Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes my deer hunter psyche demands that I get away from the noise and problems of everyday life.

Trusten Holder Wildlife Management Area, which lies in as-far-as-you-can-go southeast Arkansas County, is one such place. But before we get to it, let’s talk about some deer and deer-hunting generalities that provide background for understanding the WMA’s deer herd and its characteristics.

Deer in general, and big bucks in particular, make use of drainages in a variety of ways. You can clearly observe this preference in the flatland states of Iowa, Kansas and the Dakotas, where waterways serve as highways for deer movement. However, this travel pattern takes place anywhere rivers, creeks and streams are present.

From the viewpoint of a burly whitetail buck, good reasons exist for using drainages for travel: (1.) Because of the increased moisture in the soil along drainages, cover will generally be thicker, and old bucks especially are partial to thick cover. (2.) That same cover provides a food source that may very well be better than that available in surrounding areas. (3.) Whitetails -- in fact, all wildlife -- will take advantage of terrain features that make travel easier. (4.) Given a choice, deer prefer to move in as straight a line as is possible, and waterways, by their very make-up, follow paths of least resistance; in most cases, those paths tend to run in straight lines.

I’ve now studied and hunted one such drainage in Arkansas for more than 30 years. This waterway heads up in the Boston Mountains east of Fayetteville. In its downstream travel it flows north, makes a loop through southern Missouri, and then reenters Arkansas near Diamond City, just north of Lead Hill. The river continues southeast through the black-dirt plains of the Mississippi Delta to its confluence with the Arkansas River. Figured it out? Yep: the White River -- the primary watershed of north and northeast Arkansas, and one of the state’s prime wildlife magnets. Ducks, deer and bears inhabit its length, particularly along the river’s lower reaches, and I seem to recall reading somewhere that 160 species of fish swim its waters. White River National Wildlife Refuge, the state’s No. 1 public big-buck hunting area, lies at the bottom of the drainage. And Cache River National Wildlife Refuge stretches northward just beyond its sister-refuge lands.

In 1998, hunter Wayne Lindsey arrowed the current state-record typical bow-killed buck on White River, and, in 1999, hunter Bill Dooley killed the current state-record non-typical buck along the edges of the Cache River.

Several years ago, I made a trip to Tichnor, in the lower White River drainage, to interview Donald Ray Sweetin, who had just taken a 5x6 typical whitetail that scored 172 0/8 Boone and Crockett points. Sweetin’s buck was the state’s first bow kill large enough to make the Boone and Crockett Club’s all-time record book.

While in the Tichnor area, I took time to ease along the western edge of White River NWR, just looking the country over. That’s when I crossed “the chute” at Arkansas River Lock No. 1, and entered Trusten Holder Wildlife Management Area.

Beyond southeast Arkansas, this relatively small 18,000-acre WMA may be relatively unknown. Sited in Arkansas and Desha counties some 35 miles southeast of DeWitt, the lands that comprise the WMA are owned in parts by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Management of the area’s wildlife came under the direction of the AGFC when the WMA was established in 1973.

About that time, a grass-roots movement to save prime bottomland hardwood areas -- which were rapidly disappearing in Arkansas as clearing for farmland took its toll throughout the Delta -- was stirring. Trusten Holder WMA may or may not fit the precise definition of a “big-woods” area, but it remains a tract well worth protecting.

The area’s namesake was one of the foresightful old-timers who worked for the AGFC as a biologist and federal aid coordinator back in the 1950s and ‘60s. While Trusten Holder is, perhaps, better known for his involvement with Bayou Meto WMA -- many will tell you that he was the primary force behind its acquisition -- his passion lay in saving land to be used by both wildlife and future generations of outdoorsmen.