LITTLE ROCK — As evening descended over Hempstead County, the sky at Rick Evans/Grandview Prairie WMA practically crackled with static electricity.
It was Saturday night, and the air was iron gray, still and balmy. The ozone at ground level was so dense it looked almost foggy, and it seemed as if a lightning storm might erupt any minute.
The reason for my visit was an annual cookout for neighboring landowners held by The Nature Conservancy and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Jay Harrod, publicist for TNC, said the cookout is a way to thank neighbors for their efforts in helping to restore the area's native blackland prairie on private property.
Gregg Mathis, regional wildlife supervisor for the AGFC, said the Rick Evans/Grandview Prairie WMA is America's largest remnant of blackland prairie. It covers about 5,000 acres, which is only a small portion of a unique ecosystem that once encompassed about 12 million acres in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. With the help of state grants and assistance from the AGFC and TNC, private landowners have restored even more beyond the WMA boundaries.
After an awesome dinner of ribs, beef brisket, pork tenderloin, barbecued beans, cole slaw and ice cream, I joined Mathis,AGFC wildlife biologist Brad Townsend and Mike Melnechuk, TNC's assistant director of stewardship, for a tour of the area.
"This is the first big area the Game and Fish Commission bought after the Conservation Sales Tax passed in 1997," Mathis said. "We paid about $2.6 million for the property, but it already had a million dollars worth of lakes and about $300,000 worth of facilities."
Those facilities included a number of buildings that the AGFC converted into the Grandview Prairie Education Center. If you discount the value of the lakes, buildings, roads and other infrastructure, the actual cost of the land was only $300 to $400 per acre. That, by any measure, is a heck of a deal.
Before the AGFC bought it, the property was a private hunting preserve that the landowners managed for trophy bucks. The commission wanted to continuemanaging the property for mature bucks, but Mathis said almost every game management expert in the country insisted it couldn't be done on public land.
"We finally found someone in Mississippi that said we might be able to do it if we allowed only a few archery permits."
The strategy worked. Successful applicants must take a doe before they can shoot at a buck. Once they take a doe, they have a legitimate opportunity to bag a buck of a lifetime, including nontypicals scoring almost 200 points. Mathis showed me a closet full of sheds that rival any you might find in Kansas or Missouri, as well as mounted heads.
"If we turned a bunch of people loose out here with guns, this would all be lost in a year or two," Mathis said.
Turkey hunting is limited to a small youth-only affair, and quail season is closed. You canhunt small game on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays when seasons are open, and you can fish anytime. In the fall, the AGFC plants several fields for doves, and the dove hunting can be tremendous.
Saturday, the entire area was ablaze with color from blooming wildflowers, including pale purple coneflowers and endangered purple beard tongue. The spring bloom is peaking right now, so if you're into prairie flora, this would be a great day to call into work sick.
Native grasses, including big bluestem, little bluestem and gamma grass carpet the draws and meadows. For years, Townsend said, the AGFC managed the area by burning in the spring, but the plant diversity actually decreased. Finally, they tried burning in late summer, and the effect was dramatic.
Conspicuous was the absence of fescue, the domestic house cat of the grass world. It's hideous stuff that chokes out all life but its own. To get rid of it, Townsend said the AGFC applied pesticide during a narrow period when the native grasses were dormant. That, along with burning, killed the fescue and allowed the native grasses to flourish.
"The seed bank was already there in the soil, just waiting," Townsend said. "Seeds that had been in the soil for a hundred years were still viable, and when they got their chance, they took the place back over."
Indigo buntings and scissortail flycatchers flitted across the meadows, along with squadrons of other songbirds. In totality, the place was a joy to behold.
If your love prairie landscapes, a trip to Rick Evans/Grandview Prairie is a great way to invest a day. You can get there by taking Arkansas 73 about 2 miles north of Columbus, near Hope.
Sports, Pages 26 on 05/15/2008