When you consider what it takes to make a big-buck area, White River truly has it all. Deep-woods security cover, row crops around its edges, and limited hunting pressure all combine to produce bucks distinguished by both size and age. The facility has also had systematic doe harvest in place for decades, long before it became fashionable, and that management tool has been successful to the point that, during that entire period, the kill ratio of bucks to does has been right at 1:1.
For gun hunting, the refuge is split into north and south units, with the dividing line being state Highway 1. A pair of three-day muzzleloader seasons take place on the north unit in October, followed by three- and four-day modern gun hunts in November. On the south unit there is a single three-day hunt for both muzzleloader (October) and modern gun (November). The gun hunts are the best if the weather cooperates, with cold weather needed to cut down on the trophy mosquitoes that also call White River home. Permits are required, and the same 4x4 slot antler restriction in use on Cache River is used here.
Numerous other WMAs within the delta, such as Wattensaw, Dagmar, Bayou Meto and Trusten Holder, offer virtually the same quality of hunting as the places I've mentioned. Your chances of taking a good buck at virtually any of those are increased simply because of the food sources available throughout the region.
Of course, as stated, that's not the only region in which Natural State hunters have shot a big buck. I have a friend who planted several 2- to 5-acre food plots on some acreage he owns up the road a piece, all of it surrounded by Ozark National Forest land. Over the year and a half since he planted, he has shown me photos of bucks feeding on those plots that most Johnson County deer hunters wouldn't even believe exist.
That explains as well as anything why the next state-record whitetail may not come from the delta, even though that is by far the most likely area. It may well come from the Ozarks, the Ouachitas, the GCP, or even Crawford County!
And that possibility is really what keeps the big-buck hunter's heart pumping just a little faster, every time he heads into the woods!
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