daypack, backpack and excursion pack all in one. Made in America from water-resistant, vinyl-coated 600D poly with heavy duty plastic hardware. Some of the Hustle’s features include a hip belt and sternum strap with safety whistle buckle, oversized bottle pockets, MOLLE panel, fleece-lined tech pocket, expandable shock panel and sleeping bag compression straps. All this, on top of a lifetime—no questions asked—warranty. $200; piltdownpacks.com, Uncle Sam’s Outfitters, Fayetteville, and Gearhead Outfitters statewide 62 | Arkansas Wild ¸ WINTER 2015

Inspired by tales from pioneers of the American Frontier and the wildlife illustrations sketched in their journals as they made their way out west, these Bicycle® Frontier playing cards feature a nostalgic design reminiscent of cards from the late 19th century, and capture the vitality of North America's wilderness with drawings of animals found across the continent. Made in the USA, this first-edition boxed set includes both the wildlife deck and the predator edition deck. $22; bicyclecards.com and Rich-N-Tone

From EastWest Bottlers, Moonshine cologne offers a woodsy aroma with hints of spice, including notes of black pepper, tobacco, leather, gin and patchouli. The Moonshine soap, is all-natural and handmade with all 100-percent natural ingredients, including sea salt. Cologne, $76; soap, $16; eastwestbottlers.com and Rich-N-Tone

From Echo Calls in Beebe, the XLT timber call is the most versatile call on their roster, producing a loud ringing hail call that will reach out when hunting big open water, and, when you need to get soft and nasty, it’ll put the finishing touches on those hard to work mallards. $140; echocalls.com and Fort Thompson

Handmade in Garfield, Arkansas, Bradshaw Knives feature blades made of Damascus steel, which has a unique wavy surface pattern due to a technique that dates back to medieval times. A variety of blade styles and handle materials are available. Pinecone (shown here), $290; burl maple, $275; bradshawknives.com and Fort Thompson, Sherwood

Stuttgart’s Wings Over the Prairie Festival is celebrating its 80th year, and a commemorative shirt is a perfect way to make the occasion.

Featuring the World’s Championship Ducking Calling Contest logo medallion, the navy blue shirt is available in long- and short-sleeve versions, and can be purchased at the event, slated for November 21-28, or online at stuttgartarkansas. org/duck-festival This season, bring your decoy spread to life with the DrakeWake. From Banded Mallard Company in Cabot, the lightweight, battery operated DrakeWake decoy swims automatically while creating huge ripples and splashing, and features a realistic feeding/diving head motion. With an automatic timer and a flocked body that boasts a realistic feather look, the DrakeWake is available in drake and hen mallard. $120; bandedmallard.com and Fort Thompson

In addition to being an icon of Arkansas tourism and founder of Gaston’s White River Resort, Jim Gaston was also an avid photographer. His book, An Ozark Perspective, is a collection of more than 100 images of the natural beauty found around the state, and was produced by Arkansas State University Mountain Home. Gaston was a longtime supporter of the school, and all proceeds from the book will go to ASUMH’s general scholarship fund. $30; Gaston’s Resort or asumh. edu/gaston ARKANSASWILD.COM | 63

TOP GUIDES

GUIDES & DOGS Q & A with two Arkansas hunting guides from The Elms Lodge and Five Oaks Duck Lodge

BY MICHAEL ROBERTS

GREG JACOBS + DOAK Q: WHAT AREAS OF THE STATE DO YOU OPERATE IN? A: I work for Kim Freeman at Elms Lodge in Altheimer, so in and around Altheimer and Wabbaseka.

Q: WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR GUIDE OFFERING? A. We’re close to Bayou Meto Waterfowl Management Area, that’s a big draw. At Elms, we also farm the ground, so a lot of the places we end up guiding are places we farm, so we take pride in our land.

Q: HOW LONG HAVE YOU GUIDED PROFESSIONALLY? A: This is my third year to work for Elms as a guide. My dad is a lifetime guide, he’s been guiding for 30 years. It kind of runs in my family.

Q: WHAT PIECE OF GEAR COULD YOU NOT LIVE WITHOUT? A: My shotgun. There’s a ton of things, but that’s number one on the list.

Q: WHAT SORT OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE SOMEONE ABOUT TO HEAD OUT ON THEIR FIRST GUIDED HUNT? A: Temper your expectations. It’s really exciting; I get excited about people coming to this area. But temper expectations so it’s not a negative if you don’t have a bang-up hunt on your first trip.

Q: DO YOU TRAIN YOUR OWN DOGS, OR DO YOU WORK WITH A TRAINER? A: I have a trained dog trained by Bo Brewer with Ridgemark Retrievers out of Brookland. He’s a buddy of mine from school here in Stuttgart and does a really good job.

Q: HOW LONG ON AVERAGE DOES IT TAKE FOR A DOG TO BECOME COMPETENT ENOUGH TO GO ON A HUNT? A: My dog didn’t hunt until he was a year-and-a-half old. I got him as a sixweek-old pup. Start to finish, four to six months. The dog is going to do what they’re going to do, the training is just to condition them to do it the way you want to do it.

Q: WHAT ARE SOME METHODS YOU’VE USED TO DEAL WITH GUN-SHY DOGS? A: This dog I have is my first ever dog, and he isn’t gun shy. But if you have a dog that’s gun shy, start with a small caliber gun to get them in and around that action, then work your way up to what you’re actually going to be shooting around them.

Q: WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO TEACH A DOG NOT TO DAMAGE A BIRD WHEN RETRIEVING? A: I believe they use “force fetch,” which forces the dog to hold a bird until you tell them to release. You do it over and over until that’s what they have to do.

Q: WHO TAUGHT YOU THE MOST TO PREPARE YOU TO BE A PROFESSIONAL GUIDE? A: No doubt, my dad. He knows what he’s doing. There are a lot of people who respect him, and I have the utmost respect in that regard. Learning how to kill ducks is one thing, but learning how to handle people in a professional manner is important, too.

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BILL FREE + SHUG Q: WHAT AREAS OF THE STATE DO YOU OPERATE IN? A: I’m a guide for Five Oaks Duck Lodge in Stuttgart. (I'm also the chairman of the World's Championship Duck Calling Contest.)

Q: WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR GUIDE OFFERING? A. The lodge I guide for has really gotten to know people as regulars. We have a lot of return customers that I have gotten to know personally. I look forward to seeing them every year. Some of our hunters have been coming for more than 20 years.

Q: HOW LONG HAVE YOU GUIDED PROFESSIONALLY? A: 15 years.

Q: WHAT PIECE OF GEAR COULD YOU NOT LIVE WITHOUT? A: A duck call. Rich-N-Tone is the one that’s around my neck.

Q: DO YOU TRAIN YOUR OWN DOGS, OR DO YOU WORK WITH A TRAINER? A: I have mine professionally trained. Before that, I read a lot about training and tried to train myself. I recommend having your dog trained, but in doing so I learned something that’s very helpful. All trainers say, “You have to train the trainer.” The dog will do what it’s supposed to do, and it’s the guide or the trainer that messes up. So you have to train dog and owner both.

Q: HOW LONG ON AVERAGE DOES IT TAKE FOR A DOG TO BECOME COMPETENT ENOUGH TO GO ON A HUNT? A: It really depends on how much you want the dog to do. If you want him to just retrieve ducks, you can do it in three to six months of training. If you want the dog to stop on a whistle or run to the right or left, it’s going to take you six to 12 months, and in some cases even longer. It just depends on how advanced you want your dog to be. A dog can make or break a hunt.

Q: WHAT ARE SOME METHODS YOU’VE USED TO DEAL WITH GUN-SHY DOGS? A: I haven’t had that experience, but what I’ve seen trainers do is take small caliber guns, have the dog at a distance and shoot the gun. What you want the dog to realize is that every time the gun goes off, it’s a good thing because a duck is likely falling and that’s what they live for.

Q: WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO TEACH A DOG NOT TO DAMAGE A BIRD WHEN RETRIEVING? A: A section of the training is called “force fetching,” where the dog is taught to hold on to the bird until given a command to let go. It teaches the dog not to chew on the bird and to release on command. You should get the bird away from the dog quickly as to not tempt the dog.

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• Bedliners • Bedliners • Bedcovers • Step Grill Guards Bedliners Bars • Bedcovers • Grill Guards • Seat Covers • ATV Ramps Bedcovers Grill Guards • Seat Covers • ATV Ramps •• Floor Liners •• ATV LED Lights Seat Floor Covers Liners LED Ramps Lights And Much More • FloorAnd Liners • LED Lights Much More And Much More

Q: WHO TAUGHT YOU THE MOST TO PREPARE YOU TO BE A PROFESSIONAL GUIDE? A: I’m somewhat self-taught, but I have the opportunity every day to guide with five wonderful guides at Five Oaks, some of them have 30 years of experience.

We don’t get to hunt together often, but when we do, I always watch them as they guide. But I’ve learned the most from my own experiences. And you have to be a people person and able to put people at ease.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 65

OUT & ABOUT

DELTA HERITAGE STATE PARK Helena-West Helena, Arkansas

BY MEL JONES

ABOUT

GRAB YOUR BIKE, OR JUST RENT ONE

The first 21 miles of trails from Helena junction to Elaine have been completed. The compacted, crushed-rock trail leads through a shaded canopy of native hardwoods, alongside agricultural fields and across streams. Trailheads are at Helena junction near Lexa, Walnut Corner at the U.S. 49 overpass, Lick Creek (Ark. 85 just south of Barton), Lake View and Elaine. The park visitor center is on U.S. 49 in Barton. Here you will find a gift shop, trail maps, restrooms and picnic sites, and you can even rent a bike!

STAY THE NIGHT

If you’re into roughing it, there are five Class D (no hookups) campsites at the Barton trailhead, available for $12 a night. Need a more elegant place to lay your head? Check into the historic Edwardian Inn in Helena. The circa-1904 mansion is a beautiful example of homes built in Helena at the turn of the century, with exceptional woodwork found throughout the public spaces and private suites.

OFFICIAL ATTRACTIONS

The Delta is rich with history, and the area is filled with museums that interpret events from the Civil War and beyond. The Delta Cultural Center Depot Museum details the history of the Delta, from its earliest inhabitants, into early settlement and through the Mississippi River floods, while the DCC’s Visitors Center features a gift shop, changing exhibits and the radio studio where King Biscuit Time is broadcast live every weekday at 12:15 p.m.

And every October, the King Biscuit Blues Festival celebrates the heritage of this American art form with three days of don’t-miss performances.

TAKE THE SCENIC ROUTE

The Crowley’s Ridge Parkway is a National Scenic Byway that follows this Ice Age remnant, a landform that was carved out over millions of years due to torrential rains.

The ridge begins in Missouri, just below Cape Girardeau, and forms a crescent shape ending in Helena. Recreational opportunities along the route include four state parks, a national forest and wildlife management areas–offering everything from fishing, boating, swimming, picnicking, hiking and wildlife watching opportunities.

LOCATION

In the heart of the Arkansas Delta, on Highway 49 in Helena-West Helena, just two hours from Little Rock.

GPS: 34.554222, -90.7586

PLAN YOUR TRIP

Visit deltabyways.com, explorehelenaar.com and arkansas.com/ deltaheritagetrail.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF ARKANSAS PARKS AND TOURISM

The Delta Heritage Trail State Park is being developed under the national “rails to trails” initiative, which converts former railroad lines to pedestrian and bicycle routes. The trail is being developed in phases along the former Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way that stretches from one mile south of Lexa (six miles west of Helena) to Rohwer, and extending via the Mississippi River levee to Arkansas City.

It will total 84.5 miles when finished, making this one of the longest bike and pedestrian trails in the state.

ARKANSASWILD.COM | 67

There are many places where you can go duck hunting ... But there’s only one region on the planet that has so many stores to get the gear you need, lodges to spend the night between hunts, qualified guides to take you to the best hunting holes, plus so many interesting places to go and things to do after you’ve gotten your limit. And most importantly, there’s no other place on Earth that has so many DUCKS! This season, visit The Arkansas Delta for the hunt of your life!

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This ad is paid for with a combination of state funds, private regional association funds and a National Scenic Byway grant

deltabyways.com