My oldest boy is enrolled in the University of Arkansas for the fall semester.

I’ve not spent much time there but it’s close to the Ozarks and Ouchita mountains, and with the amount of public land seems it would offer potentially decent hunting.

He isn’t a big hunter so it’s highly possibly he wont step foot in the woods, but does anyone have any firsthand knowledge of hunting in that region? I do know they have a decent population of black bears.

Well the good thing is that he is eligible to purchase annual resident licenses saving hundreds of dollars as long as he is a full time student.
There is a good amount of deer just about everywhere in Arkansas. Good luck to him.

I wouldn’t mind doing a duck hunt or three up there.

It is appealing being able to throw a climbing stand in the truck and take off with my bow to the forest to see what I can find. Can’t do much of that here.

I enjoy that also. They raised the out of state license $70 dollars last year to $420. Hope they don't raise it again.
Cost me and my wife $840 to hunt our own land.

I think they have a population on bigfoot. Maybe some kind of a swamp monster ghost kinda thing too. Better use heavy arrows, or a 223.
Congrats to your son.

I’m from NW Arkansas.

He’s going to be in proximity to the Ozarks. The Ouachitas are a little far. There’s some nice deer to be had. Plenty of bear. Squirrel hunting in the fall is awesome. It’s going to be a lot harder hunting in the Ozark National Forest than a typical Texas deer lease. He’s going to need to pick an area, get topo maps and do plenty of scouting. Terrain can be rough. Good practice for maybe hunting out west sometime in his future.

That’s the thing, he won’t go with me out west so I doubt he will venture out into the rugged Ozarks. More likely scenario, he will do some trout fishing and maybe some duck hunts.

Maybe he will make some friends who are more into outdoorsy stuff instead of the organized sport jock crowd he hangs with now.

You can only hope for that.

Once he is able to obtain a resident hunting license, he should start putting in for the public Elk hunt permits. Just like the better drawn hunts in Texas, the odds of drawing are poor, but someone has to draw them.

I graduated from U of A in 2019 and then lived up there for another 4 years before moving back. Closest public land is Wedington WMA (good fishing lake), but be ready to walk past 8 other hunters on the way to your spot. Hobbs WMA is the second closest but he's gonna be climbing mountains and it's not fun at all. In my opinion the best WMA up there is going to be the north end of McIllroy (1 hour from campus). TxTrophy send me a PM if you'd like and I'll give him all of my already scouted spots up there. McIllroy is nice because you can drive your truck in there and do minimal walking. If someone wants to PM me their phone # I'll send you pics that you can post of the deer I had on camera up there. Haven't been able to figure out how to post pics.

Duck hunting is somewhat far away from NW Arkansas. It’s like 250 miles from Fayetteville to Stuttgart.

3 hour drive just to get to Stuttgart. Closed public is Frog Bayou, but that place is nothing but a roost. Heard thousands of ducks right before legal, then it became a ghost town. When we were leaving we saw a sign that said "no PM hunting allowed"

Pm sent

The Legend of Bogey Creek and the Fouke Monster! The movie is iconic and goes well with the local character!

Is it based in Arkansas? I’ll have to watch it?

Southwest Arkansas.

It's "Boggy" Creek. My folks were friends with the parents of the young man that played the "creature." It's a hoot and a study in how to make a movie on a shoestring. I think they hired several locals.

Oh, I thought bogey creek was about someone bad at golf…