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The learning curve
Is a popup blind on a boat the answer for you? When they first made their appearance, lots of hunters wrote them off tersely, with “They don’t work.”[…]
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Other Hunting
Choosing the right load
Squirrels are abundant statewide and found in every terrain, from piney woods to bottomland hardwoods to coastal marshes.[…]
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Surface drives are fishing boats too
Boats equipped with surface drive engines were not long ago seen as an oddity in anything but duck-hunting situations.[…]
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Drive-in shooting
In addition to portable boat blinds, other hunters use permanent drive-in boat blinds.[…]
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Souping up surface drives
The power plant of choice for surface drive motors is the 35-horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine. These stock engines can be modified to improve their performance, something done every day by Andy Johnston and his crew at The Boat Doctor Inc. in Metairie.[…]
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Expert boat-blind tips
Popup boat blinds are great tools for duck hunters looking to attract more ducks into shooting range, but there are some tricks that will maximize their hunting success.[…]
Bass Fishing
Jerkbait enhancement
With any jerkbait, a suspending posture at rest is usually what you want, but some days find the fish most interested in falling baits.[…]
Deer Hunting
Why a January rut?
Studies conducted by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries indicate that whitetails in parishes along the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers have a tendency to start pre-rut activities from mid-December, while the peak of the rut will often occur in January.[…]
Bass Fishing
Suspend in the salt
When winter pushes trout and redfish into deeper canals and inner marsh arteries, suspending baits often earn the attention denied to sinking and faster-moving baits.[…]
Deer Hunting
Smokepole ’em in January
Public lands offer some excellent primitive-weapons hunting this month.[…]
Bass Fishing
Tackle up
West Monroe’s Jim Dillard throws his jerkbaits on a long rod of 6-foot-10 to 7-2, but nothing too heavy.[…]
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Limited-access area equipment for walk in hunters
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries has set aside 3,250 acres on the Atchafalaya Delta WMA as a limited-access area. In other words, no motorized boats are allowed.[…]
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Robo-logic
If there’s one conditioned response that comes from the various mechanical apparatus used on duck ponds, it’s usually negative.[…]
Fishing
Tippets
The colder, clearer waters of December – combined with low tides – provide some of the best sight casting opportunities of the year for those pursuing marsh reds. A wide variety of flies will work as the reds are more opportunistic in their feeding.[…]
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Top picks for North Louisiana public duck hunting
The Ouachita River itself offers some good duck hunting in many of its backwaters, but there is a collection of publicly managed federal refuges and state wildlife management areas within a short drive of Monroe that would make any hunter green with envy.[…]
Deer Hunting
You’ve got to let deer grow
According to Dugas, once hunters have decided just what is possible on their lands of choice for quality deer management — they then have to make a decision on what can be harvested.[…]