All posts in Outdoors

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s statewide squirrel-hunting celebration is back for its third year. Get a buddy and get to the woods next Friday and Saturday to take your chance winning prizes and notoriety as the best bushytail hunter in your neck of the woods.  “AGFC Education Division staff started the Big…

For the first time since the beginning of waterfowl season, here at Waterfowl Report headquarters in west Little Rock it actually felt today (Thursday, Dec. 28) like a late-arriving winter was finally on its way.  With that, and with promising anecdotal reports from around east-central and central Arkansas this week as the state’s last segment…

LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas State Parks encourages Arkansans to start the new year on the right foot with First Day Hikes on Monday, Jan. 1, 2024. Led by America’s State Parks, First Day Hikes encourages everyone to celebrate the new year with time spent outdoors, focusing on healthy habits and lifelong memories. “Visiting a state…

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s December aerial waterfowl survey confirmed what many hunters and other observers were believing was the case in terms of the state’s early-season duck numbers: They’re at a modern-day low, both in estimated numbers of mallards and total ducks. The well-below-average count is attributed to no substantial rainfall to alleviate…

Arkansas is forecast to see mild daytime temperatures and only 2-3 days of rain in the remaining days of the second split of the 60-day waterfowl season, which runs through Saturday, Dec. 23. Weather conditions to the north of Arkansas don’t seem to favor much duck movement southward during that period, either, if waterfowl in…

LITTLE ROCK – Biologists conducting aerial surveys to generate waterfowl population estimates last week located a few small groups of dead snow geese and Ross’s geese in Arkansas, Craighead and Lonoke counties that were later collected and tested positive for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. Additional suspected cases have been found in Prairie, Pulaski, Faulkner, Clay…

WASHINGTON – Congress is sending President Joe Biden legislation to sign into law championed by U.S. Senators John Boozman (R-AR), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS) and Angus King (I-ME) authorizing an electronic stamp for use through the entirety of a waterfowl hunting season. The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the bipartisan Duck Stamp Modernization…

Waterfowl hunters can return to hunting 30 minutes before sunrise on Saturday, Dec. 9, throughout Arkansas as the state’s 60-day season resumes pretty much like it left off: mostly dry conditions and not a lot of ducks around. By Jim Harris Managing Editor Arkansas Wildlife Magazine We’re going to learn just how many ducks have…

LITTLE ROCK – Want to memorialize those unforgettable first Arkansas hunting and moments? The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has a special way to say, “Welcome to the hunting community,” with customizable certificates that can be given to a person for their first success in the field. When your new hunter connects with their first…

Water Scarce in Some Public Hunting Areas, but Some Opportunities Exist It’s become a standard refrain for the opening of Arkansas’s waterfowl season in recent years that conditions are dry around the state, though at least there may be more moisture than this time last season. In spite of water scarcity, though, waterfowl hunters should…

The following is a press release from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission: SUMPTER, Ark. – Anglers and boaters in south Arkansas now have convenient access to the Saline River just south of Warren thanks to the completion of an improved concrete boat ramp by Bradley County and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The…

LITTLE ROCK — Duck hunters will find a significant boost in acreage and fields available this season for private rice field hunting through the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Waterfowl Rice Incentive Conservation Enhancement program. The number of fields available for drawn permits with WRICE has increased from 69 last season to 78 this year,…

AMITY, Ark. – The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has confirmed a mountain lion sighting near Amity in Clark County. The sighting was reported by a hunter who captured the animal on a game camera. AGFC biologists have investigated the sighting and determined that it is credible.  Mountain lions – also known as pumas and…

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission expects more than 33,000 deer to be harvested and checked this Saturday and Sunday during opening weekend of Arkansas’s modern gun deer season if the harvest is consistent with recent years. Although extra staff are being contracted to handle a large volume of calls expected to…

JONESBORO – The Arkansas State University College of Agriculture Meat Market will partner with Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry (AHFH) to produce and distribute shelf snack sticks for school children across the state in efforts to battle food insecurity. According to the USDA Economic Research Service, nearly 17 percent of Arkansas households were food insecure…

LITTLE ROCK — An expanded partnership between the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Wildlife Services Program should streamline the response to public reports of the occasional wild animal that poses a threat to people, livestock and property. A new nuisance wildlife hotline, 833-345-0315,…

Anglers interested in hooking into an epic-sized trophy fish like the one in the photo above can apply for a 2024 Alligator Gar Trophy tag from now until the end of 2023. Many Arkansas anglers travel all the way to the Gulf of Mexico each year in search of trophy fish like tarpon and sailfish.…

LITTLE ROCK – When you are getting ready for the hunt, a small but potentially important item in your gear should be the 2023-24 Hunting Guidebook of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and there’s more than one way to carry it. The guidebook is a summary of the AGFC’s hunting regulations. It also has things like…

PINE BLUFF — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Gov. Mike Huckabee Delta Rivers Nature Center will again host its annual Wetlands and Wildlife Festival from noon to 5 p.m., Oct. 28. This family-friendly celebration of conservation is a great way to enjoy an afternoon with family and friends learning about all the outdoors has…

LITTLE ROCK — Growing recreational shooting sports is the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s target in the coming years under Director Austin Booth, and much is underway to make that come to fruition. Booth expanded the AGFC’s focus on recreational shooting sports with the creation of a Shooting Sports Division in July, headed up by Chief…