2025-26 Arkansas Waterfowl Searching Guidebook out there on-line – Arkansas Recreation and Fish Fee

BY Randy Zellers
ON 10-29-2025
LITTLE ROCK — With lower than one month till the duck season opener, Arkansas duck hunters are going via their annual rituals of cleansing decoys, brushing blinds, checking wheel bearings on their boat trailers and praying for rain to assist flood Arkansas’s huge community of bottomland hardwoods. Another ritual so as to add to that checklist must be to obtain a replica of the 2025-26 Arkansas Waterfowl Searching Guidebook and familiarize your self with any modifications which have taken place within the rules.
Guidebooks must be out there at each AGFC searching license seller within the state, however many are scooped up rapidly, so it’s not unusual for a location to expire briefly till they are often resupplied. However you possibly can all the time carry a replica of the principles in your telephone, both via the AGFC’s smartphone app or downloaded to your recordsdata straight from the Arkansas Recreation and Fish Fee’s web site at www.agfc.com/guidebooks.
This 12 months, probably the most notable change for duck hunters is the rise within the each day bag restrict from one to 3 pintails per day. That is a part of a brand new interim harvest technique that provides a cautious step ahead to open alternatives for hunters throughout these few hunts through the season after they might need the chance so as to add an extra pintail or two to their each day bag.
“There’s been in depth analysis for the final decade resulting in this modification, and nearly each examine we have now exhibits that searching mortality is definitely a low driver of populations in comparison with habitat high quality and seasonal climate fluctuations,” Brett Leach, AGFC Waterfowl Program Coordinator, mentioned. “As one of many main states within the Mississippi Flyway in pintail harvest, it’s vital that we work inside this new technique to precisely measure any results.”
Though pintails are beneath their long-term common, the first decline of their populations really occurred 40 years in the past via habitat conversion all through the Prairie Pothole Area. Wheat fields now occupy what was as soon as shortgrass prairies, and the disturbance of these fields rapidly led to a decline in continental pintail populations.
“This interim harvest technique wants not less than three years of a 3 pintail bag restrict if the inhabitants ranges permit for it,” Leach mentioned. “It simply occurs that the primary 12 months for the technique to go in place will function at that greater degree. In line with the Breeding Inhabitants and Pond Rely Estimates from this 12 months, we anticipate having the three-pintail rule in place subsequent 12 months as properly.”
Different notable modifications embody:
The Veterans and Lively-duty Army Waterfowl Hunt is once more two days, coinciding with the Particular Youth Hunt, Feb. 7-8.
Frog Bayou WMA may have an extra draw allow hunt space out there for youth and mobility-impaired hunters. The mobility-impaired space may have entry to a blind.
The advantageous degree for reckless operation of a motorboat or vessel (intentional hazardous operation) on any WMA or NWR was raised to $750-$7,500, and violators could also be sentenced as much as 180 days in jail, shall be prohibited from accessing any WMA for one 12 months from date of conviction, and can lose searching and fishing privileges statewide for at least one 12 months from the date of conviction.
Obstruction or harassment of searching, fishing or trapping actions and public dysfunction (non-physical) fines have been raised to $500-$5,000, and violators could also be sentenced as much as 90 days in jail. Public dysfunction (bodily with damage) fines elevated to $750-$7,500 and violators could also be sentenced as much as 180 days in jail, and can lose searching and fishing privileges statewide for at least one 12 months from the date of conviction.
The annual early teal searching season in September was diminished to 9 days.
Cache River Nationwide Wildlife Refuge is instituting a allow draw searching system starting this season. Go to fws.gov/cacheriver or name the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 501-203-7253 for particulars.
Go to www.agfc.com/guidebooks  to obtain a replica of the 2025-26 Waterfowl Searching Guidebook.
 
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CUTLINES:
COVER
The 2025-26 Arkansas Waterfowl Searching Guidebook is obtainable at shops and on-line. AGFC picture.
PINTAIL
Hunters will be capable to deliver house three pintails of their each day bag restrict this 12 months if offered the chance. AGFC picture. 
BLIND
A mobility-impaired blind is obtainable to attract at Frog Bayou WMA close to Alma. AGFC picture. 
Oct. 28, 2025
Oct. 28, 2025
Don’t miss one other challenge. Enroll now to obtain the AGFC Wildlife Weekly E-newsletter in your mailbox each Wednesday afternoon (Waterfowl Studies are revealed weekly throughout waterfowl season and periodically outdoors the season). Fishing Studies arrive on Thursdays. Fill within the following fields and hit submit. Thanks, and welcome!
Arkansas Recreation and Fish Fee
2 Pure Sources Drive
Little Rock, Arkansas 72205
833-345-0325

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