Great weather for ducks is what Little Rock waterfowler Chick Luten found at Rex Hancock/Black Swamp WMA. A little rain didn't hurt his hunting at all! Photo by Keith Sutton.

When my friend, Sammie Faulk, visited to hunt ducks with me in the east Arkansas Delta last year, he was constantly studying to learn more about the area. While examining a map of public-hunting areas one evening, he asked, "Who are these people?"

"What people?" I replied.

"Henry Gray, Rex Hancock, Dave Donaldson, Earl Buss, Steve Wilson -- the people your management areas are named for. Who were they?"

It's a good question. The areas named for these men are among our nation's best-known and most productive duck-hunting grounds. But many waterfowlers are unacquainted with the conservationists whose names have become synonymous with these blue-ribbon hunting areas. Had it not been for the lifelong dedication of these far-sighted individuals, some of those places open to the public for hunting might have been open for mall shopping instead.

It seems fitting then, as we look at some places where you can expect to find good duck hunting this season, that we learn a bit about these honored namesakes as well. They gave us a legacy of public duck hunting that is unexcelled, and for that, they deserve our remembrance.

DAVE DONALDSON/BLACK RIVER WMA
In 1957, the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission began purchasing bottomlands along the Black River in Clay, Randolph and Greene counties to protect important wintering habitat for ducks. During the 1960s and most of the '70s, these lands were known simply as Black River Wildlife Management Area. But in 1977, the commission voted to rename the area to honor Dave Donaldson of Paragould who worked more than 30 years as a state waterfowl biologist. When the Arkansas Wildlife Federation gave Donaldson its Conservation Achieve­ment Award in 1974, it said Donaldson "has been at the business of trying to preserve habitat for over a quarter of a century, and has kept at it, which, in view of the severe obstacles, is something of a record. We are glad to recognize him for his many years of effort in the preservation of these waterfowl resources."

With 25,000 acres of prime duck habitat open to public hunting, Donaldson WMA qualifies as the public duck-hunting capitol of the northeast Delta. A 17-mile system of levees, pipes and stoplog structures assist the Black River and Little River in flooding half the heavily wooded area each fall. That in turn attracts tens of thousands of mallards, wood ducks and other waterfowl.

The WMA is divided into three compartments, all of which can provide spectacular hunting opportunities. Little River Island on the east end of the area is popular with walk-in hunters who find access from Hubble Bridge near the area headquarters off Highway 280. The Reyno side compartment is on the north side of the area with access from Highway 67. The Lower Area is best accessed via the Black River off Highway 280 at Brookings.

Ducks are hard to see in tall timber and can be on top of you before you ever realize they're near. You must decide in a split second if they're within range, if they're going to decoy, or if they should be taken on the pass. You'd probably kill more if you stuck to pass-shooting exclusively, even though it's tricky to track, lead and shoot a bird in the scant seconds before it's swallowed up in the maze of branches. Too often mallards that appear to be decoying circle and circle, and then disappear over the treetops when they spot something out of place. But resisting shots holds a special reward. Few sights in the sport of hunting are as memorable as a flock of ducks skimming the winter-bare treetops, wings cupped in classic fashion, as they drop from the sky into a flooded forest.