We’ve Got Water: Opening Weekend Is Typical for Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK — Anecdotally, Arkansans appeared to experience the typical Arkansas opening weekend for waterfowl season, which cranked into gear on Saturday. In the first “split” of the 2025-26 season, hunters will have a few more days through the Thanksgiving weekend to chase ducks and other waterfowl before the season takes its first hiatus at sunset on Monday, Dec. 1.

“We got some rain,” Trey Reid, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s assistant chief for Communications, said Tuesday morning on his weekly appearance on KABZ-FM, 103.7 The Buzz’s “Morning Mayhem” show. Asked how his weekend went, Reid, who hunted in south-central Arkansas on opening day, said, “I was on a hunt where we shot some ducks. Judging by the social media activity that I saw, I think some folks had good hunts and others didn’t; that’s typically how it goes.

“​The duck opener is typically this way: If you have some managed water or have been able to pump or something like that, you’ll have a decent day or two, and it usually falls off after that. I’m excited about this additional rainfall that will help in our public areas and also, we have some colder weather coming. The best is yet to come, but it was a successful opener for some. Others struggled.”

Some other noted observations by contributors to the waterfowl report:

• Snow geese were more prevalent this past weekend than some observers have seen in recent seasons. Last year, for example, the first sign of snow geese in the Delta was closer to Dec. 1. But areas such as around Geridge on U.S. Highway 165 and other spots around Stuttgart, as well as up around Interstate 40 near Hazen contained ample flocks of snow geese.
• Specklebelly geese (white-fronted geese) also appeared to be maintaining good numbers in the fields of Arkansas County. Long formations of specks were headed to the river after sunset on Sunday evening, before the front with heavy rainfall arrived Monday. The land puddled up nicely in that region by Monday afternoon. Reid said a duck hunter in the area he had visited over the weekend noted that “a lot more had showed up after the weekend.” He added, “This rain we got, more sheet water out there, runoff is getting in the woods. Hopefully, that’s going to shake up where ducks are, they’re going to move around. Of course, they’ve been shot at for a few days, so that’s going to move them around, too. We’re headed in the right direction.”
  

Here is how to find the latest water and habitat conditions on your favorite piece of public waterfowl hunting land in the new way we are presenting those details:

• For a full overview of the AGFC’s Wetland Management, click HERE. This page has direct links to real-time monitoring in the moist-soil units and greentree reservoirs, as well as lots of other resources, pertinent information and a video about restoring Arkansas’s greentree legacy.
• For the latest conditions throughout Arkansas’s moist-soil units and operational plans, click HERE. Biologists in the field will be updating these numbers weekly, and the list also indicates when each area is scheduled to be flooded.
• A link taking you directly to the AGFC’s greentree reservoir infrastructure and conditions can be found HERE. Biologists in the field will be updating these numbers weekly, and the list also indicates when each area is scheduled to be flooded.

Let us know what you think of the new setup for up-to-the-minute information by emailing jim.harris@agfc.ar.gov.