“Another interesting spot to hunt is one you may not think would be good. Hurricane Katrina devastated the Pass-à-Loutre Wildlife Management Area, located in southern Plaquemines Parish at the mouth of the Mississippi River, in 2005. However, the recovery has been remarkable, and there are lots of wildlife species -- including deer -- that are doing quite well there.

“Hunting Pass-à-Loutre is an experience in itself, because to get there requires a 45-minute boat ride down the river. It can get a bit hairy in January when fog rolls in ahead of a cold front. Extreme caution is called for, especially during inclement weather. Because the land there is so low and there are not many trees large enough to support a climbing stand, lots of bowhunters pack in tri-pod stands or short ladder stands.”

Pass-à-Loutre bowhunters enjoy an exceptionally long season. Bucks only may be hunted Oct. 1-15, while either sex may be taken from Oct. 16 through Feb. 15.

“The gun season is over here by early January, and the bowhunter has these areas all to himself. 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.” --Emile LeBlanc, LDWF

North Louisiana also has some prime bowhunting areas in which late-season opportunity abounds. “The Union Wildlife Management Area in Union Parish has a ton of deer,” said LeBlanc. “In fact, the deer harvest on Union last year was the highest in the state, with nearly 5,000 deer checked in. Bowhunters willing to give this area a look in January are likely to have the opportunity to arrow a deer.”

Consisting of more than 11,000 acres owned by Plum Creek Timber Corporation, Union is in the parish of the same name, four miles west of Marion. The area allows both gun and archery hunters, but the gun season ends Dec. 2, which gives the bowhunter nearly two months of deer hunting without pressure from other hunters. The archery season runs from Oct. 1 through Jan. 31.

In addition, Jackson-Bienville WMA, in north-central Louisiana, and the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge, north of Three Rivers and Red River WMAs, also provide plenty of action for the bowhunter.

One unique feature of the Bayou State’s deer herd is that the rut occurs at different times in different areas. A 1966 study of seven deer herds in Louisiana concluded that the state has three distinct breeding seasons. In southwest Louisiana, peak breeding runs from mid-September to October. Northwest and central Louisiana experience their peak between mid-October and November, and deer along the Mississippi Delta in the Atchafalaya Basin in southwest Louisiana are there during December and January.

The variation appears to result from the relocation of deer from one area of the state to another during the state’s restocking program, said David Moreland, formerly deer study leader and now head of the LDWF’s Wildlife Division.

Among the factors that ordinarily influence the timing of peak breeding season are the length of day and latitude; thus, Moreland observed, breeding typically begins in northern states in November and runs through March in the south. But in Louisiana, genes appear to have skewed the timing of peak breeding season, so deer relocated from one area of the state to another have maintained the breeding schedule prevalent in their original location.

Those inherent breeding schedules are not simply arbitrary, however. According to Moreland, some deer breed early and some late for specific reasons. He points to deer living in Louisiana’s coastal areas, which tend to breed earlier in order that their fawns may be mobile prior to the arrival of hurricane season. Likewise, deer along the Mississippi Delta experience peak breeding season later, thus preventing does bearing fawns being caught by flood season. Determining the peak breeding season of deer in the area you plan to hunt can increase your odds of harvesting a first-quality buck.

Whatever the cause of the differences, the effect is that the archer opting to hunt areas with a late rut stands a good chance of getting in on some hot late-season action.

The majority of bowhunters will readily let you know that they avidly relish the opportunity to stretch the season out as far as is possible. And why? Simply because there’s just something about sitting in a stand, stick and string in hand, waiting for the opportunity to make something happen.

It’s thus little wonder that virtually all bowhunters are practically guaranteed to identify very strongly with what Emile LeBlanc meant when he remarked, “If I want to kill a deer, I’ll use a rifle; if I want to hunt a deer, I’ll be using my bow.”

Find more about Louisiana fishing and hunting at: LAgameandfish.com/”