In Arkansas, There Are Ducks Aplenty. Bagging Them Is Another Matter.

STUTTGART, Ark.

This little hamlet of 9,200 people in the Mississippi delta has grandly anointed itself Duck Capital of the World, surrounded as it is by 1,000 square miles of rice paddies, timbered reservoirs and wild, flooded woods that attract ducks by the millions in winter.

The birds -- mostly wild mallards -- pour down from the frozen northern nesting grounds to feed on leftover rice and fallen acorns and to paddle contentedly among hardwoods and rice stubble until spring. Waterfowlers likewise swarm here to hunt them, sometimes with great success and other times, well, not so much.

"It's January," says duck caller extraordinaire Jim Ronquest with a shrug. "These birds have been hunted hard all season. They're hole-shy, call-shy and decoy-shy. But we'll get some shooting."

It's 3:45 a.m. when the wake-up call comes, pitch black and colder than you'd ever expect. Arkansas isn't as Deep South as it sounds. Stuck out here, just west of the Mississippi River between Missouri and Louisiana, it feels a lot more like St. Louis than New Orleans -- St. Louis on a bitter day.

Whatever time he gets up, the waterfowler is late. We barrel through the flat, dark alluvial plains in a convoy of pickups pulling john-boats. Ronquest, who makes Rich-N-Tone duck calls for a living, is in the lead; Scott Dickerson, who makes War Eagle johnboats, is next; a third guy named Cade brings up the rear. "I've got another guy out in the trees already, waiting for us," says Ronquest.

We are bound for Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area, 34,000 acres of public flooded timber at the heart of Stuttgart's famed hunting grounds, and we're not alone. At the launch ramp, dozens of trucks and johnboats line up in the dark to put in; bearded guys in camouflage are everywhere.

The fellow waiting in the woods is Jimmy Gignac, a gangly youngster from Michigan who drew the short straw and left home at 12:30 a.m. to stake out a prime hole in the trees for us. He's hunched over a little gas heater in his boat when our threesome roars up after a dizzying, two-mile trip through the unlit bog.

"I don't mind," says Gignac. "I like it out here at night. It's quiet."

But not for long . . .

As the first light of dawn streaks the eastern sky, Bayou Meto erupts in a thunderous cacophony of gunshots. Above the barren tree limbs, phalanxes of mallards zip along on high, a few cupping their wings to dart in among the treetops and flutter down to the water, dodging the tree trunks. "Some days," says Ronquest, "they just keep coming in no matter how much you shoot." And some days they don't.

Two months into the season, the mallards of Bayou Meto prove wary. Ronquest and Dickerson are spectacular duck callers and young Gignac is not far behind. These three keep up a steady riot of quacks and feeding chuckles but the mallards are mostly unmoved. Early on, a half-dozen flutter through the treetops and we drop three greenhead drakes, but it's a long wait till the next toll.