For now, new gates appear to have corrected boat traffic problems at Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area.
Randy Rhodes, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wildlife officer in Arkansas County, said there were no boat-related problems at Bayou Meto WMA during the opening of duck season last weekend.
In late summer, the AGFC installed metal gates at Bayou Meto WMA's boat access areas. They span the boat ditches about 200 yards away from the ramps and contain a single opening that is large enough to allow passage for one boat at a time.
The gates are designed to prohibit the mass exodus of boats from the ramps at 4 a.m., and the ensuing races to the most desirable duck hunting holes. The races have become synonymous with Bayou Meto WMA in recent years and gained legitimacy in some circles after being featured in numerous online videos and magazine articles.
They also created unsafe boating conditions that were endemic to the area.
Tim Montgomery, an AGFC wildlife officer, said the races had become more important than duck hunting at the WMA. As an example, he mentioned an incident he witnessed at the Lower Vallier Access, the most infamous of the WMA's "racetracks."
"I watched two boats race down to that little cut that goes into the woods," Montgomery said. "Then they turned around, came back, put it on the trailer and left the area."
Outboard motors at Bayou Meto WMA are limited to no more than 25 horsepower, but a cottage industry has sprouted in Arkansas to modify 25-horsepower heads to produce upwards of 40 hp. Tohatsu outboards are the most popular for hot-rodding.
"We've seen them run as fast as 57 miles per hour," Montgomery said.
Concerned about liability in the event of a fatality or maiming, the AGFC settled on the gates after debating a suite of solutions. Creating an orderly flow of traffic along with strict new boating regulations seems to have corrected the problem, Rhodes said.
"People seem to appreciate it," he added.
New boating regulations include a minimum distance of 50 feet between boats. Passing another boat is prohibited.
Anyone convicted of a boating violation at Bayou Meto or Dave Donaldson Black River WMA will be banned from the WMA where the violation occurred for a period of one year from the date of conviction.
Some hunters are creative about finding ways to violate duck hunting regulations at Bayou Meto. Possession of alcoholic beverages is prohibited at the area, for example. To discourage shooting at ducks that are out of range, hunters may not possess more than 15 shotgun shells.
Brad Young, the enforcement supervisor for that part of the state, said he once checked a group of hunters who had two fuel tanks in their boat. One tank was full of gasoline, Young said, and the other contained bloody marys.
Montgomery said he has caught hunters who had additional shotgun shells inside their gloves.
"The shells were in the glove fingers," Montgomery said. "They had their hands balled up in the palm of their gloves, and when I shook their hands, I felt the shotgun shells."
Rhodes has seen just about every kind of hunting violation in the books, but he was most bewildered by a night hunting incident in Crocketts Bluff.
It happened in his front yard.
Rhodes said he saw a group of deer as he drove his personal vehicle into his driveway. He heard a shot from a passing truck as he exited the vehicle, but the keys to his AGFC enforcement truck were in the house.
Rhodes said he told his father to watch where the truck went while he ran in the house to fetch his keys. Then he had to unhitch a boat from the truck. He didn't have time to use the jack. He lifted the trailer off the hitch, dropped it on the ground and sped off in pursuit.
Rhodes quickly caught the vehicle. It contained two young women and a 6-year old girl. Rhodes was convinced they dropped off a man to get the deer, and he asked who it was.
The driver said she didn't drop off anyone and that she shot at the deer.
When Rhodes asked what gun she shot the deer with, he said she she pointed down next to her and said defiantly, "This gun right here."
"Well, then, you can just get right out of that vehicle," Rhodes said.
The woman was from Kentucky and was visiting her husband's relatives for Thanksgiving.
"She said, 'My husband's gonna be mad that you took his gun,' " Young said.
Apparently he wasn't mad at her for poaching a deer in a game warden's yard.
Sports on 11/26/2015