Successfully hunting piney woods calls for an entirely different mindset.
Hunt deer in Southeast Louisiana’s piney woods, and you hunt the most thoroughly abominable deer hunting terrain on the continent. The abominations are many and varied.First off, low deer numbers per acre. This isn’t fertile farmland or bottomland hardwood. In general, throughout the South, the latter have been converted to the former. But the mix of soybean or corn fields with adjoining hardwoods makes for better deer habitat than a thick-canopied hardwood forest by itself.
Southeast Louisiana above Lake Pontchartrain has the type of sandy soil best for growing pine trees. The deer don’t eat the pine trees themselves, but they eat just about everything that sprouts in profusion between them. Greenbriar, blackberry, french mullberry, privet, muscadine, arrowhead and yaupon cover the ground between the pines.
Worse, most of this stuff is evergreen. Visibility is as miserable in October as January. Clear-cuts, select-cuts and a few skinny bottoms offer the only relief.
Now Katrina has made this terrain even more abominable, if you can imagine such a thing. Like we needed thicker brambles, more downed trees and harder access. Jeesh!
Drive I-12 from Slidell to Denham Springs, and look at the mess. It gives me the creeps. Endless thickets of pines, jungles of yaupon, mountains of briars, carpets of greenbriar, most of it evergreen. It never opens up.
So what’s a feeding area in this expanse? (Answer: the whole thing.)
What’s a bedding area? (Answer: see previous answer.)
What’s a travel corridor?
Where’s those nice, brushy fencerows, churned with tracks leading from one soybean or corn field to another?
Deer can live their whole lives in that mess and never be seen by human eyes — during the day that is. Deer are what biologists call “crepuscular” creatures, which means they’re most active during “low-light” periods. To most people who hunt them, however, they seem more like “nocturnal” creatures. Where I hunt, deer like low-light periods alright. The kind of low light right around mid-night.
A study by deer guru James Kroll using infrared cameras to record deer movement on trails and food-plots jointly in Michigan and South Texas concluded that 70 to 90 percent of deer-foraging takes place in PITCH blackness.
Another study by Harry Jacobson of Mississippi State University used automatic timers to document feeding stations on a lightly hunted ranch in Mississippi. Of 14,502 photos taken, 11,036 were triggered after nightfall. Case closed. That sounds pretty nocturnal to me.
But then crepuscular sounds so much more soothing than nocturnal. If deer are really nocturnal animals, we might start asking ourselves what the hell we’re doing up in a tree all those mornings and evenings.
What we’re doing is defying the odds. We catch the tail end of deer movement (on mornings) and the very beginning (at dusk) often enough to keep us going back. In areas with huge deer populations, we catch even more of it.
But for every one you see in a field in the morning or evening, you’ll see 20 that night from your headlight beams as you drive to the local Wag-A-Sack for another 12-pack and some cheap cigars for the booray game.
If, because of some dreadful mental deformity, you insist on deer hunting in Southeast Louisiana’s piney woods (like me), maybe some of what I’ve learned can help you.
For whatever reason, the major deer trails through pine timber run along any contrasts in terrain — places where a 10-year-old plantation meets a 5-year-old or a 20-year-old. Or the ridges where hardwoods or gums meet pines.
Deer favor burned clear-cuts over unburned to an extent that they’ll often enter them a few seconds before dark. Some of these burnt areas I hunt seem caused by people throwing out cigarettes while traveling 1-12. Whatever.
The deer I hunt were born and raised with that hellish racket from 18-wheelers, motorcycles, Farhad Grotto buggies, etc. It doesn’t seem to bother them.
Even better, shots don’t seem to bother them. I’ve had them stand there looking around blankly or continuing with their browsing or munching on my corn right after I missed — sometimes after I’ve missed twice! They must think it’s a car backfiring or an 18-wheeler getting a blow-out. Whatever. Marksmen like me are very grateful these deer have this habit.
In these miserable pine areas, the few creek bottoms aren’t always the best places to set up. Sure, they’re pretty and allow great visibility, but they can be deceiving. Deer tracks — invariably big, sharp ones — usually crisscross a bottom. But not all bottoms are created equal.
If a bottom contains oaks, and if these oaks are dropping acorns, sure, it’s a good place to set up. But everyone knows this. On public timberland, these bottoms will usually attract more hunters than deer. After just a few days, the deer start visiting them only at night.
Other bottoms have mainly gum or poplar trees. These produce no deer food, but make ideal climbing stand sites to face up AWAY from the bottom to the better-used trails.
The mud in bottoms captures every deer track and keeps them fresh-looking for days. Most deer don’t actually travel in the bottom itself. It’s just that the relatively few times they do they leave such pretty tracks. Most deer trails run parallel to the bottom but generally around where the pines meet the hardwoods. Tracks don’t show up so nicely on these pine-needle carpeted areas, but if you look close you’ll usually find browsing sign and droppings in a semblance of a pattern along a semblance of a trail.
I’ve noticed this same travel pattern in most pine timberland, even upstate and in Alabama. Wherever two landscapes meet, deer trails appear.
Patterning deer in this stuff would drive the hot-shots in the deer magazines to despair. If you kill deer consistently, or even occasionally, in this stuff, walk tall. You’d shame the hot shots.
I’ve hunted the Midwest where the hot-shots pose with those monsters. Hunting up there’s a joke. I shot a 13-point one day and an 8-point the following without even scouting. It’s like shooting goats, shouldn’t even be called the same sport.
You know the old refrain from all the wizards in the national deer magazines: Hunt trails leading from feeding to bedding areas. This is all fine and dandy in places like the Midwest, where you can actually figure out which is which.
Last year during Thanksgiving when I humped it up a pine near a small grove of a few water oaks, I guessed I’d set up in a bedding area. I was surrounded by a hellish tangle of briars, smilax vines, yaupon, wax myrtles and other instruments of arm-flesh laceration and facial mutilation.
Deer seemed to be feeding on the few tiny acorns under these crippled oaks. But they also seemed to be browsing on the 50-square acres of tropical tangles all around me, courtesy of some select cutting greatly augmented by Katrina.
But, of course, they were also bedding in this stuff, as I’d jumped one during the week near noon while scouting and corning. Making my way through the tangles with a 50-pound sack on my shoulder had been grueling, and I finally made a nice pine needle bed, complete with pillow, and lay down for a bit. In minutes, I was snoozing … and dreaming….
“This is Katie Couric reporting from Katrina-ravaged Slidell, La.
“Federal authorities are pouring into this area trying to unravel the chain of events that led to last night’s violence and mayhem. Details are sketchy, but sources report the Sierra Club had arrived in the area to stage a consciousness-raising workshop to dramatize the plight of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker that some naturalists report sighting in nearby swamps.
“‘This is one of the last strongholds of this rare bird,’ said Sierra spokesperson and noted ornithologist Pamela Anderson. ‘We can’t allow another species to just disappear like Tommy Lee. Remember, extinction is forever.’
“Unbeknownst to the activists their visit coincided with the opening of the Louisiana deer season. Several of the activists collapsed in nervous seizures upon sighting the bloody carcasses of deer hanging in front of a nearby hunting camp.
“‘It was horrible!’ gasped spokesperson and noted zoologist Angelina Jolie. ‘These beer-swilling yahoo fascists were ripping their skins off! And taking pictures!’
“But soon the activists’ horror turned to something far worse. Behind the hunting camp, they found a cockfight in progress. This sport remains legal in this peculiar state.
“‘I never dreamed,’ gasped spokesperson and noted moralist P-Diddy, ‘that such things still went on in this country! In this century!’
“Sierra Club Los Angeles chapter chairperson Shirley McClaine immediately started chanting Hindu slogans to the roosters, which she believed might be her grandparents.
“Meanwhile, Brad Pitt and cohort Alec Baldwin attempted to disrupt the fight by stepping into the ring itself.
“‘The roosters immediately pounced on us!’ stammered a still shaken Mr. Baldwin. ‘And I don’t even eat chicken! And their owners incited them with blood-curdling whoops!’
“The activists’ flailing arms and wild screams were scant protection against the birds’ sharp spurs and vicious beaks. Observers report that rather than helping, the few beer-crazed spectators who hadn’t collapsed in hysterics quickly set several more roosters on the hapless celebrities…”
By 8 a.m. the following Saturday, concentration was waning. The wind had picked up, rustling leaves and swishing branches around. The intensity of the first two hour’s vigil had vanished. I was getting restless and antsy when I spotted movement!
The head came up and I noticed … could it be!? Well, they say buck tracks are (generally) wider and blunter (more pig-like) than doe tracks. They say they’re less likely to be perfectly aligned too. Bucks swagger more, drag their feet more. And all this seemed to be borne out on the trail I was overlooking. Now I was gasping and shaking like a leaf as the apparent author of those tracks ambled toward me.
Yes! Antlers! Small slender ones. A spike, perhaps a 4-point. Whack such a deer in most clubs, and prepare for universal derision along with a fine. In others, they promptly boot you out. “And stay out!”
Me, I was ecstatic. Giddy with excitement. The shakes promptly started.
He took another step, and his shoulder cleared the tree. I rested an elbow on my knee to steady the quivering crosshairs. Take a deep breath … that’s it. NO! His ears are up, and he’s looking this way. Now his tail is up!
Back down! Whooo. Probably just relieving himself.
I was a basketcase as he started angling toward me (my corn, actually.) Then he suddenly stopped, lowered his head. Then he raised his nose and seemed to be sniffing the air!? His tail flicked!! What to do?!
The crosshairs were wobbling, and the deer was looking around. Keep cool, I thought. A deep breath now, and the crosshairs hovered near his shoulder. Steady now….
Then he took another step and a tree again obscured his vitals. I was breathing in gasps. I steadied the gun just as he stepped toward a greenbriar thicket. His rib cage cleared a little pine, and his head went down to browse (or grab some corn.) The crosshairs were wobbling crazily as my temples throbbed and heart pounded. Another deep breath.
The crosshairs finally steadied against the pine park. His head came up again. The crosshairs steadied on his shoulder…..
PE—TOAAW!! The recoil almost knocked me out of the tree. And the deer was still standing, looking around for the 18-wheeler that had the blow-out, I suppose. I cranked in another round with hands trembling like castanets and my pulse pounding, and braced against the tree. Crosshairs steady now. There.
He’s starting to bolt! There he goes!
“That was no car backfiring,” he must have finally guessed. I swung the crosshairs just in front of his chest as he bolted — PE-TOOAWW!! Where the…? Is that a leg kicking?!”
He’s down! Kicking a little … now his tail flicks. Now he’s completely still. He’s down for good. I can see my trophy’s tiny antlers clearly in the scope. It’ll take minutes for the shakes to subside. Then I’ll start humping down the tree, whooping like a lunatic as I bound toward my trophy.
