Photo by Kenny Bahr.

Knowledge is power, they say. In perhaps no other venture is this truer than in the pursuit of Mississippi whitetails. So instead of hunting harder this fall, try hunting smarter. By increasing your knowledge of the whitetails that call this great state home, you can dramatically improve your chances of putting fresh venison in the freezer this fall.

White-tailed deer hunting opportunities are plentiful throughout the Magnolia State. In fact, Mississippi boasts the highest deer density per acre of any state in the nation. This is the primary reason so many non-resident deer hunters flock to the Magnolia State each fall. Not unlike the many resident deer hunters, they like their odds of scoring on at least one of the state's 1.75 million deer.

In all, more than 148,000 hunters are expected to hit the Mississippi deer woods during the 2007-08 seasons. With numbers that high, you have your work cut out for you in planning this year's hunts. Fortunately, hunters in Mississippi have a total of 123 days of deer hunting to accomplish this task.

With such high deer densities, over 20 million acres of prime deer habitat, and a very liberal season and bag limit, you would expect the hunter success rates to be through the roof. However, statistics show that the state's hunters harvest just over 282,000 deer each season. That is an average harvest rate of less than 2 deer per hunter. An even more amazing statistic is that only 72 percent of resident hunters and 67 percent of non-resident hunters successfully harvested a deer last season.

According to the 2006 Deer Program Report put out by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, the effects of current and long-term overpopulation in many areas of the state are well documented. Degradation of deer habitat and noticeably substandard condition indicators such as low reproduction were prevalent. The report went on to say that many locations in the state have experienced ongoing damage to native browse by overpopulation of the deer herd since the early 1970s.

Deer habitat found on poorer soils has been more badly damaged than has habitat in more fertile regions. In addition, recovery from damage takes longer for habitat found on lower fertility soils than it does for that found on the more-fertile soils of regions like the Mississippi Delta. Reduction of deer populations to levels enabling habitat to recover is unacceptable to many hunters. The result: continued overuse by deer of good-quality browse.

"We would like to see the harvest rates at considerably higher levels, especially when it comes to the doe harvest," said Chad Dacus, deer program coordinator with the MDWFP. "That is the purpose for Mississippi having a season framework that offers maximum opportunity and special permits that allow additional opportunity to harvest anterless deer."

Hunter opportunity alone cannot guarantee you a great hunting season this year. A number of factors come into play in determining whether this season will be a boom or a bust -- and many of those, like winter temperatures, mast production, and precipitation, are beyond our control.

Cold winters result in increased deer movement. Mast crop failures can also increase deer movement as the animals search for food, whereas abundant mast can keep deer hidden in the woods and decrease their movement. Finally, food plots and native browse production depend heavily on adequate rainfall.

If all these factors come together as they should, we could have a very productive deer season. On the other hand, a lack of any one of these factors can make for long, boring days in the deer stand.

WHERE TO HUNT?
One factor that the deer hunter does have control over is the stand site. While not everyone has access to private property, an abundance of prime deer habitat is available for public hunting. Mississippi provides sportsmen more with than 2 million acres of wildlife habitat for public hunting within 46 state wildlife management areas, 11 national wildlife refuges and six national forests. Scattered over the entire state, these areas offer unspoiled woodland, fields, and marshes filled with game. Some additional lands owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also are available for public hunting.

While any of these resources offer ample opportunity for deer hunting success, the state-operated wildlife management areas are your best bet. The MDWFP has done an excellent job in collecting deer harvest data for each of their WMAs. This information, available in the Mississippi Deer Data Book and the Annual Deer Program Report -- both of which can be found on the MDWFP Web site --can prove invaluable when selecting the better tracts to hunt in Mississippi.

Now let's take review wildlife district and identify the better locations for hunting deer in each one.