Day 1

The hole that was producing earlier in the week was froze up and we had to keep breaking ice with the 4 wheeler.
Couldn't figure out why the few birds that were working us kept flaring...hmmm wonder what it could be...

Ended up with 2 Mergs, I wasn't sure what was hurting us more, the everlasting ice, or the guides calling. Heres a pic of the blind


We called it a day around 9, and me and the gf decided to run up to Macks PW. If you haven't been there in person, its like a duck hunters paradise. You walk in and look up and you've got a flock of 50 mallards trying to land on you, many sporting jewelry, All of those were strategically placed just out of reach.

Ended up leaving with a new call, a few t-shirts, and a wader dryer.

Then walked over to RNT and got a private lesson from Mr. RNT himself Butch Ritchenback, he played with some of my calls and re-tuned one for me.




Day 2 was supposed to rain all morning and be pretty cold, but the guide said he found some birds so we decided to give it a try, when in Rome right? Unfortunately the birds gave us the slip and never showed, ended up with one GWT.


Over all, had a great time, we didn't kill many birds but the experience was awesome. Plus I've never seen so many ducks and geese in my entire life.
Nearly every field looked like this

The fields that were flooded had just as many ducks on it, it was just one of those times where they wanted to be where we couldn't hunt them.
All in all, like I said the experience was awesome, Im so glad that I got the opportunity to see it in person. I would highly recommend anyone who has a passion for duck hunting to go check out the duck and goose capital of the world!

Awesome!

Great pics!! Sorry about the hunts!!

Ill be up there next year for sure.... wonder when the best time to go is

First I would like to say that your Girlfriend did a very cool thing for you, and Stuttgart has a way of showing you the duck hunting world without even killing a duck.

But I sure hate to hear that they didn't put you on the birds that I know are around there, not saying you should have brought out limits everytime but you sure should have seen more ducks than that!!!
And don't even get me started on a guide that's in Arkansas and can't "Run a Duck Call",
Anyway glad you had the experience.

cool!

Cool. MACK's is a great place.

That's the problem with Arkansas lots of people want to go hunt Arkansas because everyone talks of all the great duck hunting , it is too hit and miss you either kill em or do as you did and crap out , you can have a lot more consistent duck hunting right here in Texas or Oklahoma

Glad you had fun, looks cool

Gotta agree with this, but even still theres something to be said about a trip to Stuttgart. Every waterfowler should do it at least once before they die, if even to just go to Macks. Glad you had a nice trip, even without shooting a heavy strap!

In a situation like this, I know a guide can't control the birds but you killed one GWT and 1 merganser. Does the guide still hold his hand out to get paid? He had to know he was not holding birds. I would rather a guide cancel or try to reschedule my trip if he does not have the birds.
I am sure hanging around the town was a great experience but I am sorry you did not have better hunts.

We hunted the public land there and we would get a couple each. The locals would limit out daily on the public land.

Stuttgart is not the "Duck" capital of the world, it's the "Duck Hunting" capital of the world. It's a cool place to visit though- You'd be surprised how many hunters drive all the way up there to not shoot squat.

If every field was holding feeding birds, why didn't y'all set up a field hunt?

That's true.

The sign you pass as you enter "Welcome to Stuttgart, rice and duck capital of the world"

All the locals that I talked to said just before Christmas is typically the best

Merganser Capital of the World

Tourist trap. Seems a couple birds PER BLIND is the norm up there for an out of stater paying a guide.

Its a long story but we ended up just paying for lodging, and they kept our deposit. I will not be going back to this outfitter, the amount of birds in the area was ridiculous and I told him several times both before we left and after we got there that I would rather reschedule than go into a dry green timber hole that's been hunted hard all season long with no birds. After seeing all the birds in the fields I said I would rather hunt ducks and geese than the same situation. He assured me that he had found birds and that although we may not kill limits, we would have a good shoot, which was fine with me. Its not like we shot a box of shells either and just didn't connect, I fired 4 shots the entire trip. 1 at the merg, and 3 at the teal (sky blasting like a MF) killing it on the third shot. The Boss man is who my gf talked to, to set it up. He made it sound like he was going to go with us as soon as we got there to get our licenses and then he would pick us up at the lodge and take us to the spot. When we got about 15 minutes from the lodge we text him to let him know. His reply was to meet him at the country store in Ethel at 530. 1) not knowing where the heck ethel is or the country store, and 2) not having our license yet, our reply was what about our license and how do we get to the country store. He said in Dewitt there's a Philips 66 who can print us some licenses. Apon receiving that message I looked to my left and I was passing that gas station. I pulled over, we got out and started to go in when this white truck started honking and yelling at my gf, Taylor. I walked over to the driver and he said he was the owner of the guide service and basically re-told us everything he sent in a message, his response to the Ethel question was "you cant miss it". How he knew it was us, im still not sure, we didn't tell him where we were, just that we were almost there, maybe it was the Texas license plate. Anyways we look up the address of the country store at 5am the next day and head that way. We get there and there's two guys inside both wearing camo. I go inside, introduce myself, and tell them Im looking for Craig. One of them seemed to be confused so I called him on it, saying whats wrong with looking for Craig? His response was are you sure your going with CRAIG. I told him what Craig had told me, and he said oh yea, your going with me, he was supposed to tell you yesterday. I work for Craig. He also told me that Craig had double booked us. At that point I was tired of all the confusion and just ready to get into the woods so I just went with the flow. Like I said I had a good time even though we didn't kill birds. The actual guide Corby was cool, kept the jokes coming, kept the mood light like any good guide should, just couldn't make his DC Mondo sound remotely close to a duck. The actual owner Craig was not heard of again besides one text at 9pm Saturday telling us to meet Corby at the same Philips 66 for day 2. The lodge was nice, the scenery was great, the birds were there by the millions in every direction, just didn't want to be where we were.

I understand that half the fun is seeing the sights and visiting Macks and RNT and all that stuff.

But only 2 birds. That would be a hard pill to swallow after paying for travel, lodging, time off work, etc...

I just have to think that outfitter was a joke. Especially since he's guiding in Arkansas and couldn't run a call.

I've seen the work you do on public around here, I bet you could have done way better on your own hunting public out there.

I'm thinking about going out there next year but after hearing this I will have to think long and hard and do my research on the outfitter before I pull the trigger.

The good guides in the Stuttgart area charge 300 plus per person for a morning hunt. Anyone charging less than that and you are taking a gamble. What guide did you go with? And I sure hope he wasn't calling that a timber hole.

The outfitter was Big Creek Guide Service. They had awesome reviews and had a video on the front page of their web site. They weren't the cheapest and they weren't the most expensive so when booking it my girlfriend thought it was a good median. When I found out that she had booked it, I first wanted her to cancel it because I couldn't wrap my head around spending that kind of money for 6 birds. But she reminded me of how I've always wanted to go, and it was on my bucket list of places to go. And Yes they did call the iced up spot a timber hole. Not what I was expecting!