MORE DEER COVERAGE • 2004 Deer Outlook, Part 1 • 2004 Rut Report in North American Whitetail Forums

By Glynn Harris

It's a settled fact that there's no shortage of deer in Louisiana. They roam our state from the coast to the Arkansas line, from Toledo Bend to the mighty Mississippi. Thus, anyone with a taste for prime venison is without excuse when it comes to finding a deer for the freezer.

What about those big, impressive trophy bucks? Sure, Louisiana teems with deer - but don't hunters have to travel to Iowa or Nebraska or Saskatchewan to find a genuine wallhanger buck?

Ask Shreveport's Jason Dupree about that. Or Homer's Timmy Sims. Or Gilbert's James McMurray. Or Cottonport's Rudy Bonnette. These are just a smattering of the lucky hunters who over the past few years have taken truly impressive bucks, and they didn't have to travel to states to our north or to Canada to bag these high-scoring animals.

Dupree used a rifle to bag his buck, a Red River Parish monster scoring 199 6/8. A decade ago, McMurray too wielded a rifle to down the Tensas Parish non-typical that, with a score of 281 6/8, is the most impressive buck in Louisiana deer hunting history. Sims and Bonnette were armed with muzzleloaders when they bagged their trophies in, respectively, Claiborne and Avoyelles parishes. All of these deer, and scores like them, are entered into the Louisiana records, and those numbers decisively establish that Louisiana does, indeed, have plenty of trophy bucks. It's usually a case of being in the right place at the right time when you cross paths with a monarch of the Pelican State.

Louisiana lacks the lush fields of alfalfa and standing corn that attract deer in states to our north. In fact, much of our state is characterized by red-clay dirt and piney woods - not the ideal habitat in which to grow trophy animals. Even here in the piney woods, though, hunters are occasionally successful at taking bragging-sized bucks.

This writer is an example of (as we say it in the piney woods) a blind hog finding an acorn. Hunting on my lease in Lincoln Parish in 1998, I was at the right place at the right time when a perfectly symmetrical 8-point buck stepped out, and I bagged him. There are larger deer taken regularly around the area, but my 140-class buck, a fraction shy of a 20-inch inside spread, was impressive enough that his mount now hangs on my wall.

I bagged the big boy on a cold December afternoon with sleet peppering down and ice forming on the pines. The buck stepped out of his sanctuary in a tangled thicket to fill his belly on my food plot before the approaching ice storm encased Lincoln Parish and the rest of north Louisiana. Under normal conditions, I would probably never have seen the buck during daylight hours.

Much has been written over the years by yours truly and others about Louisiana's top-ranking bucks. For a bit of a twist, let's look at some of the biggest bucks taken in the state over the past five seasons (1999-2004) to see where they were taken and thus, give this year's trophy buck hunters a leg up by pointing out areas that they might want to visit during the upcoming deer season.

Photo by Jeff Palmer

The highest-scoring typical whitetail taken by gun was bagged by Shannon Deville in St. Landry Parish in 2001; it scored 179 2/8. In 2003, Allen Gaspard killed a 174 6/8 wallhanger in Avoyelles Parish. Dwayne Robertson hunted in Grant Parish in 1999 to down a trophy that scored 173 7/8. It was in 2003 that James Jackson shot a trophy buck scored at 171 7/8 in West Feliciana Parish, while in 2004, Donald Collins got a Vernon Parish trophy scoring 171.

In the gun-killed non-typical category, two high-scoring bucks made the list within the past five seasons. Topping the list was Jason Dupree's monarch; taken in Red River Parish, it scored 199 6/8. The other high-ranking buck taken since 1999, scored at 160, was brought down in Avoyelles Parish by Burt Brouillette.

The list of typical bucks taken by bow and arrow during this period is topped by Danny Coffey, whose Caddo Parish buck scored 162 1/8. Robert Jarvis took a big buck in East Carroll Parish in 2000 that scored 156 2/8. Tony Fontenot hunted Ouachita Parish in 2002 and came home with a buck scoring 155 2/8. William Branch arrowed his buck scoring 152 2/8 in Rapides Parish, while Rob Maxwell hit paydirt with a Bossier Parish buck scored at 150.

The muzzleloader category for typical whitetails, the top five highest-scoring bucks taken over the past five seasons are led by Ronnie Wilkinson, whose Concordia Parish buck scored 170 3/8. Timmy Sims bagged his plus-size buck in Claiborne Parish in 1999; it scored 165 1/8. Bruce Cooke hunted St. Landry Parish to harvest a buck with a score of 158 1/8. Anthony Lemoine found his buck, which scored 154 2/8, in Avoyelles Parish in 2003, while Clint Ladner rounded out the top five over the past five years with another Avoyelles Parish buck scoring 152 2/8. In addition, smokepoler William Jordan took a huge non-typical in Rapides Parish, a buck that scored 198 4/8.

As these successful hunts reveal, high-scoring bucks come from a wide variety of habitats dispersed around the state. We'll remind you as we review each district which parishes produced these top 19 trophy animals, but for the moment, hold on to the main idea: You never know where the next wallhanger's coming from!

Look at a map of Louisiana, and it'll be readily apparent from the above listing that during hunting season, a trophy buck can show up virtually anywhere in the state. However, six of that top 19 (four from Avoyelles; two from St. Landry) came from neighboring parishes filled with topnotch deer habitat: the swamps and lush hardwood bottomlands of south-central Louisiana. Even though big bucks do roam the piney woods, the greater part of the trophies taken each year tend to come from either this area of south-central Louisiana or the rich soils of eastern Louisiana along the Mississippi delta.

Let's now take a look at the wildlife districts around the state and the type of habitat included in each to give hunters an idea of the areas in which the biggest bucks are more likely to be found.

Incidentally, the second-highest-scoring typical whitetail buck ever taken in Louisiana by means of conventional firearms came from District 1. In 1961, Ernest O. McCoy downed a huge Bossier Parish buck that scored 184 4/8. Other District 1 bucks of note include the buck that Steve Morton's bagged in Claiborne Parish in 1986; it scored 177 3/8. James Henderson hunted Caddo Parish in 1998 to bag his trophy scoring 177 1/8.

Two of the top 19 bucks entered into the records over the past five years - Robert Jarvis' from East Carroll and Tony Fontenot's from Ouachita - came from this district; both were taken by archery.

This district has yielded some eye-popping bucks over the years. Two, both from Union Parish, top the list: Bill Cranford's 1963 buck, which scored 179 6/8, and Paul Dendy's non-typical whitetail, taken in 1969 and scoring 192 7/8.

This district produced four of the top 19 bucks taken over the past five seasons, with Rapides Parish claiming two bucks with one each from Vernon and Grant parishes.

The highest-scoring whitetails ever recorded from District 3 were taken in Grant Parish and were non-typicals. Kevin Collier claimed a 213 1/8 in 1995, while Richard Ellison bagged his 206 6/8 in 1969.

Parishes in District 4 are Madison, Tensas, Concordia, Franklin, Catahoula, Caldwell and LaSalle. It was in Tensas Parish in 1994 that James McMurray took the highest-scoring buck ever recorded in Louisiana, a buck that still ranks high on the national list for non-typical whitetails. Also of note: McMurray took his 281 6/8 giant on public land, the Big Lake Wildlife Management Area.

Ironically, only one of the top 19 bucks recorded since 1999 has come from District 4, a buck taken by muzzleloader by Ronnie Wilkinson in 2002; it scored 170 3/8. However, this part of the state has produced trophy bucks through the years, and the several public hunting areas located here are enough to keep trophy hunters coming back to try their hand at getting their names in the records.

District 6 parishes are Avoyelles, Pointe Coupee, St. Landry, Lafayette, St. Martin, West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Iberia, St Martin, St. Mary, Assumption and Terrebonne.

Six of the top 19 bucks taken over the past five years came from this whitetail hotbed: Shannon Deville's mammoth typical whitetail buck taken in 2001 in St. Landry Parish and scored at 179 2/8, followed closely by Allen Gaspard's Avoyelles Parish buck, taken in 2003, which scored 174 6/8.

Other notable bucks coming from District 6 over the past five years include Burt Brouillette's 160-class buck taken in Avoyelles Parish, Bruce Cooke's 2003 muzzleloader-harvested buck from St. Landry Parish, scoring 158 1/8, Anthony LeMoine's 154 4/8 buck, taken in Avoyelles Parish in 2003, and Clint Ladner, who took a 152 2/8 buck by means of his muzzleloader in Avoyelles Parish in 2001.

Some of the best hunting in District 7 is to be found in West Feliciana, which yielded one of the top 19 bucks over the past five seasons, a 171 7/8 buck taken in 2003 by James Jackson. District 7 lays claim to some of the more outstanding bucks ever taken in the state. Also on this prestigious list are Tommy Rice's 228 7/8 non-typical taken in West Feliciana Parish in 1998 - a buck that ranks No. 3 statewide in this category - and Rodney Lee's 203 5/8 non-typical buck, taken by bow and arrow in East Feliciana Parish, that's the state's No. 1 bowkilled non-typical.

Still think you have to go to Iowa or Nebraska for trophy whitetails? Think again.