For decades, the flooded green-timber reservoirs of east Arkansas have attracted duck hunters from across the country. They still do.

"The flooded timber of Arkansas is as famous in the world of duck hunting as it is unique and plentiful," writes Brent Birch, an authority on the history of duck hunting in the state. "There are pockets of hunting ducks under a canopy of flooded oak trees in other states, but no place on Earth compares to the opportunities in Arkansas--not only through the famed private clubs but also state-managed public lands such as Bayou Meto, Black River, Hurricane Lake, Black Swamp and Bayou DeView.

"Waterfowlers near and far have traveled to Arkansas since the early 20th century in hopes of timing their trip right to catch mallards maple leafing through the limbs and leaves of Arkansas' flooded bottomland forests. Mallards come to these areas not only in search of food via red oak acorns and invertebrates but also for refuge and overhead thermal cover. Typically chasing the edge of the floodwaters, mallards will inhabit flooded timber on clear days with abundant sunshine."

In the early 1900s, rice producers began building reservoirs for irrigation purposes. The timber often was left in those reservoirs, and hunters soon noticed that ducks liked the flooded timber. After trees in reservoirs died, water from them was used to flood adjoining stands of hardwoods each duck season.

One of the first large reservoirs was Tindall Reservoir in Arkansas County.

"Ducks claw at the sky as every square inch of the timber hole seems to be filled with green heads, white breasts, yellow bills and orange feet," T. Edward Nickens writes for Ducks Unlimited. "This is the scene so many duck hunters yearn for: ducks in the timber and ducks in your face. It's an iconic form of waterfowling, which is experienced in perhaps its highest form in the massive, primeval bottomland forests of Arkansas. That's where I watched 50 mallards funnel into a timber hole hardly 50 feet across.

"And it's where I've returned time and again to relive that scene, that feeling of incredulous awe on public lands, on private leases, with guides and outfitters, and with family and friends. Arkansas is where I want my kids and their kids to stand in water up to their knees and look up at a providential sky full of mallards. But that's not a given. In fact, it's getting harder to come by. Thankfully, habitat managers, duck hunters and other conservationists are doing something about it.

"Arkansas' storied green-timber duck hunting heritage is at a crossroads. To put it plainly, the human-manipulated flooded forests that have sustained a half century of waterfowling's finest flooded timber duck hunting are dying. Through a combination of natural and manmade factors, the woods are being flooded earlier and are holding more water for longer periods of time than ever before. The result is vast swaths of trees with anemic crowns and leafless branches; trees that have rotted, weakened root systems and blow over in storms; the slow, inexorable creep of water-tolerant species that offer little food for ducks; and low regeneration."

Birch explains Tindall this way: "Lying roughly three miles west of Mill Bayou along Elm Prong Mill Bayou, Tindall Reservoir serves as a major magnet for ducks and geese in the area. The original reservoir occupied 450 acres with additional acreage added over time. It features a western edge of buckbrush and willows. The eastern two-thirds is essentially wide open with sporadic timber patches. Most of the trees that once covered the reservoir died in the early days due to the year-round presence of water inside the levees.

"The water typically stays shallow in the hardpan basin and is a rusty brown color that's unusual for the Grand Prairie. For nearly a century, ducks have been descending on the reservoir from rice fields that surround the leveed lake. J. Roy Stockton noted the volume of ducks huddled up on Tindall Reservoir on a hunt there in 1931 on the invite of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Henry 'Heine' Meine."

Stockton wrote: "The duck hunting season in Arkansas opened Monday, Nov. 16, at noon, and Heine Meine's gunner arrived at Tindall's Lake about 11:30. As the automobiles stopped at the point selected for entry into the shooting grounds, a great roar could be heard in the swamp. 'Do you all want to see some ducks?' Constable B.C. Glover of Stuttgart drawled. The gunners allowed as how they did, and Glover clapped his hands. Up went a cloud of birds a few hundred yards away. He clapped again, and there was another whir of wings as another swarm took flight and moved a few hundred feet, only to settle in the swamp again. The first shot was fired at 12:15."

Nickens says ensuring the future of green-tree hunting "won't be easy, and it won't come quickly." Arkansas duck hunting experts agree.

"Scientists and land managers across the region known for these habitats--Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana and beyond-- are already setting their sights on a healthy future for these wetland treasures," Nickens writes. "Stemming the loss of these flooded forests means making them more resilient to the vagaries of climate change and shifting rainfall patterns. It involves changing how long managers keep green-tree reservoirs flooded and how they move water through the woods. And it will require a shift in hunters' expectations.

"Already a multiyear effort has commenced to replumb these hunting areas. The goal is as simple as achieving it will be complex: ensuring that hunters 50 years from now will have a shot at making flooded-timber memories. Here's the problem in a nutshell: for millennia, the bottomland forests of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley flooded seasonally with fall and winter rains. Migrating and wintering ducks flocked to the wet woods to feast on acorns. It was a natural system, with enormous variability.

"Some years there was lots of water. Some years it was dry. Birds moved to where food was available, keying on flooded woods where the water was a foot or less deep, where they could dabble for acorns, seeds and invertebrates. Red oak species such as Nuttall and willow oaks, whose small acorns fit easily down a mallard's gullet, thrived in woods that flooded during their dormant periods in winter and early spring. The woods dried out during the summer and fall."

Vern Tindall created his reservoir in 1926.

"His idea was to hold irrigation water for farming, but the flooded timber sucked ducks out of the sky," Nickens writes. "This was likely the first green-tree reservoir built in Arkansas, but it was hardly the last. The rise of rice planting in the 1930s and 1940s saw thousands of acres of bottomlands converted into reservoirs designed to hold water for farming and fowl. Duck numbers were phenomenal, prompting the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and private landowners to buy up large tracts of bottomland forests.

"Extensive systems of levees, water-control structures and connecting ditches plumbed the woods. Timber was flooded in time for opening day of duck season, and water was held until the last of the hunters packed up their waders months later. These managed impoundments included such soon-to-be famous areas as Bayou Meto, Wingmead and Claypool's Reservoir. Freelance hunters relished access to publicly owned and managed properties. Guides, lodges and private duck clubs pumped millions into local economies."

Arkansas has tens of thousands of acres under green-tree management. Nickens calls it a "world-class treasury of public waterfowl hunting and habitat."

"The problem is that the trees most beneficial to ducks simply can't tolerate having their feet wet for too long, especially when there are still leaves on the trees," he writes. "To provide hunting opportunities early in duck season, public land managers have been under pressure to begin flooding before many trees are dormant."

On the other end of the spectrum, says Scott Manley, director of conservation programs in DU's Southern Region, "we had years of record rainfall that extended the winter floods. So there was more and more water for longer periods of time, and the forests just couldn't handle that.

"As a result, Nuttall and willow oaks are dying off and being replaced by water-tolerant species such as green ash and overcup oak, which don't provide the forage needed by migrating waterfowl. Consider the 65,000-acre Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Arkansas, home of the world's largest green-tree reservoir. In 1990, three-quarters of the primary tree species in the flooded Felsenthal woods were in good condition, but that wouldn't last.

"Refuge managers and researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a forest health assessment in 2014 that found 40 percent of the willow oaks had already likely suffered irreversible damage and only 18 percent remained in healthy condition. Red oaks in most of Arkansas' green-tree reservoirs are showing similar stress."

Arkansas is home to 29 native species of oaks as well as non-native species that were introduced to the state. The variety of acorns they produce is diverse. For instance, the overcup acorn, with its cap, is usually too large and difficult for ducks to swallow. Smaller acorns with small caps are preferred by ducks.

According to an AGFC report on conserving Arkansas' flooded-timber hunting legacy: "The sight of mallards falling through the trees in Arkansas' flooded timber is a magical experience for duck hunters. At the turn of the 20th century, the Delta and other river floodplains boasted more than five million acres of bottomland hardwood forests. These forests regularly flooded with shallow water during winter and attracted migrating and wintering ducks, especially mallards and wood ducks. Abundant acorns, seeds and wetland insects offered a banquet for ducks.

"Changes in land and water use eventually destroyed or degraded more than 60 percent of this amazing bottomland ecosystem in Arkansas. In a lucky coincidence, rice farmers accidentally created surrogates for these forests by building irrigation reservoirs in uncleared stands of trees. These green-tree reservoirs (GTRs) became common sights in the state. By the 1950s, their construction shifted from a water-storage purpose to that of providing habitat and duck hunting opportunities. GTRs became a staple of duck hunting habitat on private duck clubs as well as wildlife management areas owned by AGFC."

The report makes clear that the years haven't been kind to Arkansas GTRs.

"Flooding that favors duck season dates over the natural timing and frequency of flooding in bottomland hardwoods has slowly changed forest composition and health," the report states. "In some cases, these changes have caused the loss of this valuable habitat and hunting opportunity. Scientific information gained during the past few decades encourages a more natural and sustainable management philosophy for GTRs. AGFC is preparing a bright future for GTRs using this new information, but it will mean changes to flooding patterns to which hunters have become accustomed."

In state wildlife management areas across Arkansas, AGFC personnel are removing low-grade timber and holding water for shorter periods of time.

"By harvesting low-grade timber and opening the forest canopy, sunlight is able to reach the ground and give the tree species most beneficial to ducks, such as Nuttall and willow oak, a chance to regenerate," the report says. "Not intentionally holding water in these areas allows young red oak trees to survive and grow, creating the foundation for the next generation of bottomland hardwood forest on AGFC's public hunting lands."

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