Now that equipment and body are ready, the hunt’s on for the next four months. January is an exciting time for bowhunters, who at that point in the season are freed from having to contend with other deer hunters in the woods; they have it all to themselves.

If a late-season bowhunter has no access to a private plot of land to hunt or is not a member of a hunting club, exactly where is he likely to have the best chance to collect his venison in January?

More than one bowhunter has explained to me their intense pickiness about taking a shot, and spoken passionately of the profound education in the ways of whitetails that archers acquire while on stand.

We contacted Emile LeBlanc, coordinator for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ Deer Management Assistance Program for two distinct reasons, one being his knowledge of the deer situation around the state. And the other? He’s a serious bowhunter -- so serious that he shoots traditional archery equipment, the longbow and recurve.

“If I want to just shoot a deer, I’d rather use a gun than a compound bow,” LeBlanc said. “There’s something about bringing down a wild animal such as a whitetail deer with an arrow propelled by a stick and string that fires me up.”

Asked to pick the best area of the state for late-season bowhunting, LeBlanc was quick to name the Red River and Three Rivers wildlife management areas in eastern Louisiana. “The gun season is over here by early January, and the bowhunter has these areas all to himself,” he explained. “Usually by the last two weeks in January, does that didn’t get bred during the earlier rut are experiencing a secondary estrous cycle, and it’s not uncommon to see bucks chasing does here this late in the year. It can be pretty exciting to be sitting on your stand and hearing a buck grunt as he follows a hot doe here in late January.”

Red River WMA lies about 35 miles south of Ferriday in lower Concordia Parish on state Route 15. All-weather access is provided via Route 15, state Route 910 and a gravel levee. A number of woods roads and gravel oil-field roads penetrate the interior. The WMA comprises 41,681 acres, 29,964 of those LDWF-owned and an additional 11,717 the property of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Owing to its low, flat orientation, the area drains poorly and faces the potential for annual floods from Cocodrie Bayou and the Mississippi and Red rivers.

According to the LDWF, the area’s timber consists of mixed bottomland hardwoods. Among Red River’s primary overstory species are bitter pecan, overcup oak, Nuttall oak, cypress, sweet pecan, honey locust, willow, hackberry, cottonwood, sycamore and green ash. Heavy cutting operations prior to the area’s purchase by the LDWF has resulted in a relatively sparse timber stand over much of the WMA. Understory species include swamp privet, water elm, buttonbush, box elder, smilax, trumpet creeper, poison ivy, peppervine, rough leaf dogwood, deciduous holly, hawthorn, rattan, dewberry and blackberry, plus seedlings of the overstory species.

Red River WMA lies adjacent to Three Rivers WMA, the two tracts offering in the aggregate more than 50,000 acres of some of the state’s best bowhunting lands.

For most archers, bowhunting is a year-round sport. You can pick up a rifle, run a few rounds through it and make the adjustments necessary for drilling a deer at 200 yards -- but you don’t have that luxury if your weapon is a bow.

At present containing up of 27,380 acres --26,000 of LDWF land, more than 1,000 of Corps property -- Three Rivers is approximately 50 miles south of Vidalia in the southern tip of Concordia Parish. Situated between the Mississippi and Red Rivers north of Lower Old River, it can be accessed via state routes 15 and 910. An all-weather shell road provides access to the interior, crossing the entire area north of the Old River outflow channel. Hunters also can gain access by boat through numerous bayous and the Red River.

LeBlanc was ready with recommendations for some other areas that make a chance at a deer available to late-season bowhunters. “Another popular area is the Atchafalaya Delta Wildlife Management Area,” he said. “This area consists of about 141,000 acres located at the mouths of the Atchafalaya River and the Wax Lake Outlet in St. Mary Parish. The area is located some 25 miles south of the towns of Morgan City and Calumet and is accessible only by boat. This area can be tough to hunt, but it’s basically bowhunting only. So there is very little other competition for hunters who want to try this area.