The ducks of Five Oaks

LITTLE ROCK — Saturday was a high holy day for many Arkansans since it marked the start of duck season. As usual, the lodge was full at George Dunklin Jr.’s Five Oaks in Arkansas County, which annually attracts hunters from across the country.

“We had a great morning,” Dunklin said. “There was an unusual amount of mallards for this early in the season. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning.”

On June 30, Dunklin’s seven-year term on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission ended. He was the commission’s chairman during his final year and a leading proponent for finding innovative ways to attract migrating ducks to Arkansas. In May, Dunklin will become president of Ducks Unlimited, the world’s most famous waterfowl conservation organization. He will be the 42nd president in DU history and only the second from Arkansas. E.L. McHaney of Little Rock became the DU president in 1948.

DU began in 1937 during the Dust Bowl era as waterfowl numbers dropped due to drought. The organization was formed to preserve breeding areas in the Canadian prairies. From 1937-83, all funds raised were spent in Canada. Since 1983, money has been spent for waterfowl conservation efforts in the United States and Mexico in addition to Canada.

DU now has almost 550,000 adult members and about 46,000 youth members. Local chapters host more than 4,400 fundraising events each year, meaning that Dunklin will spend a lot of time away from his beloved Five Oaks during his two years as president. Since its founding, DU has helped conserve 6.3 million acres in Canada, 4.5 million acres in the United States and 1.8 million acres in Mexico. The United States has lost more than half its original wetlands and continues to lose an average of 80,000 wetland acres each year. When soybean prices soared in the 1970s, thousands of acres of wetlands in east Arkansas were drained for row-crop agriculture. Much of that was marginal farmland at best.

In an attempt to reverse the trend, Dunklin has planted thousands of hardwood trees. I spent a day at Five Oaks earlier this fall in preparation for writing the cover story for the current issue of Arkansas Life magazine.

As I rode with Dunklin, he talked at length about how one area had been cutover timberland when he took over the farm in 1980. Dunklin eventually leveled the fields and then created small sloughs 18 inches below the grade of the rest of the land. He also built mounds 18 inches above grade. Years from now, when the hardwoods are mature, the area will provide duck hunting in flooded timber. For now, it’s a waterfowl rest area. Between these hardwoods and a small lake is a 15-acre corn plot that provides additional food.

“We do everything we can to make it easy on ducks,” Dunklin said. “It takes less energy for them to stand on those 18-inch mounds. We come in here and mow the field before the season. Again, that’s designed to make it easy on the ducks. If a duck is expending more energy than he’s consuming, he will go somewhere else. We don’t want those ducks expending too much energy. Our goal is to provide them with everything they need from the moment they arrive in November until the day they leave in January.”

At the height of the duck season, Dunklin will have 3,000 acres of timber flooded. Back at the Five Oaks lodge on the day of my visit, his chef was planning menus for the coming hunting season. Five Oaks specializes in two-day corporate hunts. The lodge is available for business meetings and corporate retreats the remainder of the year. Dunklin’s home is just down the road.

When he took over the farm, which long had been in his mother’s family, Dunklin lived at DeWitt. He moved into a room in the lodge after buying it in 1983 and built a house when he got married in 1987. Dunklin’s wife, Livia, spent her early years in New York City. She moved to Memphis at age 13 when her father, a cardiologist, took a job there. The two met when Dunklin was working at the Memphis Racquet Club. The couple has three daughters.

These days, Dunklin has his own full-time biologist, Jody Pagan, whom he hired away from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in October of 2005. The two men formed Five Oaks Wildlife Services, which now advises landowners across the country.

“We can share everything we’ve learned and help ensure they don’t make the mistakes we’ve made,” Dunklin says. “I love going around the country and looking at various places and the habitat they offer.”

In 2002, Dunklin developed a type of golden millet that can be used to improve waterfowl habitat while also providing forage for quail, dove and turkey. He sells the millet seeds nationwide. Dunklin and Pagan also operate a nursery where they grow bottomland hardwoods used for wetlands restoration. They even sell a full line of water-control structures to regulate water levels.

Duck hunting became a passion for Dunklin after he and a cousin came up on thousands of ducks in the 1970s at a flooded spot near Reydell in Jefferson County. What’s known as the “Reydell hole” is reserved for family and friends. Through the years, Dunklin has become even more interested in the science—or is it an art?—of attracting and holding ducks. Rarely has anyone been as qualified to serve as the Ducks Unlimited president.

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.