An Outdoorsman’s Journal: A great week in the Delta National Forest

Mark Walters Hello friends, Last week and again this week I am writing to you about a seven-day hunting and camping trip that I went on with my brother Tom Walters of Denham Springs, La., and my 22-year-old daughter Selina Walters. A little history: This is our third hunt in the Delta National Forest (DNF); our first was right after the great flood of 2019, which we did not know about when we agreed to the hunt. Our next trip was in 2022 and the most recent is what I am writing about. To put it into reality, though we have always wanted to harvest a buck or a hog, we have never fired a shot.

What was not killed or displaced by 7 feet of water for five months in most cases is too young to meet the 15-inch minimum that a buck has to be to harvest. We have seen a number of bucks over the years, but never one that we were confident was large enough to legally harvest. Friday, Dec. 29 – High 53, low 26 Today would be our third day of hunting with our seven-day, all game licenses that cost just under $300. All three of us have been seeing deer but so far only one hog. We stay up late and get up about 4:30. We paddle canoes in the dark and then hike to our stands. This morning, I found an excellent scrape and rub that had just been made within the last few hours and I was extremely excited for our afternoon hunt. In this case I would be sitting on the ground in a massive hardwood forest in an area where deer were tearing up the ground eating acorns the size of walnuts. The locals call deer bedding areas thickets, because they are so thick that walking through them is challenging, to say the least. I would be on the edge of a thicket and used my grunt tube about every 20 minutes. About 30 minutes into my hunt, I saw a good buck headed my way. It was only about 50 yards away, just about to come out of a thicket and give me an easy shot if he was legal. The buck stopped and did give me a broadside shot, but the 15-inch minimum rack size made me chicken out of taking the shot. The buck headed back into the thicket. I was confident he was not alarmed and mad as hell at myself for passing on the shot, because on second thought I knew he was dandy. Another way a buck can be legal is if one of its main beams is at least 18 inches. Just before dark, a small doe checked out the scrape and began eating acorns. At very close to dark my buck appeared at the scrape and I did not hesitate. I have always been in a stand for this type of a situation. He was about 80 yards away and I sent a round from my 300 into what I was hoping was his vitals and went looking for signs of a hit. I found no sign of a hit and got out of the area, as I did not want to push him. Back at camp that night I was as nervous as a cat in a dog kennel with two pit bulls. Was he legal? Was he hit?

Every night of this adventure there was a hard frost, so I knew he would be fine. A little side note: You can shoot three bucks, but only one a day.

The following morning the 8-pointer was 80 yards from the scrape, cold as ice and legal with a 16.5inch spread and a main beam of 20 inches and the other of 19.5.

There is a lot of research done on these deer and although we had to do all of the work, each deer has to have a part of the lower jaw removed, has to be weighed and the antlers must be measured in three different ways.

Lots of crazy things happened on the last four days of this hunt. We did not see another deer while on our stands. Someone stole a 20-pound propane tank from our cook stove and bought it back two days later empty.

One day on some high ground, I found a whole bunch of wild boar skulls. When the flood came, many of the animals lived on small tracts of high ground where it was survival of the fittest, with most fawns being killed by boars and raccoon. Sharp shooters came in by helicopter and literally tried wiping out as many of the wild boar as possible as they are bad news for the environment. My guess is that is what caused the concentration of boar skulls in a very small area.

This trip was another great experience for all of us! ~Sunset