The dark soil of Louisiana’s delta region grows some of the biggest bucks in the nation.
Gilbert’s James McMurray was getting worried. Deer season was ending and his freezer was sorely lacking packages marked “venison” to carry his family through the months ahead. Thus, it was on a cold December day in 1994 that the Franklin Parish deputy decided to give it one last try to bring home a deer.It was the last weekend of “bucks only” hunting on the Big Lake Wildlife Management Area near his home when McMurray worked his climbing stand up a tree on Big Lake to try his luck.
“I had found a deer trail about 100 yards off a pipeline. I didn’t see any buck sign there, just deer tracks, but I figured that if there were does using that trail, maybe a buck — any buck — would come along and I’d get a chance at him,” McMurray explained.
“I put a portable climbing stand on a tree and climbed only about 10 feet high, just enough to put me above the brush so I could see the trail. I was using rattling horns and a grunt tube; I’d rattle and grunt a few times, and then wait about 15 minutes before doing it again.
“I guess I had gone through this routine three times, and was just about to do it again when I saw a deer. It looked pretty big, and I saw it through the thicket, coming in at a trot. I still didn’t know what it was. It would run a ways and stop, run some more and stop.
“I finally got a glimpse of an antler beam sticking up above the brush and that’s all I needed to see. It was bucks-only season, and I didn’t look at the antlers any more; I was concentrating on finding an opening where I could get a good shot. For all I knew at the time, it could have been a spike.
“I held my scope on an opening about 30 yards away, the deer moved into it and I was able to get the crosshairs behind his shoulder. I squeezed the trigger, the deer took two quick bounces and disappeared.”
It was not until McMurray climbed down from his stand and walked over to the fallen buck that he realized what he had shot.
McMurray figured he would check the deer in at the check station nearby and go on home and skin out his buck. After all, he had done what he had come for — to get another deer for the freezer.
Wildlife biologist Lloyd Posey was working the check station that morning when McMurray drove up.
“I heard him shoot — it was 9:20,” said Posey. “Once I got a look at that buck, my heart sank a little bit because I knew he had gotten the buck I had been hunting. I’d never seen him, but I had found his scrapes.
“I weighed the deer; it weighed 215 pounds, and looking at his tooth wear, I estimated him to be 4 1/2 years old.”
The 31-point monster was later officially scored at 281 6/8, the highest-scoring whitetail buck ever recorded in Louisiana.
While McMurray’s monster is the most impressive buck ever taken in the state, several other trophy racks have come from the same general vicinity, including a book buck taken by Martin Arnold, who lived near what is now Tensas National Wildlife Refuge.
“Dec. 7, 1941 — a day that will live in infamy.” These somber words from the lips of President Franklin Roosevelt have found a place in America’s archives.
On this date, the Japanese unleashed a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, igniting World War II.
While the Zeros were raining down their bombs on the Naval base in Hawaii, the news that would impact the world had yet to reach North Louisiana. It was just another day for Martin Arnold and his 18-year-old son, D.B., to head for the Tensas swamps to hunt.
“My daddy and I hunted the swamps together a lot. I liked to squirrel hunt, but he was more interested in seeing if he could shoot a deer,” D.B. Arnold began as we visited a couple of years ago at the Tensas NWR.
“We each had a .22 rifle — that’s all we hunted with. I guess if we’d gone elephant hunting, we’d have carried our .22s. That particular morning, I went one way squirrel hunting while he slipped through the woods to see if he could see a deer. I heard my dad shoot, and he hollered for me. He was standing over the biggest deer I have ever seen. He shot him with a single-shot .22 rifle.”
The monster buck stepped out a few steps from the elder Arnold and a well-placed shot to the neck dropped the buck in its tracks. Arnold’s buck sported 10 typical points with a couple of stickers, had a 20-inch inside spread, long tines and was massive. The rack scored 171 7/8 on the Boone and Crockett scale, placing it in the No. 21 slot on Louisiana’s all-time trophy buck list.
“As heavy as those antlers were, they were nothing compared to the body of the buck. We had to cut him in half to get him out of the woods. It was all that my daddy and I could do to tote out half a deer at a time,” Arnold said.
“After he was skinned and trimmed, I remember putting the meat on some cotton scales, and the total weight of just the meat was 187 pounds. I’ve seen lots of 300-pound deer come out of these woods, but this one was way bigger. I’d guess he went over 350 pounds.”
The delta country where McMurray and Arnold bagged their trophies is known for its potential to grow big deer. The river bottom soils are rich and dark, high in nutrients.
Today, open farmlands are the dominant feature of the Tensas area. Sixty years ago, however, this country looked vastly different, D.B. Arnold recalled.
“Back then there were big virgin forests with not much understory. As a result, there were lots of squirrels and turkeys but not all that many deer. Then the flood of 1927 came and covered the country. I remember seeing water everywhere. This knocked the deer numbers back even more,” said Arnold.
“Later they began cutting the timber, and this let in sunlight, and the understory grew up. The deer really caught on after that. I’d still like to see this country look like what it did back then. Out where we lived in 1941, you could step over our field fence and you were in the swamps. I remember when all that part of the country was just big virgin forests. Tell you the truth, I really miss the way the Tensas swamp used to be.”
Although the timber is mostly gone from this region, the rich soil remains. High nutrition levels of foods that naturally grow in the dark delta dirt is the main reason why the Tensas and other areas along the Mississippi delta have produced eye-popping deer over the years. It has to do with the black land delta dirt in the area, land that now produces outstanding crops where lush hardwood forests once grew.
Biologist Posey is very familiar with the potential of this area in producing huge deer.
“Historically, this area has produced big-bodied, heavy-antlered deer,” he explained. “In 1914, Dr. W.B. Womble killed a typical whitetail in this same area, a buck that scored 184 2/8 Boone and Crockett, and is the No. 3 typical for Louisiana.”
As a matter of record, several of the state’s most impressive trophies came from the delta area. In 1943, in nearby Madison Parish, Don Broadway shot a buck that scored 184 6/8, and is still the No. 1 typical buck ever scored in Louisiana.
A check of the state records reveals that of the top 10 typical whitetail bucks ever taken in Louisiana, four came from this region, as have five of the top 10 non-typical bucks.
“Several years ago, a big doe was taken off the Tensas NWR, land that joins the state Big Lake WMA, and she field-dressed over 200 pounds. I weighed the doe myself, so I know how big she was. What I’m saying,” Posey noted, “is this old, rich, black dirt here in the eastern Louisiana delta grows some mighty big deer.”
Biologist and head of the state’s wildlife program, David Moreland, agrees and adds that quality deer management has also played a role in the production of these impressive delta bucks.
“By managing the state’s deer herd through a fairly liberal either-sex hunting season and by reducing the number of days of bucks-only deer season on our WMAs, we have allowed these bucks to move into an older age group. It’s a simple fact that a buck has to have age to produce antlers of this magnitude,” said Moreland.
“This area features some top-quality habitat by its location in river bottomlands with rich, fertile soils. Timber management practices here also help in that timber is periodically thinned and small clear cuts made, allowing forage to be produced once sunlight hits the forest floor. Where the food supply is plentiful, you’re going to get bigger deer.”
While the Arnold buck was taken on the Tensas NWR and McMurray’s came off the state-owned Big Lake WMA, there are several other public hunting areas in the delta that are known for producing big deer.
“Several public hunting areas are located within this region including such WMAs as Russell-Sage, Big Lake, Boeuf, Red River and Three Rivers and the Tensas NWR. Thus,” said Posey, “deer hunters have the opportunity to go after some of the best quality bucks in the country here on public hunting lands in Louisiana.”
Interested in the prospects of putting your name in the record books with a trophy buck? If so, perhaps you should consider giving some of these prime public hunting areas in the delta of east and northeast Louisiana a try. After all, if a meat hunter and a squirrel hunter can do it, you can too. n
For more information on hunting the public areas of the delta, contact the District 4 LDWF office in Ferriday at (318) 757-4571. For information on hunting the Tensas NWR, call (318) 574-2664.