They come from the North, in dribs and drabs at first, starting as early as mid-August. From Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Dakotas and elsewhere, they start southward according to their own species' timetable down the Mississippi Flyway: blue-winged teal first, and then gadwalls, widgeon, pintails and greenwings, and finally mallards.

The farther south they come, the narrower their flight lanes. Migration routes merge, and merge again. On a map, the overall migration pattern resembles a giant tree, with its uppermost branches in the boreal forests of Canada and its roots in the Gulf of Mexico. Along its trunk, where the three largest branches collide, lies the Grand Prairie of Arkansas, near the confluence of the White, the Arkansas and the mighty Mississippi itself.

That's why the Stuttgart Chamber of Commerce can bill its town as the Duck Capital of the World -- because of the happy geological coincidence that made those three major rivers and several smaller ones come together within a short distance of the Grand Prairie. The ducks migrate along the waterways, and the waterways lead to the Grand Prairie. This great grain basket, surrounded as it is by hundreds of thousands of acres of public and private bottomland hardwoods, has everything wintering ducks need -- water, food, shallow feeding and resting areas. If you're a mallard, you name it, and you can find it around Stuttgart.

If you're a mallard hunter, you can find it here, too. Given adequate rainfall, thousands of acres of bottomland hardwoods are flooded by Thanksgiving, and even in dry years, surface water abounds in the form of reservoirs, riverbottom lakes and duck clubs who pump their woods full rather than relying on Mother Nature to do the job.

In dry years, public-land hunters find slim pickings in the Stuttgart area because the public areas are too large to flood by pumping. But when there's enough rainfall to flood the public areas (it may not happen by Thanksgiving, but almost always by Christmas,) the Stuttgart area lives up to its reputation as the duck hunter's Avalon. For the best public green-timber duck hunting in the world, look no farther. The duck stops here.

There's no "prime time" to hunt Stuttgart. If the flood is on, early-season hunting can be fantastic, but then, so is late-season hunting. There are tradeoffs at both ends: Early, you face the possibility of low or no water; late, there's the potential for freeze-up. Within these extremes, though, there's a lot of room for good things to happen.

If you hanker to sample the public green-timber hunting here, the advice from this corner is to travel light. In general, waterfowl hunting is equipment-intensive, but hunting mallards in green timber is not.

For one thing, you probably won't need decoys. Carry a sack or two if you want, but mobility is one of the keys to success in the green timber. The ducks may be working the timber a half-mile from your setup, in which case you'l need to move -- and move quickly. Having to pick up and then lug a double dozen decoys is going to slow you down. And the ducks can't see them that well in the timber, anyway.