Hunter visibility has been reduced within the stand. However, as pine forests grow and mature, the canopy begins to reduce available sunlight, and shades out the understory and reduces the abundance of plant forage available for deer to eat.ĭepending on the spacing of trees, this shading begins around year five, and by year 10 the forest stand’s value for hunting is pretty much over. It soon got to the point at which hunters were talking with foresters about when they were going to cut the woods around their deer stands. The loss of the hardwood timber is always upsetting to hunters, but eventually they realized clear-cutting actually improved the habitat and deer responded to this management work in positive fashion. The South Pasture eventually became part of the now-defunct Bens Creek WMA. One of my first assignments as a young LDWF game biologist was to attend a meeting of Washington Parish hunters upset about the clear-cutting west of Bogalusa in what was called the North and South pastures. Initially hunters were quite upset with the clear-cutting and the loss of hardwoods. I was heading to Driscoll Mountain that day, and right across the road was the largest clear-cut I had ever seen. In the mid-’70s I was in graduate school at NLU (now the University of Louisiana at Monroe) and was surveying the flora in Bienville Parish. This increased nutrition means healthy deer, which equates to excellent fawn production.Īt least this was the case in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
The reason for this is simple: A forest stand that has been clearcut produces an abundance of deer browse. Now that the LDWF has the ability to monitor deer harvest on a parish-by-parish level, the northwest piney woods parishes have been shows to be at the top of the list in total deer harvested.
In the 1960s, a few of the bottomland hardwood forest parishes led the way in the state’s deer kill, but as herds expanded the piney woods began catching up.Īs the housing market exploded in the ’70s and ’80s, the demand for southern pine timber increased - and as pine forests were cut and allowed to regenerate new forests, deer populations likewise dramatically increased. Forest Service and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries owns some pine forestland, although most of the piney-woods WMAs are leased from the forest industry, with Jackson-Bienville and Clear Creek being examples of this. Public ownership includes the Kisatchie National Forest managed by the U.S. Most of these forests are owned by private landowners and timber companies.
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