Arkansas' Top 25 Public Deer Lands

Wattensaw WMA- Number 15 on the list.

Can you name Arkansas' most productive public hunting area?  I analyzed AGFC's deer harvest data from all 131  wildlife management areas(WMA) and national wildlife refuges(NWR).   Rather than just looking at the total deer taken,  I compared each WMA's deer harvest numbers to the total land area within each WMA to arrive at a “harvest per square mile” ratio.   This enabled me to find the true producers among Arkansas'  public deer hunting lands.

Arkansas Public Land Deer 

First I focused on popular  WMA's and NWR's of at least 5,000  acres in size.  I then ranked/sorted them in order of the most productive deer producers in the chart below. This is a more reliable method of comparing deer hunting productivity of public lands than just looking at the total number of deer taken.  For example, a hunter might be initially impressed by the 807 whitetails harvested this season on  White River National Wildlife Refuge,  until you consider its vast expanse.   Its 250 square miles gives it a harvest ratio of 3.2,  which is slightly better than the state WMA average but puts the refuge in the bottom spot on our 2016 list of top 25 deer hunting lands in Arkansas.

Like it has for many of the previous seasons, the primitive weapons-only area of  Trusten Holder reigns supreme as Arkansas's most productive public land for deer hunting.   At 9.9 deer harvested per square mile,  Trusten Holder is 4.5 times more productive than the average 2.2 deer bagged per square mile on public hunting lands within the state. 

**Gene Rush WMA located near Jasper  was vaulted to the number 2 position due to more liberal rules imposed after the discovery of CWD in that area.  I dont look for it to last at this position.

Rank	Management Areas	Harvest YTD	WMA in Acres	Harvest Per Square Mile
1	Trusten Holder WMA	126	8,173	9.9
2	Gene Rush WMA	303	19,944	9.7
3	Freddie Black Choctaw Island WMA (East &West units)	94	9,501	6.3
4	Moro Big Pine Natural Area WMA	158	16,000	6.3
5	Ed Gordon Point Remove WMA	85	8,694	6.3
6	Lafayette County WMA	139	16,739	5.3
7	Holla Bend NWR	58	7,057	5.3
8	U of A Pine Tree Experimental Station WDA	95	11,850	5.1
9	Fort Chaffee WMA	477	66,000	4.6
10	DeGray Lake WMA	100	14,000	4.6
11	Cache River NWR	482	68,000	4.5
12	Big Timber WMA	291	41,111	4.5
13	Pond Creek NWR	189	27,000	4.5
14	Rex Hancock Black Swamp WMA	49	7,221	4.3
15	Mike Freeze Wattensaw WMA	123	19,184	4.1
16	Petit Jean River WMA	99	15,502	4.1
17	Poison Springs WMA	138	22,162	4.0
18	Henry Gray Hurricane Lake WMA	108	17,524	3.9
19	Beaver Lake WMA	48	8,007	3.8
20	Harold E. Alexander Spring River WMA	81	13,939	3.7
21	W.E. Brewer Scatter Creek WMA	29	5,002	3.7
22	Norfork Lake WMA	56	10,000	3.6
23	Wedington WMA	83	16,000	3.3
24	Casey Jones WMA	277	54,066	3.3
25	Dale Bumpers White River NWR – North & South Units	807	160,000	3.2