ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN : Guides apparently finding way around WMA ban
Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Sports/220626/
Duck hunting guides are lobbying the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to allow them to do business again on the state’s wildlife management areas.
The commission doesn’t seem inclined to grant the request, but it would validate what some of them are already doing on the sly. At a recent public meeting in Russellville, for example, one fellow who identified himself several times as a professional guide bragged openly about all the hunts he guided in Bayou Meto last season.
At the insistence of former commissioner Sheffield Nelson, the AGFC banned guides from WMAs in 2001 due to an outpouring of complaints from Arkansas resident hunters. Nelson said the ban was necessary because nonresident hunters using local guides had taken over the AGFC’s green timber reservoirs and displaced resident hunters.
Nelson recently wrote a letter to the commission saying that large numbers of out-of-state hunters “wreaked havoc” with resident hunters at WMAs this year, especially at Bayou Meto.
“These people are … dominating the prime hunting areas, and in many cases, doing so with individuals who are former guides who we booted off these areas a number of years ago,” Nelson wrote.
On Wednesday, Capt. Jason Whitehead of the AGFC’s law enforcement division told the commission that guides are operating on WMAs again, but the AGFC doesn’t have enough evidence to convict them.
Here’s one way they’re doing it. Nonresident duck hunters book reservations at a lodge or club. The high price covers food, lodging and guided duck hunts in private fields. As a bonus, they also get “free” guided hunts at a WMA. Whitehead said there are even examples of chartered fishing trips packaged with “free” guided hunts on Arkansas WMAs.
“We are aware that certain professional guides were operating on Bayou Meto,” Whitehead said. “We began documenting what we could, who was hunting with whom, what states they were from, but the prosecuting attorney said we couldn’t prove anyone was guiding. We had reasonable suspicion, but not probable cause or overwhelming circumstantial evidence. We have to see money change hands, some sort of consideration, but our covert efforts have failed. These people are smart, and they know what to look for.”
Meanwhile, the same problems have emerged. Whitehead said nonresident hunting parties accompanied by guides have taken over prime hunting areas. Skybusting has increased, as have arguments, fistfights and even shootings.
“One thing leads to another, and pretty soon steel flies across the water,” Whitehead said.
He also said AGFC wildlife officers have seen several hunters at access areas with facial wounds caused by steel shot.
To thwart this problem, Nelson suggested the AGFC require nonresidents to apply for permits to hunt on WMAs. Not just a permit to access a specific area, but to access a specific WMA on a specific day. It’s the same method the AGFC effectively uses for deer and turkey hunts on many WMAs.
That would enable the AGFC to specify the exact number of nonresidents allowed on a WMA on a given day. This would alleviate most conflicts with resident hunters. It would also eliminate clandestine guiding because nonresidents would be unwilling to risk getting caught on a WMA without a permit.
Critics might argue that nonresidents need guides to keep from getting lost in large expanses of flooded timber. They might also argue that regulating nonresident access to WMAs will discourage nonresident duck hunters from visiting Arkansas, depriving rural communities of much-needed income.
On the contrary, the promise of a higher-quality hunting experience would make these nonresident permits highly coveted. Nonresident hunting traffic would doubtless decrease, but that would benefit ducks. Sometimes we forget that WMAs are intended as wildlife habitat, and that hunting is a prescribed tool to manage that wildlife. No conservation-minded hunter considers ducks as products or market commodities, but that’s what they are when you reduce them to an economic stimulant.
And, with modern navigational tools like GPS, there is really no excuse for getting lost in the woods anymore.
Also, readmitting guides to WMAs would trigger a predictable continuum. Guides will invite someone from the Outdoor Channel in to do shows about green timber hunting in an Arkansas WMA, and the floodgates will open even wider.
Unregulated access is incompatible with effective wildlife management. If the AGFC can reduce pressure on WMAs and improve the hunting experience for resident hunters, then maybe it should.