Green-tree resurrection |
Outdoor writer T. Edward Nickens does an excellent job describing the thrill of hunting ducks on a green-tree reservoir in Arkansas.
"The ducks are overhead, where we had hoped they would be, where we had been watching, straight up through the trees where we had sent our hopes and prayers since dawn broke in the dull, gray light," he writes. "That was two slow hours ago, but now a brisk wind has cleared the sky, the sun is on the decoys, and just as my buddy Scott whispers that he thinks our luck is changing, 50 mallards bank hard to the right of the blind and come sifting through the timber hole, so close we can hear the whoof, whoof, whoof of their wings on the descent.
"In the timber, we hold our fire, hold our breath and fight the urge to look up at a sky turned to feathers and feet. We don't shoot until a third of the ducks are on the water, and with the first thunderous booms of our shotguns, the mallard tornado explodes. ... For the legendary flooded-timber hunting of Arkansas, the future is as full of challenges as the past has been of gilded green-headed glory. For decades, green-tree reservoirs (GTRs) have provided waterfowlers with everything they could possibly dream of in a duck hunt: easy access, stunning scenery, close shots, and ducks on top of ducks.
"Now it might be time for duck hunters and other wetland conservationists to return the favor and work for a future in which these majestic flooded forests can thrive and inspire awe in waterfowlers 50 and 100 years from today."
When Austin Booth was director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, he brought new energy and a fresh vision to an agency that sometimes became stuck in old ways of doing things. With the support of commission members, Booth set out on the biggest project in AGFC history: Restoring the state's public green-tree reservoirs.
Booth became director in 2021 and left at the end of 2024 to work in the private sector.
In meetings with duck hunters to sell his........