The piney woods of the state can be a challenge to hunt, especially those owned and regulated by timber companies. Here are some thoughts on how to put more deer on the ground.
There is no question that southern pines dominate the woodland landscape in the northwest, westcentral and the Florida Parishes regions of the state.
Most of these forests are owned by private landowners and timber companies.
Public ownership includes the Kisatchie National Forest managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries owns some pine forestland, although most of the piney-woods WMAs are leased from the forest industry, with Jackson-Bienville and Clear Creek being examples of this.
In the 1960s, a few of the bottomland hardwood forest parishes led the way in the state’s deer kill, but as herds expanded the piney woods began catching up.
As the housing market exploded in the ’70s and ’80s, the demand for southern pine timber increased — and as pine forests were cut and allowed to regenerate new forests, deer populations likewise dramatically increased.
Now that the LDWF has the ability to monitor deer harvest on a parish-by-parish level, the northwest piney woods parishes have been shows to be at the top of the list in total deer harvested.
The reason for this is simple: A forest stand that has been clearcut produces an abundance of deer browse.
This increased nutrition means healthy deer, which equates to excellent fawn production.
At least this was the case in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
In the mid-’70s I was in graduate school at NLU (now the University of Louisiana at Monroe) and was surveying the flora in Bienville Parish. I was heading to Driscoll Mountain that day, and right across the road was the largest clear-cut I had ever seen.
Initially hunters were quite upset with the clear-cutting and the loss of hardwoods. One of my first assignments as a young LDWF game biologist was to attend a meeting of Washington Parish hunters upset about the clear-cutting west of Bogalusa in what was called the North and South pastures.
The South Pasture eventually became part of the now-defunct Bens Creek WMA.
The loss of the hardwood timber is always upsetting to hunters, but eventually they realized clear-cutting actually improved the habitat and deer responded to this management work in positive fashion.
It soon got to the point at which hunters were talking with foresters about when they were going to cut the woods around their deer stands.
However, as pine forests grow and mature, the canopy begins to reduce available sunlight, and shades out the understory and reduces the abundance of plant forage available for deer to eat.
Depending on the spacing of trees, this shading begins around year five, and by year 10 the forest stand’s value for hunting is pretty much over.
Hunter visibility has been reduced within the stand. For the most part, the value of the stand for deer is pretty much relegated to cover, a place for the deer to bed up and escape the heat or cold thanks to the thermal cover provided by the pine forest.
But as thinnings begin around age 12, that same stand will again begin to produce browse and attract deer.
Hunter visibility also improves.
Consequently, the value of a pine forest for deer depends on the age of the stand and the forest management being applied to the landscape.
A pine forest being annually managed with regular thinnings and other cuts, prescribed burns and management practices that keeps the forest producing browse is great habitat for deer.
In recent years, a forest practice has come on the scene that has dramatically changed habitat conditions for deer in these pine forests — the spraying of chemicals or herbicides to control the growth of the hardwood plant species that compete with the growing pines.
These hardwood plants are the browse plants on which deer feed, and use of chemicals in the management program can reduce available browse, thus reducing available nutrition.
Herbicides are often used in preparing a site for planting new pines. If a tank mix of several chemicals is used, the spraying will pretty much eliminate most of the desirable browse plants for several years.
By the time these plants recover, the canopy is beginning to close in and the value of the clear-cut for deer is over.
Management practices like this over a large portion of a forest will reduce deer productivity, and numbers might begin to decline without a well-regulated harvest during the deer season.
This might be one of the reasons hunters are seeing fewer deer in their pine woods than they saw in past seasons. With a decline in fawn production, the either-sex harvest has to be well regulated or the herd will be reduced to a level hunters do not like.
Reduced nutrition also will result in deer with low body weights and bucks with below-average antlers.
Hunting the piney woods
Hunting techniques in the pine forest also will depend on the stage of the pine timber. Visibility is a key ingredient when it comes to deer hunting, so hunters have to locate their deer stands in areas where visibility is good while keeping in mind that over time the view will change as the timber grows.
Hunters leasing land from timber companies often have to comply with the requirements of the owners concerning hunter safety. For instance, they might be restricted to hunting from designated box stands, which make it hard to pattern deer, especially as hunter disturbance comes into play as the season progresses.
My friend Ken Mason in Bossier Parish hunts on a club where the hunting is strictly done from permanent box stands during the gun season.
One tactic they use to offset hunter disturbance is to set feeders up 100 to 200 yards from their stands. That makes for long shots but if the time has been spent on the range, distance should not be a problem.
For the most part, food plots and feeders are the norm for deer hunters in the piney woods. Fly over the North Louisiana landscape and it is readily evident that a lot of hunting takes place on the various rights of way, woods roads, and the borders of fields and clearcuts. Visibility is good, and pipelines and electric lines provide ideal openings for food plots.
Farmers who plant winter grass for cattle will provide a food source for deer hunters to focus around.
Of course, box stands are convenient, safe and more comfortable than ladder or portable stands, but they do not move. As the season progresses and deer begin to figure out what is going on and where the hunters are, success begins to decline.
But because of the limitation on fall and winter foods in the pine woods, feeders and green plots do attract deer.
That said, it might be wise for late-season hunters late to vacate permanent stands and hunt from ground blinds or portable stands when deer become wary of box stands.
With much corn feeding going on, deer in these forests might not have to travel much to get a belly full of food. Hunter disturbance also might result in a lot of night feeding, so a key here is to keep only a small amount of corn on the ground at night and make the deer come feed during daylight.
But again, if acorns are available, the deer know where these trees are and visits to the feeders can be low.
The tract of land I play around on in Desoto Parish is not hunted and disturbance is low, but with the good oak component in the woods the overall visits to the feeders by the deer — especially bucks — is fairly low when the trees have acorns.
I asked Justin LeBlanc, a deer hunter in northwestern St. Helena Parish, about his tactic for hunting the piney woods and his answer was simply.
“Find an oak tree,” LeBlanc said.
His club borders the Amite River, so there are hardwoods in the area.
Similar rivers running through the different parishes provide hardwood components for the landscape.
Also, many timber companies maintain stream-side management zones as part of their timber program. These are no-cutting zones on both sides of a creek, bayou or tributary; such zones will have hard mast- and soft mast-producing trees, offering food for wildlife and hunting locations for deer hunters.
Sometimes a few patches of hardwoods will be left in a cutover area, and these too will be a food source for deer and a possible stand site for a hunter. With mature oaks getting full sunlight, acorn production on these trees could be enhanced by this.
When I did my tour as the state deer biologist and worked the old Union WMA deer hunts, I was amazed at how many acorns were in the stomachs of the deer killed during the managed hunts. This WMA was dominant piney woods, but deer knew the locations of the white oak trees and were feasting on them.
It has been dry in the northwest piney woods for several months now, but there is a good mast crop this year so hunters in this part of the state should be scouting the woods for trees with nuts.
The Wild Turkey Hunting Club off Highway 10 near Greensburg has been around for a long time, and no doubt some hunters have literally watched forests come and go. But acorn-producing trees such as cow oaks are readily visible along the highway and would provide acorns for the deer, along with hunter opportunity.
Louisiana Sportsman editor Andy Crawford once belonged to this club and he could probably tell you a good deer hunting story or two.
Hunting during the rut is always a good key for success, so knowing when the rut occurs in your area is a must.
Following are some thoughts about how to kill deer in various timber situations.
• Hunting clearcuts — Clearcuts provide excellent visibility, and a site that has not been heavily treated with chemicals will produce an abundance of deer groceries.
Again, keep in mind that over time the trees will grow and change the view from the stand, so think about this as you select a stand location.
Most hunters probably hunt the edges of these cuts, but pipelines passing through the tracts would provide excellent stand locations.
A clearcut full of grass and goat weed indicates that chemicals were used in the site preparation and deer browse will be limited. If the cut is large and browse is lacking, a high-quality food plot or strip within the area might just be the ticket to attract deer.
Keep in mind that pine soils are generally acidic so liming is an essential part of a planting program on these soils.
Sites recently cut will have a lot of exposed soil, and simply sowing rye grass and fertilizing it should also get the attention of deer.
• Hunting young pine stands — Once a pine stand gets to be 5 or 6 years old, visibility will decline and it is just about impossible to hunt within the stand.
These thick growths provide deer with thermal cover during the hot summer or cold winter, so they will be using them to some degree.
Setting a stand up on a right of way or woods road will be the name of the game in this situation.
However, it would be wise to do some scouting to determine where the deer are traveling through these pines and where they might be going.
A small creek drain running through such stands might also provide opportunity for a setup.
This is where trail cameras would be most helpful in finding the best trails and crossings — and perhaps a good book would be required by the hunter to help pass the time in the blind.
• Hunting thinned pine stands — Once a stand is thinned, deer browse usually begins to come back due to the increased sunlight, and the area is more conducive to deer hunting.
These thinned stands provide food and cover, and improved visibility within the stand makes for good hunting.
Hunters should spend time before the season searching through the stands and find areas that have good browse availability and where plants are being heavily browsed.
Greenbriar and honeysuckle are two browse plants for which hunters should definitely look.
• Hunting mature pine stands — These pine forests provide hunters with good visibility. There also might be oak drains and ridges that would be feeding areas for deer, and hunting around the food source would be an excellent tactic.
Any stream-side management zones running through the woods would be excellent travel corridors, so keep that in mind.
If a forest is burned annually, then cover and browse for deer might be limited. That would mean hunting drains that might not burn or other green sites would be places to locate deer stands. A good winter food plot located within a mature pine stand would be excellent.
Hunters need to spend time searching through the woods for trees with acorns. Trees such as white oaks might not grow real large on the ridges, but these trees can often produce an abundance of acorns.