AGFC Commissioners Talking Turkey Zones, Pressure on Ducks and WMA Overcrowding

If you’re wondering what’s on the minds of the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission regarding turkey zones, the future of Arkansas duck hunting as it relates to private land, public land, non-residents, unruly behavior on the WMAs, habitat, and pressure management, this is an episode you cannot afford to miss. 

Current AGFC Commission Chair JD Neeley and Philip Tappan join the show to have a candid discussion about the state of some hot-button issues in Arkansas that spill across all waterfowl destination states. 

Thanks to our sponsors: Perfect Limit Outdoors, Ducks Unlimited, Tom Beckbe, Purina Pro Plan, Sitka Gear, Greenhead: The Arkansas Duck Hunting Magazine and Lile Real Estate. 

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Transcript

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Welcome to The Standard Sportsman Podcast. The show features trending topics, touching all aspects of duck and goose hunting in an effort to motivate others to leave the resource better than they found it. Hosts Cason Short and Brent Birch are lifelong Arkansas hunter conservationists, delivering thought-provoking discussions with engaging guests before, during, and after duck season. Thanks for spending time with us today. Now let's jump into today's show with the guys.

Hey everybody, Cason Short, joined as always with Brent Birch, back for another delayed episode of The Standard Sportsman. We're a day late getting this one out, but Brent, we have good reason. We've got some special guests that had a little scheduling, I won't say issue, but there was merit for this. So why don't you tell everyone why they had to wait a day to get their latest episode?

Yeah, we're recording this right after the April Arkansas Game & Fish Commission Commissioners meeting. And we are fortunate enough to have two of the commissioners, including the chairman, the current chairman, who's on his swan song for his seven years of tour of duty. But yeah, today we've got JD Neeley and Philip Tappan joining us to talk through a couple of hot topics that they're dealing with. We're going to talk to Tarki for a minute. We're going to talk about a few other things. And then we're going to get into ducks and some of the things that they're weighing as a commission on some hot button issues that everybody's talking about. So this is going to be a really cool show. We feel very fortunate to have these guys on. So JD, Philip, appreciate you joining us.

Well, thanks, Brent, Cason, for having us. Yep, you're right. I mentioned yesterday in committee meetings that I basically got one foot and three toes out the door. I'm not far off. You mentioned Swansong. And today was a very bittersweet official meeting in the chamber because it was my last, this is my last Little Rock meeting. And the next two, we're on the road. But so things are winding down.

Cason, we appreciate you and Brent having us. It's a real honor. And I tell you, it's been an honor to serve with JD. He is such a well-poised outdoorsman and a forester and just a great, caring visionary. We're going to miss him. He's added so much to, I'll tell you, my service here. But just like y'all have been very additive to the wildlife scene, Chairman Neeley's term will be remembered well.

Well, thank you, Philip. Those are two kinds of words that I deserve. I sure don't deserve that. But I will say that Philip and I both have the highest admiration for him. We both have been blessed to have served with a great group of commissioners during my term and his term that really have all had shared vision. We're not going to kick anything down the road, any cans down the road. We're tackling the hard projects, whether it's GTR work, whether it's Lake Conway and getting those things, get that dam fixed and the lake renovated to whatever we need or this state needs. We've been committed to do it. We've had a very historical level of capital projects that have been taken over the last, especially four years. But it's been good.

Yeah. Well, and that's a big thing that people that are awful critical about the Game & Fish and some of the projects. But the deferred maintenance that goes on with managing habitat and lakes and everything else, it catches up with you someday. And it just happened to be a couple of heavy ones here in this little window that we're dealing with. But that's something you just got to do over the course of time. And it's going to cause a pause in people's activities. But it's just one of those things you got to do.

That's right. But at the end of the day, it will be better than ever. Lake Conway will be better than ever. Lake Monticello is now up and going and people are fishing in it. It's not can't take any out just yet, but they're already catching some really good fish down there. So, yeah, you're right, Brent. Just we appreciate our men and women, our Kansans and out-of-staters that come to fish and utilize our fisheries for their patience. We're going to have a much better fishery for sure.

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Well, guys, we're talking about the commission overall and some of the bigger projects that are going on. I guess I'll bring up the elephant in the room. How is the search going?

Well, great question, Cason. We were saddened to hear of Director Booth's departure back in the fall as he entered into the private workforce. We engaged a felon that had helped us actually when we recruited Austin, Dan Sherman with the Explore Group and we solicited bids, and his was the best bid, and we engaged him sometime in, it's about early to mid January, wasn't it, Philip? We officially got going with that. And so we have had some good candidates, very good candidates that we have interviewed, and we're really getting close, very close. Made great progress, not quite quite there, but we know that that director job is what, the one job that we as commissioners have to do, have to hire, that's the only thing we appoint. All of the other staff positions at Game & Fish are under the director's order, but the director is our one hire. And we spend a lot of time making sure we get that right, and Arkansas deserves it. And we are blessed to be at a good point, and about to get it wrapped up.

In case that I'll add, we're very fortunate with interim director Racy. You know, he's a proven leader in the agency. And the great news is, you know, we're not a rudderless ship at the present. I mean, he was serving as chief administrative officer, so a lot of the duties he is serving now, he's very familiar with, he was part of or sat very close to those decision-making meetings and has done a great job.

That's a great point, Philip. We have not missed a beat, I assure you. There's not been one step that we have not missed, really since Director Booth left January 3rd.

Yeah, Chris has been a great asset. Just our dealings with him on the Advisory Council has been fantastic. So things have carried on very well.

It's good to hear.

Yeah, for sure. I would echo that and appreciate his efforts because that interim tag is always kind of tough. Doesn't matter what you do, interim football coach, interim director of the Game & Fish. It doesn't matter. It's a tough gig and we appreciate his efforts. But yeah, let's start off. Let's talk a little bit about turkeys because we're hurdling into turkey season here in Arkansas. And there was some stuff that came up in yesterday's commission meeting. For those who are listening and aren't aware of the format, the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission commissioners meet on a Wednesday in a committee format where they go through each committee. Each commissioner is the chair of said committee. And they kind of go through the issues at hand that that committee is working on and kind of handle the business part of what the commission does. And then on a Thursday, they meet again. And it's more of a public meeting. There's a lot of staff awards and recognition. And you have some speakers occasionally and things like that. So Wednesday is kind of the handling business day. And then Thursday's got a little, just a little more soft landing to it, I guess is a way to say it. But yesterday's meeting, which would have been Wednesday, because the show will come out on Friday, but Wednesday's meeting, you got in to a discussion on turkeys. And you had the turkey biologist present how the population was doing, what some other states are seeing and all that. But you all jumped into a discussion on possibly changing up kind of how the state staggers its hunting season. So let's start with that. Let's talk about turkeys and zones and what was kicked around yesterday.

Yeah, I appreciate it, Brent. One, when I got on the Commission, they always get a picture of a Commissioner in their camo and doing something that you really like, whether it's kind of posing with your favorite lab and your duck hunting or you got a fishing rod in a hand. But I actually had my turkey vest on, my turkey call, my turkey gun and went out in the back of the woods there from the headquarters and took a picture like I was turkey hunting. That's because turkey hunting is my passion. I love it all, don't get me wrong, but I really loved to turkey hunt. We were fortunate to have a really good turkey coordinator, and they've got a good one now, and David Masicki and Jeremy Wood was our prior turkey coordinator. As soon as he came on, we had Dr. Chamberlain from the University of Georgia. That name is probably familiar because he has done several projects for the game fish and across the south, from deer to turkey. But he really is respected as one of the top turkey biologists in the country, and especially in the southeast. His work, his studies have been going on for going into the third decade. And what he told us then made sense, that mature toms are the ones that do the breeding. I mean, other turkeys can, male turkeys can breed with hens, but they're not fertile. It's just the way that a lek works. A lek is a group of ground-nesting birds that where the males display, like a turkey does. And we as hunters, when we harvest that mature time, we impact that breeding cycle. And in that peak nesting time, we want to delay harvest to the point where we as hunters are not getting out onto the landscape, hunting, impacting, knocking out these mature toms, before these hens have had a certain amount of time to nest. And that is, you know, actually laying eggs. And they determined that overall, across the state average, it's around April 17th. And it really fits well for about two-thirds of the state. That has been our turkey plan for the last five years. If you look at our numbers, we have been going up. We have seen increased harvest each year, with slight to modest increases in harvest. We have seen poult surveys increase over the last five years. So we really feel good about how we are seeing our turkey numbers ink back up, because we were down, harvest was down around 7,000 when I first got on the Commission. Last year, it was a little over 10,100. So, you know, we are coming back this year alone. We just got the report our youth hunt was 14,000 and some change. I mean, excuse me, not 14,000, 14,000, 1,400 and some change. So, and that was a very, very good number. So good news there. What we heard from David Masicki, our turkey biologist, is we asked them to come back with gobbling surveys that really tell us, well, within the state, what's the variance between, let's say, the southern counties near the Louisiana border, southeast corner, southwest corner, all the way to the Missouri border. You know, we know from a climate standpoint, in trees and their physiology, we see the differences in leaf outs and in the winter look that can be the appearance in those arcs versus the, gosh, it looks like a jungle in South Arkansas right now. So, how does that play into our turkey nesting in the gobbling? And so we asked them to come back with that data, and they did, and it showed a variance of about, you know, seven days more or less between the southern zone up to north Arkansas. And that kind of confirmed. We had read a study over in Mississippi that had a similar, somewhat similar study. It showed about seven to ten days between, you know, the very southern to the northern of that. And then we also looked at a new study that was done over at the University of Georgia that it didn't so much compare north to south, but compared hunter impact. And it looked at a unique spot over in Georgia that had 200,000 acres. It's never hunted. It's kind of a preserve. And then they compared it to right beside it, counties right beside it that were hunted. And they mapped out and could determine nesting success. And there were some variants there, and as you would expect, with the non-hunted had higher success rates because more toms are breeding successfully. All that, after we get that data, we clearly could see, and we have heard too, Philip and I both have had, and all the commissioners have heard from a lot of folks that, well, you know, this south is, we're late. Seasons, you know, getting well advanced, the goblins waning down, vegetation's getting too hard to get through, the mosquitoes are out, snakes are out. But all that being said, between north to south, in noting that we could tweak this a little bit, still stay within our turkey plan of letting the majority of those toms breed, we could make, with a zone approach, better manage the turkeys in the state. We've got such a diverse state in Arkansas, from the Mississippi alluvial delta, Gulf Coastal Plains. You've got the Washtaw, Ozarks, Arkansas River Valleys, and the Delta all the way to the Northeast. Multiple turkey numbers in different places. Another thing this will do, and Philip highlighted this yesterday in the meeting, is that we can better micro manage turkeys with this zone approach. If one area is suffering, perhaps from due to weather or some other reasons that our numbers are higher or lower, then those bag limits could change within a zone or less season availability. Already, there's a few counties that you can only hunt one week and you get one bird. That's already, we've got a limited few counties that have got not much turkey season due to the fact that they just don't have many turkey. So that's not unique to our state. We will allow our biologists to better manage the flock and we're going to allow our hunters a little earlier opportunity. And so what we set up in that proposal was the Monday closest to the 17th of April would be when the Ozark in the Washtal Mountain region would open, which falls in where we are right now, kind of this close to this third Monday. By asking for the Monday closest to the 17th, we'll help account for a little bit on Calendar Creek. And then the Gulf Coastal Plain would be the Monday closest to the 10th. And then the Unit 17 will be the Monday closest to April 3rd. The other thing we've asked staff to do in this is to come back again with this, just where this break will be in between the Washtal Mountains and the Gulf Coastal Plain, as well as some recommendations for the youth seasons. Well, we don't know quite yet just how we're going to put that in place, but we will make sure we've got that in for our youth. Philip, did you have anything else that you want to interject on that?

JD, thank you. You did a wonderful job from the scientific side and the reasoning. What I'll do, Brent, in case of just real quick ad, kind of the social side was that if you think... The hunters of Arkansas, particularly the turkey hunters, during the time of reduced recruitment and reduced bag numbers, they've lost a lot. They lost fall hunting. They lost the ability to harvest jake. They lost any days in March and lost three weeks of April. As we saw that bag number or that harvest number bottom in 2019 at about 7,700 birds, and as JD pointed out, we're back over 10,000. You know, that 30, almost 33% improvement deserves the hunter getting something back. I mean, this needs to always be based on the species first, the resource, but it should be about also hunter opportunity. And those men and women that lost opportunity deserve to get some of that back if we're seeing improvement in recruitment and the flock. And so, I really just applaud the chairman for allowing us to push that narrative. Me, particularly growing up in the Delta, you know, I kind of thought about, as JD was talking in his great history of turkey hunting, this will be, I'm hoping to have my 50th year of turkey hunting and success. And it started in Zone 17 in Mississippi Bottom Land, Hardwood in Phillips County, where I grew up. That's another privilege. The East Arkansas hunter lost, you know, that is just such a unique environment in between those levies. And I think the framework was not only set up years ago to mimic the early gobbling chronology, but also the cadence of the state of Mississippi and Tennessee. And this will do that. What the chairman's suggesting will allow us to move a little more respective of those adjoining states and not lose hunters that are crossing the river and leaving the state to go hunt elsewhere. So I think it's a great move and a great compromise of resource and the hunting population both.

Well, Philip, you mentioned something really interesting there when you talked about turkey hunters staying at home in Arkansas and not crossing state lines. And as we talk about the resource first and the hunter opportunity, I'm sure you guys are aware of the growing conversation going on amongst other states and even hunters when it comes to hunting pressure and the issue. I hate to say issue, but the balance of non-resident hunters. I think that's a better way of putting it. And we mentioned before the show, you guys talked about being aware of that and you're hearing those concerns. What can you tell us? What is the commission thinking in regards to some of what the other states are doing and what some people are asking for or voicing opinions about?

JD, why don't you start off?

Well, great question, Cason. You know, we have done it in the past. During my time, again, I can only reflect on seven years, but you know, we, early on in my service, we implemented the 30-day restriction for non-residents inside WMAs. And now we've tweaked that time or two. We kind of had it in some couple of different ways, one in 10-day segments, and then we've had some 5-day segments. But still, they've operated within that 30-day framework of availability on state WMAs. Now, it has nothing to do with the private lands or any of our federal lands. And we have seen the numbers continue. And I'm talking about just pressure in general, both state and nonresidents inside some of these, especially for duck hunting in our WMA networks. And we continue to hear more and more and more about the overcrowding problem. The quality of the hunt has left. We've heard about fights within the WMAs. And just, Philip is again, a much better expert on ducks than I am. But he mentioned yesterday in our committee meeting about Dr. Osborne's work over at UAM and the in the telementary work that has been going on, that just showed ducks just staying away from the WMAs during duck season due to the pressure. And so, we hear it. You know, what I would say, Cason and Brent, is that this group of commissioners, we are not, again, the kick it down the road, kick the can down the road group. We, when something comes up, we grab the bull by the horns and we're gonna tackle the project or tackle the issue. And so, this is one issue that we've said this is, we wanna work with our user groups and let's start talking about some solutions. But I guess, you know, first, before you can start coming to solutions, you gotta acknowledge a problem. And I think there's been enough outcry and enough voices that in just the overall numbers that we're seeing on license sales that we do have a problem. But now comes the solution part. And so, in the meeting yesterday, Commissioner Finley, Rob Finley, Chair of our Regulations, made a motion and challenged our waterfowl team to come back in the May meeting with, one, some options on the short term that can help possibly in our WMAs, as well as some longer-term solutions. We can talk more about some of these possible solutions here in just a minute. But we're going to get action and proposals. The waterfowl team right now, I promise you, they're back in their desk, at their office and starting to work on deriving some stuff to get back to us to look at when we meet in May.

Well, it's an incredibly complex issue with ducks. I know a lot of people like to compare what some of the big game states are doing, or what people are doing with Turkey. But duck season is such a, and ducks themselves are such a different type season, where when you go to say a big game state, you're going to shoot an elk or something that's a trophy type animal. You're really only going there to shoot one. Those states are very, very strict on non-residents and draws and all this other stuff. So ducks are so different because there's peaks and valleys in the season, you can obviously kill many more as a hunter. And the seasons are long and the ability to come and go and all those things. So it's incredibly complex. And we've seen some other states kick around some other ideas. We've tried some things in the past, the commission has tried some things in the past that from a hunter standpoint, and I'll be the first to say I don't hunt public ground currently. I have in the past, but it's not something I do nowadays. And so I'm not sitting here like I'm the expert on Arkansas public ground, but I talk to and hear from enough people that I get the vibe of what they're seeing. And these are people I trust. These aren't people that are just shooting from the hip, complaining to be complaining. These are some legit issues that we've kind of danced around a little bit on this show, you know, with people telling me that they can't take their kids in there anymore. They can't take their dad that used to hunt by a meter back in the 70s. They can't take them in there anymore. It's just too chaotic. There's too much BS going on. So, you know, in the past, the commission has cut back the number of shells. You've done, you know, no spinning wing decoys. You've done all kinds of things that kind of have an impact on pressure, because pressure is a really complex subject. And Cason and I talk about it a lot on this show. We recorded an episode this week with Bradley Cohen that will come out next week, where we talk primarily about pressure. And so I appreciate, and I think Cason is the same, we really appreciate the commission willing to tackle this, because it's not going to be an easy deal. And probably whatever we do first probably isn't going to work perfectly. And I think y'all are aware of that too. I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't know. It's going to be an evolving process. But one thing I do want to say, that you're not doing, or at least at this point, I haven't heard this even come up. And this is one of the components that failed the Kansas effort, which if the listener is not aware, theirs functions differently. They have legislative process, and then it goes to the governor, where Arkansas Game & Fish Commission operates independently. But they brought legislation forward, limit the hunters to Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, I think, non-resident hunters on their federal and state-owned ground. The federal part is a key component. But it got through their legislative chambers, got to the governor, she vetoed it. But the reason she vetoed it, one, didn't feel real good about keeping non-residents off of federal ground. But the part that got the bigger part of the news was the dollar bill and the economic piece of that. And I haven't heard that be a concern. And maybe it is and it just hadn't been talked about, but I appreciate that not being the default. Like, we gotta worry about the money part and what it's gonna do to our economy versus how it's gonna impact the resource. So, that leads me to the next kind of evolution of this conversation. What are y'all thinking? What are some ideas that have bubbled up to the top as y'all are sorting through this or possibly the staff is gonna come back with that it's gonna ring a little more true with you as a commission on what we need to be doing to get a grip on this or at least to start?

Well, Brent, I want the chairman to discuss some ideas that we've discussed and laid out. But first, you hit the nail on the head. It's a complex issue. There are lots of inputs. Add to the fact the complexity is for a commissioner kind of after the resource, which should be our number one and primary objective. We work for the people of Arkansas. Well, who are the people of Arkansas? Yeah, outdoors, men and women. But you know what? It's also merchants, outfitters, hotel operators, boat sales, and service companies. You know, there is that economic component to this. And it's just, in my opinion, not wise to look at this in such a myoptic viewpoint of that we're going to just shut this out for only Arkansas. I mean, for one, it would probably be constitutionally inappropriate for federal grounds, as the governor of Kansas has talked about. But that hurts a lot of people, you know, economically. And I want to add to that, before the chairman chimes in, is, you know, this situation is probably has added complexity because of a couple of trends. I bet you and Cason are well aware of, I'm sitting here looking at the Adaptive Harvest Management, US. Fish and Wildlife book, and I'm open to the page of what is our bread and butter, the mid-continent mallard population. You know, last year, we experienced the lowest number in population since 1992-93. I mean, it's just unsurpassed. We're down 48.7% from our peak of just about eight years ago. So now the numbers for your listeners, just to validate that, that's compared to the 23 number of 5.7 million Mallards. It was up a little bit this year. It was like 6.2. But that's our bread and butter. And when you cut that flock in half of what the hunter or ordinarily accustomed to, it causes further complexity and a lot of congestion. And you know what I think? I'd love to hear you and Cason's feedback on this, but loss of habitat accelerates it even more. I mean, I remember growing up as a kid in East Arkansas. Man, the end of a flooded bean field, because the farmer couldn't get in there and harvest his beans, which many times, late variety beans went all the way into, you know, late October or November. That was one of the best hunting grounds there were, you know? The creek came up, caught him without harvesting his beans. Man, we got ducks all in here. Those kind of places are non-existent anymore, because what's happened? They've all finished harvest as they should. They're in a money-making business. You know, the beans are off and gone. Hey, and in most cases, the field doesn't even hold water at the lower end of the field, because it's all been zero-graded and it's all drained. So those primary factors, fewer ducks, fewer areas of habitat have really made this issue more complex. Chairman, we hear that, don't we?

We do. One guy told me, there's three things you need to know about ducks. It's habitat and habitat and habitat. If you can get those three things right, you'll have ducks. We know that in the prairie pothole region, that loss of habitat in the breeding grounds, certainly, is either due to drought or farming practices and draining those potholes has led to our decreased numbers. Now, those things cycle. Excuse me. You will have the wet cycles and the dry cycles that are ongoing and have gone on for eons. And that's natural. But what's not natural is in our time is what Philip eluded to is really this, the farm practices of today here, especially in Arkansas, where rice is one of our predominant crops, soy beans, certainly over there as well. And there's just not much left that has not been harvested by duck season and the farmers are back in there, plowing those fields, getting ready for spring. They say it speeds them up an extra month, they're able to get the crops in faster and say, here we go again. And the ducks just didn't have the habitat. That in turn puts more pressure on these ducks to go to limited access for them to wherever there's water and food. They're going to go where there's water and food. And then throw in that other element. If you put too much pressure at where the water and the food are, they're going to go somewhere else. It's just the facts. And so, we, I think, have experienced certainly a change in duck patterns overall. We don't have quite the cold fronts that we used to. And we can all remember December's when you were breaking ice, and there's not many late November, December's that get near as cold to get ducks down too early. It seems like it's mid to late January anymore before we even get some decent cold fronts. You know, this idea of non-residents too is... Philip made a good point. You know, we are charged to manage the resource. We're charged to, you know, we are accountable to our Kansans first and foremost. So when we start to look for solutions, I think what most states are doing is, you know, they're first and foremost going to be accountable to their citizens. And then that's going to mean whether it's Turkey or, you know, bear tags or moose tags or elk tags or deer tags or ducks, you know, they're going to make sure and ensure their citizens of that state get the best shot, the first shot, you know, the, and if there's extra, if there's more resource to spare, we won't non-residents, you know, to come and enjoy this great state. We've got a lot, a lot of great habitat still in the duck world. You know, even though we've got less and less food and from farm practices and we still got a lot of great duck habitat throughout the state. And there's a lot of, still a lot of opportunity. But the big question is, you know, how do we, on, as far as our main concern for Game & Fish is on our state WMAs. Again, we have no control over federal ground. And, you know, they, you look at a Cache River Refuge or, down in my end of the world, we've got, you know, Felsenthal and, and it's, it's certainly a huge place when it's flooded up, has a lot of ducks. And then you've got, you know, the White River bottoms and it's huge, vast expanse. Those, those alone account for a lot of federal lands that when flooded give a lot, a lot of opportunity to Arkansans as well as some non-residents that come in to enjoy it. Again, that's, that's, that's out of our wheelhouse. You know, we are going to look at some ways, we've asked staff, as I said at the beginning of the show, we've asked staff to come back in, in, at the next May meeting with some early opportunities to look at. One might be some limited non-resident hunting on, on some days. We might even have some days, there might be a recommendation that, that there be a rest day on a WMA. There might be that we have some, some draws for non-residents on part of the WMA. And when it's at certain pool or in certain parts of, you know, of the WMA where you get more pressure. It's really going to be a complex set of, of options. I think that it's not going to be a one size fit all for any WMA. They're going to have to be WMA specific thought through. I think, you know, we're going to see some limited boating access. Certainly, that could come in years to come, where you've got more walk-in designs. So, all those kind of options and solutions are going to be talked about in the, not just next meeting in May, but going forward. Brent, you mentioned it early on that this is no easy fix. We're certainly going to do some things, and we find out they don't work, and we'll just have to change them. We're going to find some things are working, and we can, you know, build on that. We can look to other states, continuing to draw on what's worked for them and not work for them, so that we're kind of learning as we go, maybe from some sister states on public land. But that's kind of what's coming up.

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Well, Philip, back to your kind of original comment that you made there, I think you're exactly right. If we had four million more mallards in the flyway, we would cure a lot of these issues. But you're right, too. We've seen, with modern ag production, you've seen the change in the way crops are grown and harvested, and all that comes into play here. I think the word I used in a text with Brent this morning was dynamic. It's a very dynamic and complex situation. So my question, when you look at the non-resident WMA permits that are sold, I think it's roughly 10 percent of non-resident licenses, I believe, are pretty close, which would suggest to me that the non-resident issue is not exclusive just to the WMAs. Now, that's been the majority of the conversation we've had here, is how it impacts the WMAs. But I'm curious, have you guys had conversations about how it impacts the federal ground and how it impacts private ground? Because to me, there's a lot of downstream effects that could happen here if we start limiting access on a WMA. Now, we have increased pressure elsewhere, and is it going to drive up cost to the average Arkansan who wants to have a lease somewhere? You know, so I'm sure you guys have thought about that, but have there been conversations in those terms?

Cason, you bring up a great point. You know, again, going back to this ecosystem of this great state of Arkansas, which is such a wonderful place. You know, why do you have so many duck clubs that are bought by out-of-staters here and it's continued to support the land prices and the value of clubs is because it is so attractive? And that's a component of it that we don't want to turn off. You don't want to have out-of-staters prohibited to make an investment in the state of Arkansas, which helps us all. That's part of the complexity of this issue, but we don't want to overuse the resource. And so understanding those demographics, I'll throw out something for you and Brent that I think the chairman and I and others are trying to promote is better use of data to understand really where we are in this complex scenario. There's some tools out there that didn't exist four or five years ago, maybe perhaps even 18 months ago. And I'm proud our staff, we talked about yesterday, too, they're evaluating a placer AI and the other one that we're using for cobalt, for metadata analysis. It is completely anonymous data. I don't even think that the Federal Trade Commission allows us to get data of specific individuals, but we can get demographic data aggregated on our WMAs of who's coming, how old are they, where's this phone based from, at least what zip code does the bill go to, and it will even break it down as to education and economic strata and things such as that, that can be very helpful. We're going to have to really lean into that technology to understand who our customers are. In case you hit on a wonderful point, you know, universally, the WMA hunter needs to know because we're selling more out of state licenses for the first time in the last couple of years than ever, or more than selling to residents, doesn't mean they're all coming to the WMA. You hit the nail on the head. That WMA use permit part is absolutely around five to 10, I mean, it's around 10 to 11% of the total. So, of those 58,000, I think, non-residents licenses that we're talking about, we're talking about less than 7,000 people that are going on to the WMAs. And that's split primarily over the Mississippi alluvial Valley, several very attractive WMAs. So it's not even concentrated on to one. We've got to better understand that before we start proposing those solutions and immediately react in a negative fashion towards exclusively out-of-staters.

You know, you brought up a good point. We do realize, you know, that the non-residents are, you know, if only 10% are hunting, you know, at the WMA, that's, well, that's 90% of the non-residents that are either on private or federal ground. You know, and how we manage that going forward is going to be, we will have to have data. And, you know, we just, there's so much we don't know right now about, you know, where those groups are. Are they hunting on leases? Are they hunting on their own stuff? You know, and are they using outfitters? So, it's going to have to be a lot more analysis on that before you can really start to break down where that impact is falling.

Oh, no question. And I think Philip is absolutely correct. We've got to understand who's in there. And we, I'm saying we, because I think our hunting community needs to understand, too. Not just y'all trying to make decisions, but there's a huge possibility that most people don't even have a real clear picture of who they think is in the wildlife management areas, or is in the federal ground, or who is leasing, who owns property here. Resident, non-resident, doesn't matter. You know, the Game & Fish has historically surveyed on all these topical rules and regulation things, but how well, how well do we know our hunters and who they are? And not by name and what street they live on. I'm talking about, you know, where they hunt, how they like to hunt, how many days they hunt. Because we've got to answer some of that stuff in HIP, but it's, HIP at the very first level is so generalized that, you know, it's not telling us a whole lot. And it doesn't do anything except put you into a potential pull to do more advanced Q&A stuff with US Fish and Wildlife for them to extrapolate their data. But yeah, I think it would be super valuable for the Game & Fish to come up with ways to learn more about the hunting community and who's doing what. And then you automate it with some of this technology that you can drill down on and understand. We talked about this came up in the meeting yesterday that right now this technology, this cobalt technology that gets a ping from a cell phone as it approaches the polygon on a map that's drawn around the wildlife management area. But then you lose them. Once they go inside the polygon, you can't track them, you can't see the person. So you don't know what tree somebody's standing behind or what hole they hunted at a particular day or how often they ran up and down the little by me and in their boat, didn't even hunt, they just ran around in their boat. You can't tell that now. And Luke Naylor made a good point that we don't we don't want to know all that. That's not data we need to have in our possession. And it makes total sense. But the discussion evolved into OK, maybe we draw additional polygons within the WMA so we can tell if somebody's going to upper value or if they went to Canyon Break or whatever piece within a particular WMA. Now we know where the concentration is. Not enough people are going into the walk-in area. We need more hunters doing that. There's so much data out there to get and to understand more. I think that'll be super valuable as you kind of sift through what's logical to do short term and then what is going to make sense as we collect more of this data and understand more about our hunter base. Maybe this is what we need to be doing. Because I'm fully convinced this is going to evolve. Whatever the commission decides to run with first won't be the thing we just do and that's it. I think it's going to evolve into several things to get management back on this pressure part within the WMAs. And to be clear, the public land hunter feels like they're being hammered on for causing the pressure issues within Arkansas. And that is not the case. Ten percent of the ground in the state is public. Private has pressure management issues as well. So I don't want those guys to feel like they're being picked on by any means. Because Cason and I both realize this pressure issue evolves way beyond just the WMA properties. But yeah, this data piece, I'm excited to see. And with the background technology, I can really appreciate it too. But I know how valuable that's gonna be for y'all.

Well, tying back in to what we mentioned earlier, just you saying the word habitat. And that's where just Game & Fish, our NGO partners like Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, hammering out that message to leaseholders, farmers, even timberland owners like where I'm at. You know, there's good duck habitat in South Arkansas, up and down that Washtow Bottoms. There's a lot more we can do to have good habitat here for when the ducks do get here. And unfortunately, either due to farming practices or ag practices, timber practices, we have lost a lot of good ground and a good habitat over the last 10 to 20 years. That is just not here. And I think it's just the ducks are getting pushed to fewer and fewer places. So it really is like a wheel that keeps turning faster and faster. And you can't get off of it. These ducks are getting forced more and more into tighter and tighter fewer spots. And the sports grow. And we won't growth. We want to see young people coming into this. As Philip mentioned, you know, we want to... The economics is good, always good for everybody. We want that to be prosperous. But it really, at the end of the day, habitat is where we're gonna, if we want to increase more opportunity for ducks, we got to do it with the habitat. And we just got to really keep... Unfortunately, we're losing some federal dollars. And right now, with some of the cutbacks, and we're gonna struggle more there. We're already talking about, at the commission level, ways that we can work to replace some of those dollars and incentivize people to create and hold that duck habitat. But that's one of the few things that can make a big difference.

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Cason, I would say right now, just best I could answer that, all options are on the table, and we certainly are not excluding anything. I would say the draw for me, that's the last lever you want to have to pull. If there are ways to work with days, small draw access to certain areas, I think certainly the more walk-in will help weed out some of the faint at heart. Those are levers that are going to be the first to push, pull, see how those work. You know, before we get into more of the whole out draw system.

Yeah. One interesting piece about, and I'm not advocating, so don't put somebody misconstrued this, but this is a thing to maybe honor, you know, the statement earlier about first and foremost, Arkansans. You know, if it was a, say it's a non-resident draw, and it had to be applied for in the pre-season, and you know by September 1st, whether you're going to get to come to Arkansas and hunt or not. One thing that that would do from a pressure standpoint, from a crowding standpoint is when, in this year's Black River was a perfect example for this, and this could be the Cache River in January, this could be Biometa in mid-January. But when the water shows up on the landscape and the ducks get here in a wave like we all love to see, that preseason draw for a non-resident would prevent everybody and their brother from hooking their boat up to their truck and descending on Arkansas. In other states, I mean, it'd be the same. Same thing if Kansas all of a sudden got a load of ducks and all of that. But have you all, have you thought about that at all and what that could impact? Because I'm sure the residents of Arkansas that like to hunt WMAs would sure like to not fight all that on the days that are going to be good. I mean, I know that, you know, there's some states that don't allow non-residents opening weekend. There's all kinds of little strategies out there. But that's going to really be a push-pull kind of thing, because non-residents, we've all said it, we're not anti-non-residents. They're welcome here. But, you know, juggling that is a, man, that's a tough chore.

Yeah. And I say that the answer is, again, back to, I think we will look at lots of options. That certainly could be, you know, and how that I mentioned even, you know, how the weekends can be utilized. More of our residents and the non-residents might be one of the options we look at. That certainly would come to play as, kind of along that line of, when do our Kansans use them the most? So if we have the ability to separate, again, we're already at a 30-day break. You know, we have 30 days that non-residents can't hunt the WMAs. But even with that, there's still lots of pressure. So within the next step, you know, are there some days at maybe the weekend that we have allowed only for Arkansas residents? So those are all being considered. You know, we'll just see what staff comes back with. Philip, you have any other thoughts?

Well, to Brent's question, it's a great one. And it speaks to the frustration that a lot of people are sharing in the WMAs. And I think we all have to be more broadly introspective here to kind of open the aperture and say, is this problem exclusively caused by out-of-staters? And clearly, it's not. You know, disturbance, as Brent, you and Cason have done a good job of talking to a lot of experts, and we hear more and more this disturbance is a big part of the problem. You know, loud motors, bigger parties, you know, more lethal ammunition and firearm weapons than ever before, all are contributing to this degrade of the quality of the experience. And I'd probably be remiss if I didn't throw one other thing in there, and that's the expectation of the hunter today. You know, I'm sorry, I've already referenced the old man viewpoint I have too many times, guys, but you know, we look back, and this fair pursuit was kind of, has always been kind of a game of chance. I think a lot of people have moderated and moved to an expectation that their harvest should be something every hunt, at limit levels, every occasion. It just isn't so. Maybe we've spoiled ourselves by society executing at such a high level. You know, you go to the grocery store, and if you only had chicken breast half the time, you'd be pretty darn disgusted, you know? Hey, that's what I came here for. That's my primary diet. You know, we've had such a level of service and execution in our society, and completion of the transaction or the desire, that maybe in some way the parameters of the outdoorsmen have changed too, where that just wasn't always the case. And, you know, we've got to also build that in there, that hunting isn't going to be a slam dunk, 100% yield every time. I think to Cason's point, you know, half duck populations dramatize that even more. So a whole lot to consider, but it's certainly not a spotlight exclusively on the out of state or in this problem.

Yeah, no, no, you're exactly right. It is not, they are not the root of all evil by any means. And I think that's a great point. Our expectations, you know, if you're thinking we're ever going to get back to something like 99, 2000, you're frankly delusional. I mean, those were record seasons, perfect storm, high duck populations, spinning wing decoys, all that. And you got to understand the variability in mallard populations. I think the average is around 7-something million, you know, as far as a B-pop goes. And we had huge spikes. The problem is those spikes were about, you know, six or about seven, eight years ago. And now we're on this decline and we can't quite seem to get a good uptick. And so people are reflecting back in their short-term memory to that time thinking, man, ducks were everywhere and now they're not. And we're seeing all kinds of things on the landscape. And the other slippery slope for y'all is finding something that's going to, I mean, you know this, you've done enough rules and regulations in both your times on the commission. You can't make everybody happy because the guy that likes to hunt nowadays, he avoids the WMA on the weekends because it's crowded. So he hunts during the week because he has a job that allows him to do so, which that's a lot of people nowadays. Post-COVID, all kinds of flexibility with work. Well, those guys are going to struggle with now you're putting all the non-residents, when I like to go hunt, when typically in the past it wasn't as crowded, and now you're dumping them on me. Then you got the National Wildlife Refuge guys that like to hunt. Well, now you're sending all those guys over to me because they can't hunt on the WMA on the weekend. So hopefully between the data, some networking and understanding from the hunting community about what's going on, that you're laying on something that this is the best pass forward for what we have today. And then we'll shape shift as we need to because I think that's what's going to evolve to.

I agree, Brent. And again, I really think, and Philip made a great point, it's not just non-resident numbers that increase, that puts pressure on the WMAs. It's overall just numbers in general, both resident-like. And I think this charge we've asked staff to do on more limited boating access will help pull some of that pressure back a little bit, disperse it more. You know, if you're not in pretty good shape, you're not going to do a mile and a mile and a half walk. We've got a good WMA in Southeast Arkansas, Cut-Off Creek. It's a walk-in only. Had good success this year. And it stayed successful with a lot of pressure. Because the Ducks are around. And totally, I think it really was due to we didn't have boats. You know, that one factor is a big difference in any comparison with any other WMA. And the Ducks just didn't leave. And so staff will be looking hard at that. That certainly wouldn't come in until, you know, the 20, 26, 27 season potential before they would have any analysis on more walk-ins. But that kind of helps filter both the resident and non-resident. Everybody's eating off the same plate on that deal. And we're not going to have near as much loud action in there. You know, one other thing that we've talked about, you know, if you're caught in a WMA, acting up with fighting and you're caught doing that, you're going to lose your privileges. I think we're going to probably look at some action to take, to, you know, getting up in a WMA is not a right but a privilege. It is a privilege that if you can't behave inside those things, caught fighting and in fighting, you know, you could lose that right for a while until you can come in and behave better.

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JD, I'm glad you brought that up. That was actually going to be my next question. So I'll pivot a little bit on that. In terms of the fighting, that's a pretty easy thing to define, right? We've seen, unfortunately, we've seen the videos. We know what goes on. But how would we or could we address or should we address? You see some of these videos where people are coming into the state to participate in the show, if you will, you know, the whole, everything that's bad about it right now, you know, be it boat racing or just general borderline reckless behavior. I'm sure you guys have seen some of these videos. What can be done to kind of turn the tide on that?

Oh, talk about asking a tough question. You know, from our standpoint, it's hard to regulate sometimes some of the craziness that I guess she would do in behavior. So, you know, it's really got to come more from, you know, just working too with a lot of our partners, our advertisers that, you know, are advertising outdoor gear, hammering in that message about, you know, being good stewards, conservation, being responsible, you know, ethical. Neighborly, friendly, all those kinds of messaging things that, you know, we would hope to instill in our hunters. You know, it's not going to come from the codebook, I promise. I'm not going to be able to get that across to them. But social media, you know, the post and things that continue to promote good behavior and how to utilize a whole, what to do? We ought to have a what to do if somebody's in your spot. You know, how do you go find another spot? Do you say hello? And would you mind if I join you? But if not, okay, y'all. You know, there's some interaction the right way that maybe we could model up, put out there. But that's a tough question.

Well, it may be a tough question, but I'll say you handled it very well. And I really I couldn't agree more. You can't legislate morality. It's just not possible. And so oftentimes, the videos and the stuff that services, it's difficult to find an actual infraction in the video. I mean, you can look at it and say, yeah, that's not right. They shouldn't be doing that. But it's much harder to find a sightable offense. And I think you're right. It really comes down to, you know, some of these brands and messaging and Brent, I mean, we've beat this horse to death on the podcast, but that comes back to us as hunters. And really, you know, that was the start of our show here for Brent and I, was that the culture of duck hunting is degrading a little bit. And we really want to focus on what it means to be a sportsman. And I think to your point, that's exactly where we need to focus those efforts in terms of general behavior in the hunting space.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting from, I don't know if y'all saw it, but Cason had sent this around. It was a few weeks ago, and it's made a lot of headlines. But we had the, I don't know if you saw the fishing guide in Florida that boarded the kids' boat, and first screamed at him for 30 minutes across the bay. But then he somehow got his buddies to pull him up and he boarded the kids' boat. And so obviously it was filmed, made it to social media, and they arrested the guy a couple days later. I don't know the jurisdictions and legalities of all that, but you see these fight videos in the WMAs at the boat ramp, some of this ridiculous behavior. And it would be awesome if you could do what Florida did. And okay, we've identified this guy, we see doing this, and we find him a week later, and he gets arrested or he gets license revoked or he gets no more WMA permission for a year, or whatever it is. I mean, it's gotta be pretty stiff penalties on what you do get caught on. Of course, there's a ton of things, Game Warden will never see that go on, and we're all realistic about that. But I always thought that was an interesting case when that happened a couple weeks ago in comparison to some of this garbage you see going on in our WMAs with Duck Honey, because it's really branded Arkansas poorly. I mean, I know the kids kind of like it and think it's hilarious, and man, this is cool about duck hunting, but in the grand scheme of things, it's really not. It's a really poor reflection on our brand.

Sure. I would say too, back to what I first said, really it's going to be a physical altercation. If fire enforcement is called in, or if a local sheriff is called out, and then later we follow up and find out there was a fight in a fishing parking lot, or I mean in the boat ramp of the WMA, or the out in the duck blind, or the duck hole in actual, we've had cases of people taking boat paddles to folks to jumping in their boats, to slapping them around, dunking them underwater, you name it. And those individuals, yeah, they're going to lose hunting time in the WMA.

Yeah, I would hope so.

Well, guys, I appreciate your time so far today. We've covered a lot of tough topics, if you will. Is there anything that either of you would like to add before we wrap up?

Cason, I again appreciate getting to be with y'all today on the show. Again, I'm not far from leaving this position as a commissioner, and Commissioner Tappan and the other commissioners that will be carrying on are just as committed to ensuring our resources are taken well care of, that our Kensins are taken care of, that we manage all of our hunters best we can, keep them safe, and that we promote better habitat. That's one of our key pillars of our natural state tomorrow is the habitat side, and that we launched under Director Booth here just four years ago. And duck habitat is critical going forward. So, my last parting words are again encouraging all the listeners to, if you want to give back, give the habitat. Whether it's through DU, the Prairie Pothole level, and a lot of dollars go up there, Delta Waterfowl, same thing. A lot of work goes on up there that really promotes duck hatching and duck nesting habitat. And then back home, do it here. We're going to continue to do volunteer projects in the WMAs. We started this in the last couple of years where we asked for folks to come in. They can come in, cut logs out of the boat lanes, help do some things. You know, we certainly are going to continue to work with what monies we have available to continue our WRICE program. That's where we lease farm ground from farmers and then have it back available for public land hunting opportunity. It's been hugely popular, well received. Would love to do more of it. Certainly that's putting habitat back on the ground because those farmers have to leave that water on the property. What is it, Philip, till the end of February?

That's right.

So, you know, it really, those are great programs. And then people can do it on their own, too. And so that's my parting words is again, back to the habitat, habitat, habitat. We want to see that those numbers go up. That's certainly going to help and make more available here when a duck does make it to good old natural state Arkansas. Philip?

Cason, and we appreciate you and Brent, what you do for this industry. You know, I kind of reckon back to the old advice of my grandfather who said, son, there's two types of people in this world. Generally, there's leaners and lifters. And in the natural resource community, I've kind of adapted that a little differently to say, there's consumers and producers. And, you know, you and Cason, you and Brent are definitely producers. You put back more into this resource than you take out. Doesn't mean we have to be exclusively one side or the other, but how are we adding back to the resource? You know, whether it be through working for our NGOs that raise money to put Habitat aside, whether it's on your own ground and land to try to put out more Duck Energy Days or more resources for the game, or advocating for, you know, strengthen rules and conformity. You just, we've got to have a society that believes we need to put back more than we consume, or there will not be anything to consume for the future. And, you know, I really believe that more now than ever before, because of the loss of acres of Habitat, because of just consumptive, you know, beliefs and practices by some people, because of our effective weapons and our resources that get us to the hunting spots better than ever, and our clothing that allows us to stay there longer than ever before. We've got to have more producers than we do consumers. And Cason, you, Brent, you guys have been very important to us in the Game & Fish arena from being advisors and consultants. And we appreciate what you do out there to talk to the general public and keep them informed and encourage them for working for a brighter future.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, we obviously both appreciate those words. And yeah, I mean, but between the two of us and just like y'all, there's a there's a ton of passion for this sport, you know, this state and what it is. And I think sometimes people take some of the things we say and talk about maybe a little bit out of context and don't really understand. You're probably not going to find two two guys. You might find guys that are equally passionate about Ducks and everything associated with them, but you'd be hard pressed to find somebody more. And so, yeah, we are very honored and appreciative of the roles we get to play and try to play. And obviously, always here willing to help wherever we can. So it's definitely an open door policy. I know JD is about to roll out of this deal, but Philip's got, you know, a handful more years left and new commissioners will be coming on and new topics will be coming up and just know you got an open door or any time you want to reach, you know, an audience that's spread pretty far and wide and some spend time here in Arkansas and some don't. But it's a good message because from our seat, we're supposed to be the leader as far as it comes to waterfowl. And I know we talked about turkeys today. I know y'all got CWD on your plate with deer and all that. But yeah, it's a good opportunity whenever y'all do want to reach somebody beyond your normal channels. The door is always open. And we obviously respect the seats y'all have to sit in because there's no way it's easy to be a commissioner. Not in this state, that's for sure, because we're blessed with so many different wild animals to chase and all the things that go along with that. And I truly do respect y'all willing to serve in that role and handle all the things you handle.

Well, I appreciate those words. And I just echo what Philip said. We thank y'all for what you do. You really help get the word out to a large audience. And hopefully, those out listening today will know that conservation is funded by our license, by our ammunition that we buy. It's the sportsmen and women that fund the conservation model of today in so many ways. And then, of course, our charitable giving and then work that we do on Habitat, it's just every little thing counts. We've got to continue to reach our youth. And it is an honor and has been an honor to serve as a commissioner. It's a servant role. And the governor will appoint somebody here in just a couple of months. And I'll hand off the baton and get off the train, as you will. And the train keeps moving. The train being the work of the agency and its mission to preserve and protect the natural resources of this state.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome stuff. Awesome stuff. And yeah, if the listeners got two more minutes and hadn't checked out yet, go back and listen to what Philip said about, you know, you got to be a giver. You got to give something back. And that's something Cason and I are real adamant about, that there's a lot of take in this sport or in all pursuits of wildlife. And there's got to be more get back. So that's a great message to kind of wrap up on. So yeah, I appreciate everybody listening. I hope you spread the word on this particular show and let your friends listen to it. You got feedback on some of the topics. Don't hesitate to let us know. And we'll check you next time. Thanks.

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