By John J. Woods

Deer hunters love to spin yarns. Some can make an afghan out of a single thread. They tell stories with the same enthusiasm. They can turn one field sighting into a full-blown monster whitetail encounter. Truth is, though, every deer hunter knows in his heart that the majority of trophy whitetails are taken by sheer luck and to a lesser extent by expert hunting prowess. Also, it is no longer a given that a doe can be harvested at will. The girls are getting just as crafty as the bucks.

Even so, all deer hunters are driven to return to the woods every season in the hopes that Lady Luck will smile on them. Others of us try to get by on planning, scouting, and searching for the best places to hunt. But we'll take a healthy dose of good luck, too, when it comes our way.

Due diligence does pay off for some hunters. One hunter I know stakes out prime deer habitat where no one else bothers to tread. Little wonder, since getting to the tiny patches of dry land amidst nasty waterlogged Delta swampland means slogging through hundreds of yards of sticky mire interspersed with water over the knees.

When hunting, he stays all day waiting for the payoff. In the years he frequented these hidden buck lairs, he collected 10 bucks that had racks that qualified for the Pope and Young Club's prestigious all-time record book. The real story here, however, is that he took them all from public land! Mississippi can produce the deer; we just have to learn where and how to hunt them.

Mississippi has 42 state-owned wildlife management areas. These range in size from the 125,000 acres of the Chickasawhay WMA in Jones County to 700-acre Muscadine Farms WMA near Greenville. There are also six national forests in Mississippi, one of which stretches over 500,000 acres. Finally, add in nine national wildlife refuges, and properties under the auspices of the Corps of Engineers. The resulting package of lands open to Magnolia State deer hunters is enormous.

Of course, public lands are not the entire story. In fact, the bulk of deer hunting lands lie on private property. But, to hunt these lands does not necessarily require ownership. Numerous hunting clubs are located all over the state and lease the rights to prime deer hunting areas. Membership fees are often fairly reasonable.

Leasing land for your own use is not out of the question either, with rates ranging from $5 to $10 per acre being about average.

All of this property produces a lot of quality deer and deer hunting. The state's deer herd continues to be in good shape for the most part. For the last data year available deer harvest numbers had declined, which parallels declining man-days of hunting activity over the past few years. This seems to be a national trend, not just a phenomenon occurring in Mississippi.

Of course, this does not automatically imply that the overall deer herd is slipping in numbers. Estimates of the herd continue to hover around 1.5 to 1.8 million deer. One could argue that shrinking numbers of hunters mean there are even more deer for the remaining die-hards.

State wildlife biologists also say that the declining harvest numbers could be attributed to changes in deer herd behavioral patterns. Deer may be getting increasingly nocturnal. Also, exceptional mast crops the past few years and good summer rains last year produced excellent natural browse for deer to consume. These factors have kept deer in the woods and less reliant on open areas or food plots.

With two million acres of public hunting lands plus private land options, how do you go about picking the very best? While it is true that numbers can tell you anything, or nothing, depending on interpretation, they still offer some insights.

A good starting point is the web site for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. This site contains a wealth of information that is updated on a regular basis. Here you can get detailed information on every state WMA. You can find pertinent data covering where the most deer are taken, most does, most bucks and man-days of hunting pressure. Additionally, you can study the Magnolia Records Program trophy buck list and identify hotspots or trends by county and region of the state.

Studying deer data for the state is important, but, of course, it will never supplant doing your own pre-season scouting. Nothing will ever replace driving the back roads, walking trails, or coursing along a streambed searching for deer sign. Regardless of your favorite deer hunting strategy, scouting is still the most critical tactic in your arsenal of tricks.

The buck-to-doe harvest ratio has been running around 60 percent bucks and 40 percent females. Both deer sexes continue to show good health and body weights. Harvest numbers and man-days of hunting pressure on district WMAs have been fairly constant. The deer hunting this year is expected to remain good, but biologists continue to recommend more doe harvests.

The biologists point to Prentiss, Itawamba, Chickasaw, and Winston counties as the best in the district.

Buck harvests have increased on some public tracts, especially Upper Sardis and Calhoun WMAs. The best-bet counties for this region are Lafayette and Grenada.

Last season's deer sightings, however, were down. Harvest figures were also down, but more so for does than bucks. Biologists suggest the overall deer herd condition in this region could be better. Good rains are needed to create browse to help improve the average weight of whitetails here. Wildlife managers are expecting the situation to improve by this fall.

In District 3, Sharkey County is the one to watch for numbers of deer.

Reduced deer movement was attributed to good acorn crops. This meant deer had to spend less time feeding, which produced fewer observations. But, the district also has seen an increase in older bucks with good antler size.

The top deer-producing county in the district should be Scott.

District 5 gives up a lot of deer. In the case of Lucedale’s Charlie Garretson, it surrendered a big one — this good-looking buck. Photo by John J. Woods

Buck harvest numbers have been going up here, while the doe kill declined. Natural browse has been exceptional, as was the acorn crop. This has kept the deer in the woods; meaning fewer were sighted in food plots. Some really good bucks have been coming from this district the past few seasons, and there is no reason to expect that to change.

Copiah County is the No. 1 hotspot in the district, but Adams County is good, too.

Natural forage has been abundant in the region, providing the deer plenty of groceries to eat. Deer weight, age structure, and quality antler enhancement has been improving.

Counties deserving a second look in wildlife District 6 are Jones and Perry.

If you are a meat hunter and more interested in taking a doe, then the places to hunt are Upper Sardis, Sunflower, Chickasawhay (still-hunt area), Caney Creek or Copiah County. These are the top five WMAs for doe harvests. Another option if you hunt at Caney Creek is to plan on checking out Tallahala WMA as well. It produced 79 does last season, and the two areas are in close proximity in Scott and Jasper counties. One could easily hunt both on a single trip.

When it comes to buck harvests, the best WMAs from 2003-04 were Sunflower, Chickasawhay (dog-hunt area), Upper Sardis, Caney Creek and Leaf River. Again, Tallahala and Copiah County WMA offer some good dark horse options in this category.

The payoff for any successful deer hunt is in direct relationship to the time spent in planning for it. Unless you prefer to depend on luck, you had better make a plan based on spending some time scouting the area you are going to hunt. Otherwise you might as well just stay home and rewatch those deer hunting videos!