John K. Flores: St. Mary is good deer huntin territory

For the past month, Deer Area 7 archery hunters have been in the woods across much of St Mary and Iberia parishes chasing white tails. And, for the past week, the primitive weapon hunters have too.

This weekend the regular firearms season gets underway and runs all the way through Dec. 31; plenty of time for hunters to put some venison in the freezer. What’s in store for deer hunters this fall and winter is anyone’s guess. No two seasons are ever alike, but one thing for sure, if you’re hunting in St. Mary Parish you stand a very good chance of harvesting some meat.

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Deer Program Manager Johnathan Bordelon said, “The Deer Area 7 deer harvest was at a 10-year high last season. There were a couple of storms-impacted years that may have affected the 10-year average, but the reported harvest this past season was a 10-year high.”

Bordelon pointed out that Deer Area 7 outperforms all other coastal areas in deer harvest per habitat acres and says it also offers the most productive marsh habitat in the state.

Most first-time marsh deer hunters aren’t familiar with the abundance of natural food available to deer in the marsh. Natural foods like marsh cow peas, alligator vine, willow tree leaves, American beauty berry, palmetto seeds, water oak acorns and wild pecans, among other foods, help marsh
whitetails become butterball fat prior to the rut.

It’s all natural in the coastal marshes. By contrast, in other deer hunt areas throughout the state, hunters put in food plots and fill up feeders with corn to attract deer to their stands — not so in the coastal marshes in St. Mary.

Centerville deer hunter James Wilson has hunted Deer Area 7 most of his life and seen changes over the years. But despite those changes, most years, he and his family are successful hunting the marsh.

Wilson laughed saying, “Granted I’m 240 pounds and 60 years old now, but walking the marsh is like walking in soup. The marsh seems to be getting softer and softer every year and we’re losing more and more of it to storms and subsidence. It’s tough hunting. During the 2022 season I was
walking the marsh and twisted my knee causing a meniscus tear that I had to have surgically repaired last year.”

In the upland hardwoods, piney forest regions and bottomland hardwoods across the state, deer hunters will spend time looking for rubs and scrapes, but not so much with coastal marsh hunters.

Wilson said, “I pretty much hunt the same stands year in and year out. I don’t look for rubs and things like that. I figure if there’s food and trails, I’ll be all right. But if I scout a new area, it’s pretty much the same thing. ‘Are there beaten down roads and is there plenty of food?’ Those are the two
things I look for.”

One of the things biologists rely on throughout the state when managing deer population is good data. Some of that data comes from the State’s Deer Management Assistance Program. Deer Area 7 has a number of deer clubs that participate in collection of this data.

Bordelon said, “DMAP harvest data from Deer Area 7 reveals greater weights and antler measurements per age class when compared to other coastal areas. In addition, approximately 50 percent of the DMAP doe harvest over the past 10 years has been comprised of 3.5 year and older does which is indicative of a herd that is stable to expanding. The weights per sex and age class are consistently above the coastal average.”

In other Deer Areas across the state the outlook for the upcoming season is more than promising. The statewide reported harvest last season set a 10-year high for the third consecutive year. Moreover, it was the second season in the past 10 years in which the estimated harvest exceeded 200,000
deer.

Bordelon says older age management is becoming the norm across much of the southeastern United States, including Louisiana. DMAP participants in Louisiana, he says, typically rank in the top 3 in the nation when assessing the percentage of 3.5 year and older bucks harvested.

This past week the weather conditions have become much more tolerable for sitting in the marsh on a deer stand. With numerous successful archery reports coming in this past week, the regular firearm season that kicks off this weekend in Deer Area 7 should be a good opener.

Be safe, wear your blaze orange, and don’t forget to report your deer to the LDWF in a timely manner …

John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.