Trey Reid hosts Congressman Bruce Westerman, Arkansas’s 4th District representative and chair of the Natural Resources Committee, to talk hunting, fishing, and forest conservation. Westerman shares his rural Garland County upbringing hunting squirrels, rabbits, quail, dove, turkeys, deer, and raccoons, his introduction to duck hunting in Stuttgart, and why turkey hunting is his favorite, including filling his limit during Arkansas’s highest turkey harvest in 20 years. He discusses crappie fishing on Lake Ouachita and how habitat like brush piles attracts fish. Westerman explains why timber harvest, thinning, and controlled burns create early successional habitat, improve biodiversity, and reduce insects, disease, and catastrophic wildfire, citing Forest Service restoration work and red-cockaded woodpecker habitat. He describes losing 20% of giant sequoias to wildfire, outlines the Save Our Sequoias Act and Fix Our Forest Act, and emphasizes healthy forests for clean air, clean water, and outdoor recreation.

Host Trey Reid welcomes Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Deputy Director Brad Carner back for a third straight episode on regulation updates, focusing on Arkansas waterfowl. They review that duck season dates remain largely the same, with only a minor change around the Christmas split, still opening the Saturday before Thanksgiving and closing January 31 under federal frameworks. Key changes include expanding non-motorized access areas on select WMAs/GTRs to reduce disturbance and improve hunting success, and implementing permit hunts in limited units such as Buckingham Flats on Bayou Meto, parts of Ed Gordon Point Remove, Prairie Bayou, and the Wiville unit at Black Swamp. A proposal to raise certain surface-drive horsepower limits was tabled after public opposition. They also discuss a robust public input survey (30,000+ participants and 70,000+ comments) and a new restriction barring nonresidents from hunting Dave Donaldson Black River WMA during the first nine days of duck season, based on hunter and anonymous cell data.

Host Trey Reid talks with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Deputy Director Brad Carner about biannual wildlife regulation updates aimed at simplifying rules and streamlining license products. They explain a new requirement on public lands that dogs pursuing deer, fox or coyote must wear GPS collars and electric correction collars, clarifying it does not apply to other dog types or private land, and noting the goal is reducing conflicts and sustaining dog hunting opportunities. They also discuss redesignating Camp Robinson and Perry Michael’s Blue Mountain SUAs as Lake Conway WMA and Perry Michael’s Lick Creek WMA, with minimal user impacts but greater habitat-management priority. Other changes include consolidating leased land permits into one $75 permit for 10 leased WMAs, creating a $10.50 conservation permit for non-hunting/fishing users on AGFC-owned WMAs or lakes, and eliminating several free required tags/permits while still seeking participation data through other methods.