DBB, WMAs Create ‘Arklahoma’ Roosts

STIGLER, Okla. – Hurricane Ike threw a change-up of warm and rainy weather on Sept. 13, the opening day of Oklahoma’s Teal season. That drove the Teal away, but didn’t dampen enthusiasm for this year’s duck season at Dux, Bux & Bax LLC — a 1,150-acre exclusive hunting preserve north of Stigler, Okla.

The club, which owns 2.5 miles of shore along the Canadian River, is one of a growing number of havens surrounding the Ozark foothills that are preventing area waterfowlers from having to migrate east for duck season.

DBB has seven owners, six of whom are University of Arkansas alumni including two former Razorbacks baseball pitchers turned executives in Bill Bakewell (1977-79) and Dan Wright (1997-99). Their crew, plus six additional club members, primarily call Northwest Arkansas home.

DBB has enjoyed multiple years of “limit-out” duck seasons, sharing stewardship of natural habitats and focusing — unlike many hunting getaways — on enjoying more wildlife than wildness.

The one thing the brethren at DBB don’t share is the need to drive five hours for decent duck hunting in the celebrated Mississippi Flyway.

A mere 1 hour and 45 minutes southwest of Fayetteville, DBB has a 1.25-mile boundary with the 20,800-acre Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. Near the confluence of the Arkansas and Canadian rivers, DBB’s river bottoms offer natural and managed food plots that make it a waterfowl oasis for the Central Flyway.

Duane Davis, a co-owner at DBB and vice president of sales with The Packaging Group Inc. in Fayetteville, said during the last several years the “Arklahoma” waterfowl basin has had as many ducks as east Arkansas.

“We may not get 40 on one hunt like you might over there,” Davis said. “But we seem to kill ducks every time we go out. In the Delta, it can be all or nothing, but we seem to do well consistently.”

No Pressure

Private club proliferation, plus emerging public hunting regionally, have some experts like well-known outfitter and guide Mark Gottula saying east Oklahoma already rivals the Arkansas Delta.

Gottula, co-owner of Wings in Flight Outdoors LLC in Owasso, Okla., brings 20 years of guiding experience plus an extensive network of scouts who share information across eastern Oklahoma.

“We have guys from South Carolina and Chicago who used to hunt Arkansas but now like Oklahoma better,” said Gottula, who grew up in Yellville. “Arkansas waterfowling has gotten so commercialized and pricey, but we can get you on lots of public land in Oklahoma that helps you hunt cheaper. And last year we hunted a field with 40,000 ducks and geese in it.

“Clients are shocked at how little pressure (hunter crowding) there is, although the rise in harvest here is partly due to increasing interest.”

Kevin Lynch is an assistant regional wildlife supervisor with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission in Fort Smith. He said the $850,000, 790-acre Frog Bayou Wildlife Management Area restoration project south of Dyer has been a boon to Arkansas’ public hunting. Gottula cited up to 10 WMAs in eastern Oklahoma where ducks have been plentiful.

According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s 2008 Migratory Waterfowl Report, the overall waterfowl harvest for Arkansas was down nearly 2.9 percent from about 1.14 million birds in 2006 to 1.11 million in 2007 (see chart).

During the same time, Oklahoma’s waterfowl harvest was up 51.5 percent from 302,400 to 458,000. Even five years ago, Arkansas’ number was down 19 percent for 2002 while Oklahoma’s was up 13 percent. The years in between were similar.

Overall, Arkansas’ annual harvest is still much larger. The migratory bird belt along the southeast sliver of Oklahoma simply provides western Arkansans a viable option.

Lucky Ducks

Bakewell, president of Bakewell Chemical Co. in Springdale, laughs at the story of how DBB was acquired. A dozen buddies in 2002 leased 3,500 acres to hunt near Stigler from legendary Razorbacks track Coach John McDonnell, who runs a cattle ranch here. The drought was brutal that year.

“We all kept watching a ton of ducks going across the river from us to where there must have been some water, but we never heard anyone shooting over there,” Bakewell said.

That spring, DBB co-owner Dr. Joe Ross, a physician in Springdale, stumbled onto an ad for “more than 1,000 acres of hunting land” listed at $350,000. It was near Stigler, and when Ross figured out it was the land they had coveted, he negotiated to $312,000 and pulled the trigger.

A culled down group of investors chipped in, and today the club’s owners include Bakewell, Wright, Davis, Ross, Jack Butt, Dr. Wayne Brooks and Will Houston.

It turned out the spread was a pre-existing, albeit seldom used, hunting club owned in part by executives at Southern Steel & Wire Co. in Fort Smith.

The DBBers inherited a barn and a lot of infrastructure such as a system of roads, levees and flood channels with control valves. The setup basically allows the club to manage the water supply to its hundreds of acres of Milo, millet and wheat.

Eventually, Bakewell said, DBB will use its food plots for waterfowl roosts and primarily just hunt along the river.

A 1,300-SF cabin that sleeps 10 was added, and there are accommodations for two more “snorers” in the barn.

DBB today is flush with ducks, deer, wild hogs, quail, geese, dove, beavers and even the occasional badger. Fishing for catfish, white bass, Kentuckies and crappie is particularly good.

In five years, DBB has endured extremes of drought and rain although Bakewell and Wright said nothing beats the ice storm of 2006.

“Ducks were everywhere, but we lost all our electricity,” Bakewell said. “About 3 a.m., the second of two generators locked up and the space heaters went cold. We had six grown men wearing waders around the cabin to try to stay warm until the sun came up.”

Wright Stuff

Wright, a former Major League Baseball pitcher with the Chicago White Sox (2001-04), is now a regional scouting supervisor for the Seattle Mariners. (The Batesville native held a 5.65 ERA through 366.7 innings pitched in the majors. He had 225 strikeouts vs. 167 walks and boasts a win over Roger Clemens at Yankee Stadium and a shutout of the Texas Rangers.)

“Tommy John” reconstructive elbow surgery, followed by labrum shoulder surgery, ended Wright’s playing career. They also converted the right-hander to a southpaw with his Black Eagle Benelli shotgun.

Wright is less interested in baseball these days than scouting wildlife and helping manage the habitat at DBB. As it is with his day job, it’s just as important to eliminate possibilities as it is to find the real gems.

“I like the whole experience of getting up early and trying to outsmart an animal,” Wright said. “I like getting myself into the perfect place to make a shot. The river bottom land over here requires much more scouting and prep work to be on the ducks, but I enjoy that as much as the hunt.”

Wright, also an avid bow hunter, said DBB participates in a deer management program with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. Having grown up deer hunting around Poughkeepsie, Wright only got into waterfowling in recent years through his father-in-law, Dick Alpe of Bentonville.

Passing down a legacy of responsible hunting and fishing is a core tenant of DBB, Wright and Bakewell agreed. They both have sons named Andrew, and in fact, Andrew Bakewell, 14, had the two Teal that were taken on opening day.

Butt, the managing partner of Davis, Wright, Clark, Butt & Carithers Law Firm PLC in Fayetteville, echoed the club’s focus on family.

“Most of our members have kids or grown kids,” Butt said. “I think you spend the first part of your hunting years seeking to hunt yourself and wanting to kill the trophies. Then you get kids and you want to introduce them to the experience.

“We’re not a young man’s macho camp. Many times my wife and I go down there and just watch wildlife. [DBB] is an incredible wildlife preserve with Bald Eagles, Osprey, about seven kinds of Accipiters, Baltimore Orioles, Gold Finches and Egrets.”

Flyway Blues

Gottula, the Oklahoma guide, and Brian Davis, Ph.D., a regional biologist with Ducks Unlimited in North Little Rock, said they don’t believe the Mississippi Flyway is moving west. They said the biggest factors in shifting waterfowl populations are weather and food.

Declining breeding grounds in the Canadian prairie wetlands during recent years, plus several of the driest winters on record in America’s “Corn Belt” have meant greatly reduced snow banks up north. Ducks stayed farther north because their food wasn’t covered in snow.

At the same time, Oklahoma had cooler temperatures than southeast Arkansas, giving it the upper hand for holding ducks.

“What it’s going to take for Arkansas duck hunting to have a big rebound is a winter from hell with blizzards across the Midwest,” Gottula said.

Brian Davis said although Arkansas isn’t hitting harvest numbers like the 1.8 million taken in 1999, more than a million ducks bagged still ain’t bad.

“There’s a lot more hunters in Arkansas, and although we still have excellent duck hunting Oklahoma proportionally is killing a lot of Mallards,” he said. “They can have phenomenal hunting there because the ducks are less wary.”