Arkansas's Most Productive Public Deer Lands

                                                                                                                  by Jim Taylor

The Arkansas Arkansas Game and Fish commission has  reported that  210,000 deer have been harvested so far during the 2012/2013 deer hunting season.  This surpasses the record held since the 1999/2000 season when 194,192 deer were harvested.   These are combined numbers for all methods of deer hunting. 

So this season was good, but what was Arkansas's most productive public hunting area?  I analyzed the year-to-date deer harvest data from Arkansas's 132 wildlife management areas(WMA) and national wildlife refuges(NWR)  for the 2012 season.  Rather than  just looking  at the total number of deer taken,  I compared each wildlife management area's deer harvest numbers to the total area within the WMA to arrive at a “harvest per square mile” ratio. This enabled me to find the true producers among Arkansas's  public deer hunting lands.

To make the data more manageable, I focused on popular  WMA's and NWR's that had checked  at least 100 deer during the 2012/2013 season thus far.  (Through the first week of January 2013) I then ranked/sorted  them  in order of the most productive deer producers in the chart below.  This is a more accurate  method of comparing deer hunting  productivity  than just looking at the total number of deer taken.   For example, a hunter might be initially impressed with the 1,112 whitetails bagged on  White River National Wildlife Refuge, until you consider its vast expanse.   The 250 square miles within the boarders of  White River National Wildlife Refuge produced a deer harvested per square mile ratio of 4.4.   This harvest ratio places the refuge in the  number 8 ranking on our list of  top deer hunting lands in Arkansas.

Like it has for the previous two seasons, the primitive weapons only area of  Trusten Holder  reigns supreme again as Arkansas's most productive public land for deer hunting.  At 10.6 deer harvested per square mile Trusten Holder  is 56% more productive than the newly established Moro Big Pine Natural Area WMA, the number 2 spot on this years list, and a whopping 141% more productive than the popular White River NWR.    

				Deer Harvest
	2012/2013 Harvest Report	Acres	Harvest	Harvest/sq mi.
	Trusten Holder WMA	8173	136	10.6
	Moro Big Pine Natural Area WMA	16000	169	6.8
	Cache River NWR	54000	568	6.7
	Mike Freeze Wattensaw WMA	19184	166	5.5
	Henry Gray Hurricane Lake WMA	17524	146	5.3
	Howard County WMA	26000	193	4.8
	Fort Chaffee WMA	66000	462	4.5
	White River NWR - South Unit+ NORTH	160000	1112	4.4
	Felsenthal NWR	65000	445	4.4
	Dave Donaldson Black River WMA	21150	141	4.3
	Lafayette County WMA	16739	110	4.2
	Poison Springs WMA	17604	115	4.2
	Scott Henderson Gulf Mountain WMA	16739	105	4
	Pond Creek NWR	27000	164	3.9
	Big Timber WMA	37742	204	3.5
	Lake Greeson WMA	38000	144	2.4
	Bayou Meto WMA	33832	120	2.3
	Casey Jones WMA	83832	297	2.3
	Sylamore WMA	150000	496	2.1
	Mount Magazine WMA	120000	318	1.7
	Winona WMA	160000	326	1.3
	Buffalo National River WMA	97730	186	1.2
	Muddy Creek WMA	146206	214	0.9
	Cherokee WMA	105313	144	0.9
	Caney Creek WMA	85000	95	0.7
	Piney Creeks WMA	180000	191	0.7