What’s Cooking!
Surf? Turf? Surf & turf? Ha…whatever the dish, we have you covered at the Elms this season. Wine pairing? No problem. Ale, lager, pilsner? No worries, cheers. Spirits? Oh my…yes we do – rocks or neat? Dessert? Ahhh…we have you covered there as well and touch all the bases in between. At The Elms Lodge, we take care of you from sunrise to sunset from a continental breakfast before the hunt, to the hunt itself with full bag limits to dinner…and perhaps an after dinner drink as well…you make the call as it is your hunt.
We are here to please and pleased to let you know chef Cynthia Martin will cater to your culinary needs when you hunt with us this season. She hales from The Show Me State where a culinary degree was earned at the prestigious L’Ecole Culinaire in St. Louis after receiving her bachelor’s degree at Southwest Baptist University.
Cynthia has traveled and cooked all over this great country of ours. From New York to Wyoming and many parts in between, she finds extreme and sincere joy in every facet of cooking from experimentation of seasonings with select cuts of meats and seafoods, to enterprising salad combinations, to menu planning, to wine pairings, to “fun with desserts” (as she puts it), to ensuring you and your group enjoy your dinner as much as you have enjoyed your hunt. “I look forward to meeting you all this year and sharing in your outing at The Elms Lodge. All of us here will do our absolute best to ensure you have a memorable stay while you are here and tempt you to come back and visit us sometime in the very near future.” I guess we could not have said it any better ourselves. Bon appétit!
Tips for Early Season Duck Success
Flights begin to arrive in November with gunning at full speed in December and January. While no disrespect to divers, we love our puddlers here at The Elms Lodge. Head guide Ross Juelfs and crew will put you on a variety of ducks, but we find guests favor mallards and pinnies with a sprinkling of gaddies or widgeon rounding out a filled limit. Your spread over flooded fields will include both full body mallards and pintail from Dive Bomb Decoys and silhouettes of the same brand. Plus, each rig will have a couple MOJO spinning wing decoys. Ross likes a decent sized spread, some 24 mallard and 24 pintail on the water, a smattering of silhouette and motion (queue the spinning wing decoy) decoy with each of our guides. “Early season success is a function of some motion in the spread as well as a good presentation of floater decoys. I don't like to use a lot of floaters as ducks are already becoming wise to big spreads, nor do I like to use a small showing of, say, but a couple dozen. As three bears would suggest…”just about right.” Over the years I have found great success with this approach early on and then I tend to change things up as the season progresses depending on how ducks react to calling and decoys.” All we can say is…let’s go hunting!
The Forecast Calls For Snow…In This Case, Snows and Blues!
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…and add some blue into the mix as well! The Arkansas Conservation Order season begins this coming February and offers two seasons for hunters: the 1st through the 3rd and the 5th through the 25th of April 2023. Snows, blues and Ross’ geese are abundant here in Arkansas and at The Elms this time of year – especially early in the season. Hundreds of thousands of light-colored geese winter in the area and gorge on our dry-ag fields as they prepare for the migration north to their spring breeding grounds on the Canadian and Northern Alaska tundra. Large decoy spreads, birds to thicken the sky and hot barrels are standards during conservation season. The Elms has enlisted one of the premier snow goose guides in the region to be your go-to hunt-master this coming spring for fast and furious action! Grab your favorite Benelli shotgun, some BOSS ammunition and head this way for action like no other. Give our GM Bob a call anytime to set a hunt for you and your pack of pals at 843-247-3000. Or, reach out via email at bob@theelmslodge.com. When the light goose game is on…it is really unlike any other hunt you will ever experience!
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