By Kenn Young

Back in 1984 I was hunting during the late blackpowder season on Petit Jean Wildlife Management Area in Yell County.

I didn't have a tree stand in those days, so I merely climbed up into a big oak along the treeline of one of the openings that dot the area. There was a rub line that ran along the field edge, and I had found numerous scrapes in the same spot back during the gun season.

About a half-hour before dark I saw a tall sapling start whipping back and forth 200 yards away. At first I couldn't imagine what was going on, but then I realized that a buck was probably thrashing that tree, and my breathing got a little shorter.

Sure enough, 10 or 15 minutes later, a gray form approached through the small cedars and thickets within the field itself, heading in the direction of the scrapes.

There were no scopes in those days, and it was now dark enough that I could tell only that antlers adorned the top of the animal's head (there was no 3-point rule either). When he went behind a small group of trees, I got the little H&R Huntsman up and waited for him to step out the other side. He would be about 50 yards away at that point, so I centered the bead on the spot and waited. And waited. And waited.

The buck never showed, and it finally grew too dark to see. At that point, I climbed down and headed toward the truck, deciding along the way to see if there were tracks behind the trees that would tell me how the buck had disappeared.

As I walked around the edge of the trees a tremendous snort rang through the cool air, and one of the largest sets of antlers I have ever seen alive in the Natural State disappeared over a blowdown!

I'm one of those individuals who don't necessarily crave companionship when hunting. In fact, for most of my years afield I've hunted alone, with the exception of those too-few times when my son, Jeff, accompanies me.

I guess that, for that reason, I have always had a special affinity for the late blackpowder season, which the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has in recent years shortened nearly to extinction.

Here in the Ozarks, I've often hunted this entire season without seeing more than a handful of other hunters, and many of those times occurred while hunting in the same areas that crawled with orange-clad hoards in November.

Harvest figures put out by the AGFC illustrate that lack of pressure. A total of 18,797 deer were taken in 2002-03, the last year for which complete records are available. But only 1,236 of those were taken during what passes for late season these days.

Over a lifetime spent chasing whitetails I've come to understand that this late-season hunt offers more than just a chance to have the woods to yourself. The fact is that some quality hunting still exists long after most hunters have cleaned their deer rifles and put them away for the year! There are several reasons for this.

(1.) Without the hunting pressure common to the modern gun season, deer will be in more normal movement patterns. Since during the winter those pretty much revolve around the available food sources, the deer will be localized, especially in those areas where food sources are limited.

(2.) Without that same hunting pressure, even the bigger bucks are more likely to be on the move. If food is scarce, or an occasional doe comes into estrus around the New Year, even the old-timers may be visible during daylight hours. Since these mature bucks typically go nocturnal during November, moving only at night, your trophy chances can drastically improve around Christmas.

(3.) Deep winter weather is typically bad. While that may not sound like a plus to some, many serious hunters prefer rainy/wet/cold weather because it not only tends to put game on the move but also makes stalking quieter.

So there are actually a lot of reasons to be in the woods during late season!

Photo by Ron Sinfelt

The good news is that plenty of public land exists west of Little Rock. In fact, together the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests total more than 2.5 million acres of open hunting. While herd numbers are down in some areas, in others they seem to be booming, so it's just a matter of locating one of the latter spots.

The two large WMAs within the Ozarks, Piney Creeks (located north of Russellville) and White Rock (located north of Interstate 40, primarily in Johnson, Franklin and Crawford counties) together comprise roughly 460,000 acres. I hunted Piney Creeks during the entire Christmas season last year and saw a total of six deer and three other hunters. Both numbers are low, but it's a fact you can't kill a deer lying on your couch.

Both these areas are rough and rugged, with lots of up-and-down hunting. Get out a topo map and look for spots over a mile from roads and ATV trails, those may well be the seclusion areas that one old buck migrated to as gun season raged.

The Buffalo National River WMA, which lies along the famed river and runs through Newton, Searcy, Marion and Baxter counties, offers a unique hunting opportunity. If you've ever floated the Buffalo, you've no doubt noticed that there are few roads into many of the shoreline areas. This means that a deer hunter, via boat or canoe, has access to some great hunting areas, most of which are likely to be underhunted!

Wilderness areas, where all vehicular travel is prohibited, offer the seclusion an old buck needs. There are many of these scattered throughout the Ozarks region. Richland Creek (11,822 acres), Hurricane Creek (15,177 acres), East Fork (10,777 acres), Leatherwood (16,956 acres) and the beautiful Upper Buffalo (11,094 acres) all are worth checking out. Most are underused, particularly during the deep winter. Maps showing the various locations are available from the Forest Service.

Two prime Ouachita areas, Muddy Creek WMA (160,000 acres in Montgomery, Yell and Scott counties) and Winona WMA (145,000 acres in Perry county) are both in the same mold as Piney Creeks. They consist of rough, often remote terrain with limited access. The harder the site is to get to, the better your chances there are.

Another large area is Mt. Magazine WMA, which consists of 120,000 acres lying south of state Highway 22 in Logan and Yell counties. This is one of those areas where the November gun season is split into two segments: Dog hunting is allowed in one, not in the other.

Down in extreme southwestern Arkansas, just east of Bradley and only a few miles from the Louisiana border, Lafayette County WMA is a 39,000-acre area that now operates under the 4-point antler restriction. According to former resident International Paper biologist Charles Self, Lafayette annually produces better antler and body size than the surrounding area. Hunters are required to purchase a leased land permit ($20) to hunt there.

Over in the Arkansas delta, it may seem odd to some that the state's No. 1 region in terms of big buck production has very little public land available to hunt. But if you look at a majority of the biggest bucks being killed today, you'll find that they also reside on lands where access is limited.

That problem is compounded during the late blackpowder season. Virtually all of the larger WMAs within the delta (Wattensaw, Dagmar, Bayou Meto, etc.) are closed to all gun hunting, primitive or otherwise, at this time of year. This essentially eliminates public hunting opportunity in the state's foremost big buck area.

Bayou Des Arc WMA (953 acres along state Highway 11 due north of Des Arc) and Cypress Bayou WMA (1,503 acres just east of Ward) are both small areas that are largely overlooked. The same could be said for Ethel WMA (176 acres), over in Arkansas County. But all of these are surrounded by croplands, so the food source is there.

"Find the food source, find the deer": an old hunter's adage that's never more apt than at this time of year. But you also have to know what the deer are feeding on and when.

For the past few years the acorn crop here in the mountains has been heavy. Not coincidentally, late-season hunting was hit or miss at best. With so much food available, even at that late date, the deer could feed just about anywhere they chose. As a result, they weren't concentrated in any one area, or on any one food, which is a far more typical scenario during the deep winter period.

When the acorn crop is spotty, or even nonexistent, the deer will be feeding on secondary food sources, such as honeysuckle and greenbrier. In such years, the hunting will often be great! Several years ago, I located one particular greenfield along the edge of a brush-covered ridge, and saw more deer in one day than I normally would in the entire season.

Prime examples of late-season upland feeding spots are: remote honeysuckle or greenbrier thickets; a particular oak belt where the acorn fall was heavy enough to last into the deep winter; a low-growing sapling grove; or a green crop field or planted food plot. The key is that in any area there will be some spot that attracts and holds the deer.

Once you locate that area, try to locate the access trails leading to and from the location. Remembering the past hunting season, deer - and especially bucks - will tend to avoid openings during daylight. So if an area of dense cover is in the vicinity, it's likely that a security zone that the resident deer have used since rifle season. There should be trails connecting the two. Deer also understand that with the leaves now off the trees they are more visible, so these trails will typically move through thicker cover.