Photo by Mark Werner

You can pick up nearly any newspaper in Louisiana and read about it. Or visit the monthly proceedings of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission and hear some choice public comment. Or walk the halls of the Louisiana State Legislature during any given session and see your representatives voting over it.

What am I writing about?

If you don't know by now, deer hunting fervor is ablaze in the Bayou State -- not least because of increasing interest in quality deer management.

"Quality deer management" can be defined as a deer management option mandating the harvest of a moderate number of bucks along with a prescribed number of does, thus allowing recruitment of younger bucks into the adult segment of the deer herd. The result: bucks enabled to realize greater potential for antlers of quality. Such management strategies have been practiced in the Bayou State since the early 1970s on private lands along the Mississippi River Delta.

Quality management has included restrictions on number of antler points, main-beam length and inside spread, as well as measures taken to ensure adequate doe harvest.

Have these restrictions worked?

Yes, and quite remarkably so -- especially if you look at the Louisiana Big Game Records for whitetails in the archery division. Many trophies have resulted, and bucks from these specific river parishes are quite numerous in the records.

Recently, Louisiana hunter opinion has also swayed favorably toward quality management of the Bayou State's deer herd. "We conduct hunter opinion surveys annually," reported David Moreland, wildlife division administrator with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. "The results of the most recent surveys indicated that 83 percent of hunters statewide are in favor of quality deer management in some fashion."

Moreland, however, observed that hunters tend to equate quality deer management with the taking of trophy-caliber whitetails. Yes, all trophy deer are bucks of notable quality -- but not all quality bucks are trophies.

So what is a "trophy" whitetail, really?

In defining the antler characteristics of a trophy whitetail, Moreland says, hunters would probably rank an 8-pointer with a 16-inch inside spread, 20-inch main beams and 4-inch bases (scoring about 130 B&C points) as representative of a Louisiana trophy buck. But for trophies of national acclaim, more mass and tine length may be necessary.

Both the Boone and Crockett and Pope & Young programs share the same official measuring system used to score North American big-game species. For deer, scoring is based on antler measurements: lengths, circumference, spread, number of points and symmetry.

Boone and Crockett trophy status may be bestowed to whitetails taken by any weapon, whereas Pope & Young trophies must have been killed by bow and arrow. The Longhunter Society uses the Boone and Crockett measuring system to rank trophy whitetails taken by muzzleloader. National B&C records begin at 170 B&C points and 195 B&C points for typical and non-typical whitetails, respectively, whereas national Pope & Young records begin at 125 points for typicals and 150 points for non-typicals.

For the Louisiana Big Game Records, however, the minimum standard for whitetails taken by gun is 130 B&C points for the typical category and 165 B&C points for the non-typical category. A muzzleloader category was also established in 1992 in response to the growing popularity in this aspect of the sport. In the Louisiana Big Game Records program, muzzleloader typical trophies are recognized beginning at 120 B&C for typicals and 150 B&C for non-typicals.

For more information regarding the Louisiana Big Game Records and trophy whitetail hunting in Louisiana, write or contact David Moreland, LA Big Game Records, P.O. Box 98000, Baton Rouge, LA 70898-9000; (225) 765-2348.

But where are Louisiana's trophy whitetails?

As an avid deer hunter, you have to appreciate the convenience of records. And when you analyze the Louisiana Big Game Records for Whitetails, patterns quite clearly emerge.