Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Northwest Arkansas pros and cons?

I lived in Alma, a small town near Van Buren west of Altus. Also lived in Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Searcy, Hope, and Whitehall. Both my sons were born while we lived in Arkansas, one in Little Rock, the other Ft. Smith. Spent about twenty five years building bridges in quite a few areas all over the state.

I'm originally from the upper plains states like Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

The Skeeters in the southern states, like Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana can't hold a candle to the upper midwest. In Minnesota, (probably like your Michigan experience) the mosquitoes come out at dusk and blacken the sky, will run you inside or harass you to till you go nuts. The whole time I lived in Arkansas, I can't remember a single instance even close to what I experienced in the north. The worst tick infestations I have experienced were in Iowa, near water.
The snake situation, I saw several cotton mouths but 100's of what we called watersnakes, I suspect many people who don't know their snakes mistake them for whatever is the scariest. I ran into one copperhead, never encountered any rattlesnakes, when I lived in South Dakota saw more of those.
Hog hunting in Arkansas in my experience was mostly in the south, but that has probably changed as I've been out of there for twenty years. Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuse had a deer hunt several times a year, over a weekend, had to send in for a drawing to get the permit, anyway they encouraged hog hunting, kill as many as you want, had to use whatever the deer season was allowing so the blackpowder 50 cal Hawkin is what I killed the most hogs with. Most of the deer you will run into in Arkansas are small, not like upper midwest whitetails.

I found the average person from Arkansas to be similar to the upper midwest folks, just not in as big of a hurry, but decent God fearing Americans. I found the black folks I worked with were less confrontational than the black I'd been around up north. In all fairness there weren't many around where I grew up in the north so they were likely a lot more uncomfortable being so few.

I've never been to Oregon, so I can only base what I know on what I hear, but I thoroughly enjoyed my years in Arkansas, raised two well adjusted boys into upstanding men, mostly in that state. Met people who I still think about to this day as real friends. Learned a lot about a different culture, different food, different names for different food, learned to love fried catfish, bbq, shrimp, Karo nut pie, cajun food, fried okra, coleslaw on your pulled pork sandwich, etc.

I've never seen it rain so hard during a thunderstorm as I have in Arkansas, but in general the intensity of the average foul weather seemed to be less. You have a fair number of nice gentle rains, not like Iowa weather were it seems to be either no rain or a T-Storm and 2" hail to go along with it.

Moving around is like anything else, if you try to make friends, fit in and enjoy life, it'll be fine. It'll be tough if you've never been without family close by, but not that bad if you immerse yourself in your new surroundings, church and work friends.

Good luck,
Mike

The ticks suck so you have to use something. Long pants treated with permethrin (not while on the body) and Deet seem to work. That being said my Dad had Alpha Gal and I had Rocky Mtn. Spotted Fever.

It’s hot and steamy. You get used to it but it is bad. Have to go to the Rockies, Canada, or the coasts to escape it.

Hunting and fishing is good. Buy a bass boat and you can escape the ticks while fishing. Gets too hot, jump off the boat or crank up the motor and make a breeze.

There aren’t any ticks in Arkansas compared to 40 years ago. I’m pretty sure it’s the fire ants. Anyway, far fewer ticks than there were when I was a kid.

Pros……Awesome place, beautiful country, nice climate!
Cons……Far too many people!

memtb

K1500, I have never heard of Alpha Gal. You said your dad has it. Is it possible to recover from Alpha Gal? Apparently you recovered from the fever?

See my above post.

Usually no, although over time the allergy reaction may decrease, but it also can increase.

Thanks Kodiak, somehow I didn't catch that last part of your previous post. I clicked the Zillow link and forgot to read the rest. That would indeed suck big time.

It even sucks for me at work as we have to factor it in. I'm a clinical pharmacist at the VA and many drugs are also a problem. Obviously, anything animal derived is contraindicated, but some drugs still use real gelatin capsules which can't be taken and many tablets use magnesium stearate as a filler. Some of the stearate is animal derived and some is synthesized, but it's hard to know as most drug companies won't tell you where theirs comes from. For some people, it's not a problem and for other people it's enough to give them a strong allergic reaction. We have quite a few patients here in AR with the Alpha-Gal allergy now. Almost completely unheard of 4 years ago.

Alpha Gal is actually an allergy created by a tick bite to all mammalian meat. It generally doesn’t go away and my Dad had it for several years up until he passed away. It earned him a few ambulance rides for anaphylactic shock before the doctors figured it out. Alpha gal is not specific to one state or region.

I got RMSF after a single tick bite from a seed tick. I removed the tick maybe 4-6 hours after I picked it up. Flu like symptoms sent me to the Dr. the next day and a course of Doxycycline cleared it up with no long term issues.

Having lived in Ozark, which is just down the road from Altus, I'd say town will be underwhelming. Just north of Altus though you get into the Ozarks and have the Mulberry River very close. I fly down to the Mulberry just north of Altus quite a bit. It's certainly not the mountains of the west or Alaska, but quite beautiful in it's own right.

This picture is about 10 miles north of Altus.


A view of the strip and Mulberry in the winter.


Also a lot of great off road trails just north of Altus.

This is a fairly well known general store north of there:


Just to stress the point again, Altus is not in Northwest Arkansas by Arkansas standards. If you are googling info based on NWA, it most likely won't apply to the Altus area. You need to search for the Arkansas River Valley info to get a better idea of the area.

Lots of public land to kayak, fish, ride 4 wheelers, and camp. Town will be ‘underwhelming’ for sure.

Again gentlemen I greatly appreciate your comments. Good Intel here.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=a092d55276a84fe38770fc32639327eb&extent=-97.7294,32.7374,-87.1826,36.9903

So what exactly does dry, damp and wet mean in this context? Probably no alcohol sales in dry counties, only beer and wine in damp counties and all alcohol in wet counties?

Dry means no alcohol in stores. Damp can vary on it's meaning but usually only alcohol allowed in a private club or restaurant but not sold in stores. Wet is wet, which generally means beer and wine in any store and hard liquor in liquor stores and whatever in a restaurant as long as they have a liquor license. Dry counties were more of a problem 40 years ago, but now most places want the tax base alcohol sales brings.

I live in a wet county, but my town limits sales to restaurants and liquor stores. No alcohol in a grocery store. I don't know why.

So I just looked at that map after posting above and I honestly don't know what damp means on that map. Usually damp restricts alcohol sales quite a bit, but I know many of those counties listed as damp there sell alcohol the same as any other. The county I live in is listed as damp on that map and the beer and alcohol flow freely, so IDK.
Dry though means no sales in stores, so you drive to the county line to buy booze.

It's a weird mix of strange concepts, far as I've seen.

Dry, no beer in a pizza place.

Damp, private club/BYO bottle.

Wet, bottoms up, with a $1 per drink tax, tho that may not be the case in all wets.

In any event, it may be a consideration.

The worst part is no alcohol sales before 7:30AM or on Sundays in stores. I work nights and drink in the mornings, so it sucks when I get off work and need beer.
Pretty sure you can buy wine in Altus on Sunday though since they have a winery. Microbrews can fill growlers on Sunday too.

I received a very attractive offer from the winery. My wife and I are flying back there tomorrow to spend a few days checking out the winery and area and meeting the owners and production staff before most likely accepting their offer. Hopefully we won't get Alpha Gal or Rocky Mtn Spotted Fever while we are there

Hope it works out well for you.

I wish you the best! We have missed you at the Michigan Gatherings.

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