Wasden Waterfowl Retreat

McIntosh County, Georgia  ·  67.61± Acres  ·  $875,000

A turnkey coastal-Georgia waterfowl property on the Atlantic Flyway

The Place

There is a stretch of the Georgia coast where the land is plentiful with oak hammocks, planted pine, freshwater swamp, and hardwood bottom that fold into the great tidal sweep of the Altamaha River Delta. This is the Conservation Coast, and it is one of the richest waterfowl landscapes in the Southeast. Wasden Waterfowl Retreat sits inside it: sixty-seven and a half acres in McIntosh County, gated and quiet, surrounded on every side by more than one hundred thousand acres (100K) of conservation land and protected open space providing a home to over 17 different duck species.

It is a small property by the measure of acres, and an unusually complete one by every measure that matters to a waterfowler. At its heart is a two-acre planted, irrigated, flood-able duck pond — built, not found — fed by new wells and buried irrigation, controlled by a flashboard riser system that harnesses the land's own watersheds. Power has been brought in. A homesite has been cleared on high ground. And the hunt itself has been set quietly into the landscape, down to duck blinds painted and buried so they do not break the line of the marsh.

The property takes its name from George Wasden — the conservationist and lifelong outdoorsman who built it. It is named, plainly and rightly, for the man who shaped it, and a property like this does not come together by accident. It comes from a particular kind of person, working a particular piece of ground with a lifetime of knowledge in his hands. To understand Wasden Waterfowl Retreat, you have to begin with him.

A Word About the Land Steward

Every property carries the imprint of the hands that kept it. Wasden Waterfowl Retreat carries the imprint of George Wasden — and that is the first thing a buyer should understand about this place.

George is a conservationist by heart, a man with a logger's working knowledge of land and a deep passion for the outdoors. He has taken this ground on the coast of Georgia and, drawing on a lifetime of understanding how land works, shaped it into something rare here: a premier Arkansas-style duck hunt experience, built where the Altamaha Delta already makes the coast of Georgia one of the great waterfowl landscapes in the Southeast.

Wasden Pond is not George Wasden's first rodeo.

Wasden Waterfowl Retreat is the fourth property George has stewarded — and, as with the three before it, he leaves it better than he found it.  Before this, George's career rehabbing and improving waterfowl land moved from tract to tract across Georgia. It began near Herndon, with a 300-acre duck tract where he created ten duck holes before selling it on to fellow waterfowler Skip Newman. Then came the 800-acre, 16-impoundment duck property on the Geechee River — a property of such quality that it was purchased by the owner of RecTeq, the grill company out of Augusta, Georgia. After that came the 2,100-acre tract near Millen, in Jenkins County; George rehabbed that land, and it was ultimately placed under a permanent Wetland Reserve Easement (WRE) with the State of Georgia — the kind of protection the State actively seeks, and the kind of legacy a true steward leaves behind.   It is the truest measure of a steward's work: land cared for so well that its protection becomes its future.

For George, this retreat has been a labor of love — wells drilled, power brought in, irrigation buried to feed the duck pond, a homesite cleared, duck blinds set quietly into the landscape and the crown jewel is the Arkansas style 18-person duck blind complete with a kitchen to cook breakfast while you hunt. These are not improvements made to a property to sell it, but improvements made to a property because that is simply how George Wasden keeps land. His passion runs to one thing in particular: building duck habitat on the Georgia coast, taking ordinary low ground and teaching it to hold water, grow feed, and draw birds the way the great delta marshes do.

The next owner of Wasden Waterfowl Retreat inherits more than acreage and infrastructure. They inherit a place already loved, already shaped with care, already pointed toward its best life — and the quiet responsibility of carrying that forward. Because here, as in all the work we do, preserving the legacy begins with stewardship.

The Arkansas-Style Duck Blind

Wasden Waterfowl Retreat is the next chapter, and its centerpiece is a true Arkansas-style duck blind built for eighteen — sixteen shooters and two guides — the genuine article, built from the experience of George's days guiding duck hunts in Arkansas.

The blind is served by underground electricity and outfitted for the long, cold mornings of a Georgia waterfowl season: a refrigerator and freezer, a Blackstone grill, a Camp Chef oven, and space heaters to keep the chill off while the biscuits, bacon, eggs and grits are cooking.  Three sets of stairs leading to water give easy access for dogs to retrieve ducks.  A covered platform underneath the blind is perfectly suited to park your duck boat and walk up back steps into blind area.  Around the pond, the hunt is set quietly into the land — three two-man buried pit blinds, each one placed in its own separate 1-acre planted duck hole, camouflaged and painted, designed to face both north and south so hunters can work the wind from a single position. Painted duck boxes are placed throughout the property; even the refrigeration is finished in army green so nothing breaks the line of the landscape.

This is a property shaped by someone who knows what a duck hunt should feel like — and who built it to last.

The Water, the Habitat & the Hunt

The working heart of Wasden Waterfowl Retreat is its 2 - acre duck pond — planted, irrigated, and fully floodable along with three additional 1-acre planted ponds with buried 2-man pit blinds in each giving you (4) different options to sit in blinds and hunt. All ponds are planted in corn and flooded through a flashboard riser system that harnesses the property's natural watersheds, so water levels can be set and held with precision through the season. The property has two wells: one feeds the flooding of the duck pond, the other serves the cleared homesite. Buried irrigation waters the planted corn before the pond is flooded, ensuring a strong yield. Across the wider tract, roughly 43 of the 67.61 acres carry surface water — abundant freshwater swamp habitat that holds and rests birds.

The results are already on the books. In its first full hunting season, the pond yielded approximately 40 dozen birds, with the December migration bringing a strong influx down the Atlantic Flyway.

Waterfowl harvested on Wasden Pond include (16) different species - wood ducks, teal, lesser scaup, mottled duck, ring-necked duck, gadwall, American widgeon, blue-winged teal, redhead, American black duck, bufflehead, green-winged teal, northern pintail, hooded merganser, Northern shoveler and black-bellied whistling duck — a genuinely broad species mix for a single coastal pond.  Note: Mallards have been seen on game camera but no mallards have been harvested yet.  

Away from the water, the property is a deliberate mix of habitats — oak hammocks, planted 18-year old pines, and wetland areas — each doing its own work. The oak hammocks drop hard mast that pulls deer and turkey; the planted pine gives cover and bedding; the creek wetlands that flow through the property hold and feed the ducks. Multiple navigable interior roads are packed with bedrock and built over a culvert system that keeps them passable even when the swamp is flooded at the peak of duck season, and winter rye is planted along the road systems. The hunting infrastructure is in place and ready: three 1,000-pound corn feeders, one 600-pound corn feeder, three box blinds, a tower blind, three ladder blinds, and the three two-man buried pit blinds at the (3) 1-acre planted ponds. It is, in the fullest sense, a turnkey duck, deer, and turkey property.  Should a new landowner desire, there is a place to create a dove field in the interior area of pines.

The deer hunting is no afterthought, and the genetics of this landscape speak for themselves:

“The genetics of this landscape are exceptional. Just two years ago, a Boone and Crockett-class whitetail was taken on the adjoining 1857 -acre timber property — a measure of the caliber of deer the region’s habitat and natural wildlife corridors produce. The same oak hammocks, planted pines, and wetland flow that draw ducks to Wasden Pond move deer and turkey through this property year-round.”

— Lori Bembry Weldon, Broker, Jon Kohler & Associates

The Surrounding Conservation Coast

McIntosh County is known as Georgia's “Conservation Coast,” and Wasden Waterfowl Retreat sits in the middle of it — buffered on every side by more than 100,000 acres of conservation land and protected open space. The Altamaha River Delta, close by, is recognized by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as the premier waterfowl area in the state, and the property lies squarely on the Atlantic Flyway, the major migration route carrying birds down the eastern seaboard each winter.

Seventeen Duck Species of the Refuge Complex

The surrounding Altamaha–Sapelo–Blackbeard–Wolf Island refuge system supports seventeen species of duck. These are the species associated with the broader refuge complex — the wider population that moves through this stretch of the Atlantic Flyway and feeds the waterfowl picture around Wasden Waterfowl Retreat — rather than a checklist for any single tract:

Within that complex, the core freshwater-impoundment ducks are the wood duck, the teal, the ring-necked duck, and the mottled duck. The strongest winter-marsh species are the mallard, gadwall, American wigeon, northern shoveler, pintail, and American black duck — while canvasback, redhead, lesser scaup, and bufflehead turn up as occasional coastal and diving ducks. On Wasden Pond itself, the confirmed harvest has included wood ducks, teal, ring-necked ducks, some black duck, hooded merganser, and black-bellied whistling duck.

Beyond the waterfowl, the surrounding refuges and management areas anchor a remarkable biodiversity — and that richness spills onto the property itself, where the oak hammocks, freshwater swamp, and planted pine support a healthy population of deer and turkey alongside the ducks.

The public conservation lands of the surrounding landscape include:

• Sapelo Island — 16,500 acres; the fourth-largest barrier island on the Georgia coast.
• Altamaha Wildlife Management Area — a 30,000-acre Wildlife Management Area, one of the major public tracts of the region.
• Altamaha Waterfowl Area — 11,278 acres in the Altamaha River Delta, encompassing many historic rice fields that are outstanding for waterfowl.
• Townsend Wildlife Management Area — 8,114 acres of woodlands, freshwater swamps, and ridges.
• Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge — 5,618 acres, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Wolf Island National Wildlife Refuge — 4,000 acres; known as the shorebird reserve of the Georgia coast.
• Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge — 2,824 acres of protected habitat, including a noted rookery for wood storks.
• Eulonia Tract, Richmond Hill Wildlife Management Area — 2,015 acres, primarily upland and freshwater swamp.

Adjoining this network is the Townsend Bombing Range, a roughly 33,000-acre U.S. Marine Corps training range. It is not public-access conservation land, but as a large block of undeveloped woodland and freshwater swamp it adds meaningfully to the open, unbroken character of the region surrounding the property.

Carrying the Legacy Forward

Wasden Waterfowl Retreat is offered turnkey: the wells drilled, the power run, the pond planted and floodable, the blind built, the homesite cleared and waiting. What a new owner steps into is not a project to start, but a place already loved and already pointed toward its best life — a coastal-Georgia duck property shaped by a man who has done this work, with care, three times before.

It is, in the end, a complete turnkey sportsman's retreat — and a remarkably connected one. The property sits just five minutes from a public boat landing and five miles from access to the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, with the whole expanse of the Altamaha River Delta refuge lands close at hand. A new owner can hunt ducks over Wasden Pond at dawn and run the coast by afternoon, with one of the great waterfowl deltas of the Southeast effectively at the end of the driveway.

The next steward inherits the infrastructure, the habitat, and the quiet responsibility of keeping it well. Because here, as in all the work we do, preserving the legacy begins with stewardship.

Lori Bembry Weldon
Broker — Jon Kohler & Associates  229-977-6065  ·  Lori@JonKohler.com
"Preserving the Legacy Begins With Stewardship"