Louisiana Hunting Towns

Louisiana hunting towns by LDWF field office

Towns are grouped by the LDWF Wildlife Division field office that serves their parish: Minden (17 towns), covering the northwest corner: Caddo Lake, the Red River valley, the Kisatchie hills of Claiborne and Webster and the pine and hardwood country around Shreveport; Monroe (22 towns), covering the northeast: the Ouachita and Boeuf river bottoms, the Mississippi Delta farmland of the Tensas basin and the pine hills around Ruston; Pineville (23 towns), covering central Louisiana: Kisatchie National Forest, the Red River, Catahoula Lake and the longleaf pine hills around Alexandria; Lafayette (32 towns), covering Acadiana and the Atchafalaya Basin: cypress swamp, sugarcane and rice fields, and the bottomland hardwoods along the Mississippi; Lake Charles (22 towns), covering the southwest: coastal marsh and chenier ridges, rice and crawfish prairie, and the longleaf pine flats of Beauregard and Allen; Hammond (43 towns), covering the Florida Parishes and the southeast: Pearl River and Lake Maurepas swamps, the Lake Pontchartrain basin, Delta marsh and the pine flats north of Lake Pontchartrain.

Louisiana hunting towns from Vivian to Venice

Bold pins mark towns with 20,000 acres or more of public hunting land inside 10 miles; each pin opens that town page.

Deer Areas behind Louisiana’s hunting towns

Louisiana sets private-land deer dates by ten Deer Areas whose lines follow roads and rivers, so a parish can sit in two or three. Each area has its own archery, primitive firearms, still-hunt and dog segments; most carry a season limit of six deer, while Area 1, Area 4 and Area 10 differ. A town is counted under every area its parish appears in on the pamphlet lists, so the column adds up to more than the number of towns. Wildlife management areas and federal land print their own schedules instead.

Base towns for Louisiana WMAs, Kisatchie, refuges and Corps land

104 towns earned a page as the nearest town (an incorporated place of 250 or more people, or a Census-designated place) within 12 miles of a public area of 1,000 GIS acres or more: an LDWF wildlife management area, a Kisatchie National Forest parish part of 5,000 acres or more, a national wildlife refuge with 100 or more acres in Louisiana, the Old River Control and Bonnet Carre Spillway Corps lands, the Indian Bayou Corps WMA, or the Barataria Preserve. Biloxi WMA in the far southeast had no such town within 12 miles, so its nearest Census place within 20 miles was used. Large anchors and every federal area could add a second town. Parish seats make up 13 of the base towns as well.

More Louisiana hunt planning