Waterfowler Lanier Brown and Arkansas Sportsman editor Patrick Hogan enjoy the benefits of hunting DeWitt's green timber. Photo by James Joslin.

There's little doubt that Stuttgart is universally regarded as "The Rice & Duck Capital of the World"; to dispute its title would truly be pointless.

Growing up in the shadows of the city, just up U.S. Route 165, I took for granted the ducks seasons of my youth and the events associated with them, such as the Wings Over The Prairie Festival and The World's Championship Duck Calling Contest held yearly in rice-crazy Stuttgart. But as I matured I began to realize what Stuttgart and its surrounding fields and green timber mean to duck hunters across the nation and even the world.

While I was serving as sports editor for The Daily Leader in Stuttgart, I overheard some of the festival crowd, out-of-towners from the Carolinas, exclaim: "Man, I can't believe it. We are here -- in Stuttgart, Arkansas."

While Stuttgart is the epicenter of the camo-clad, wader-wearing community, several other Arkansas cities can boast prime duck hunting action. Even in a bad year, the Natural State's duck hunters still are usually first or second in the nation in harvest numbers for mallards and a handful of other species.

Now think for a minute: Even before the first European settlers gazed across the landscape of what would eventually become Arkansas, its rivers had already served for centuries as travel corridors for the annual migration of ducks along the Mississippi Flyway and the eastern edge of the Central Flyway. Humans -- prehistoric and historic Native Americans, as well as the encroaching Europeans -- were attached to the rivers for what these waters offered: food, water, travel, commerce. It comes as no surprise that many towns popped up along and near those waterways.

It is because of these communities' proximity to those rivers, their backwater bottomlands and the fertile farming grounds that these "duck towns" and nearby public hunting grounds provide can't-miss prospects at some point during the season for Arkansas' waterfowl wingshooters.

Steve Bowman, a duck hunter and duck caller not tied to any specific region of Arkansas, has pursued his quarry for decades, visiting in the process virtually every pothole, slough and flooded field in the state in his search for any opportunity to take a greenhead or goldeneye.

Over the years, he has turned his love for the outdoors into an occupation, first as a newspaper and magazine writer and photographer and then as a member of a major television production company that specializes in outdoors programming.

So, figuring that the papers on this dog made it look like a surefire champion retriever, I got in touch with Steve Bowman so he could give his slant on some of Arkansas' other great duck towns. Here goes.

BRINKLEY
"This is definitely a duck hunting town," Bowman said. "It's close to the confluence of the White and Cache rivers on the Grand Prairie, so rice is plentiful. I would almost characterize this as 'Stuttgart East.'"

While field and reservoir hunting are both readily available on Brinkley area farms, some of the area's hottest action can sometimes be found at Dagmar WMA. "Some of the best duck hunting in the world takes place at Dagmar WMA when the White River gets high," Bowman said. "It's not an every year thing, but when it happens, it's unbelievable."

Other public hunting lands in this area of east-central Arkansas include the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge and Rex Hancock Black Swamp WMA.