Arkansas Wild

The latest issue is on newsstands now! 

By Matt McNair

Splitting the Difference

Hello and well-met from Catfish Tower, where out my window I can see some red in the redbuds and some green in the other trees across the way, and also the light at the end of the tunnel that is our Spring 2026 issue of Arkansas Wild. If you’re reading this right now, that means the tunnel has been cleared and it’s time to thank you, the reader, for giving us a look, and to thank everyone that contributed to this issue; there are enough thank-yous due right here in the Tower that you might have another editor from which to get a letter come the Summer issue, but I’ll do my best to hang around till then. Keep the faith!

In the meantime, what you’ve got in your hands is a nice collection of quality springtime content to while away however much time you’re currently whiling, and if the weather where and when you’re at is anything like it is where and when I am (as implied above, it is very nice and I am, sadly, very inside), then I hope you’re settling in under a tree for a mid-hike siesta or waiting on your shuttle partner to get back to the put-in so you can both shove off. If so, good! The magazine is gravy, then. But if not, hopefully the following pages will tide you over till you escape the cubicle or waiting room or checkout line or whatever it is that’s got you hung up inside. We’re rooting for you.

We lean into the idea of spring as a tweener season in this issue, and in that spirit we take a road trip up the Arkansas River Valley. I moved to Russellville from North Arkansas after high school and thought I was living, basically, in the Delta. Then I fell in with some folks that had moved there from the Delta, who considered Russellville so folded up as to induce altitude sickness. And I’m pretty sure we were all more or less spot-on, and I’ve really dug the River Valley’s in-betweeness ever since.

Our conservation report comes from Richard Ledbetter, who obliges our theme by taking a look at the Arkansas River, and the different ways humans seek to either control and/or conserve it. There’s a pretty sweet pic in there of a biologist and her fishy friend, too.

Two other freelancers send us dispatches from either side of the in-between: We’ve got one from the flatlands southeast of the Valley in which we’re shown how to do a proper crawfish boil, and another from the Ouachita highlands introducing us to a group of folks using Arkansas stone and ancient techniques to knap arrowheads and other stone tools.

The cover story is a profile of Richard Davies, a person with whom an Arkansas Wild reader might already be familiar, seeing as how he’s a legend in conservation circles and no stranger to the outdoor-magazine profile circuit. But did you know about the flintlock?

That’s enough from me. Get in here and check out what we’ve got, then get outside and get some fresh air. It’s springtime, after all.

Grab your free copy around the state or read it online at Arkansas Wild.