Union led Louisiana's 2024-25 reported deer harvest

IPrinted list

The annual report ranks 20 parishes and stops

Hunters comparing Louisiana parishes by deer killed are usually holding a reported total. That total counts deer tagged through the license tag system or logged through the Deer Management Assistance Program. The hunter harvest survey is a separate statewide estimate. A parish cell does not forecast one stand.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says all deer harvested in the state are reported through one of those two channels in the 2024-25 deer report. The report then limits the parish printout. It says the deer reported per parish for the top 20 parishes are in Table 3. Parishes that miss that cut have no harvest cell in the report. Our rule is to leave them blank. A blank means LDWF did not print that parish. It does not mean the parish reported zero deer.

LDWF says the hunter harvest survey estimate is consistently higher than reported harvest. It calls reported harvest a minimum number of deer harvested compared with the survey estimate. LDWF says the survey has limited application at the parish level due to sample size. The tag system is the parish record, and the annual report still prints only the top 20. Table 3 has one Harvest column. Bucks and does are not split there. The same report says the reporting system records male and female harvest for each parish.

For 2024-25 the reported total is 143,527. The same report's hunter survey total is 239,000. Those are different counts. The survey figure is the 2025 hunter harvest survey total in Table 1 and the 2024-25 row of Table 5. The 143,527 figure is the reporting system.

IIStatewide count

Reported harvest rose from 88,256 to 143,527

Table 2 is labeled combined reporting data from all sources. For 2020-21 through 2024-25 the WMA managed column is marked combined with public land reporting, so it has no separate number. Private, public and DMAP are the printed parts. In each of these five seasons those three cells add to the printed total. Each earlier report prints the same cells for its own year in the 2020-21 report, the 2021-22 report, the 2022-23 report and the 2023-24 report.

The 2024-25 reported total is 55,271 deer above the 2020-21 total. Divide 55,271 by 88,256 and the rise is 62.6 percent. Private land is the largest of the three printed parts in every season in the table. Public land moved from 10,957 to 16,452. DMAP moved from 12,145 to 14,310.

Table 5 of the 2024-25 report prints the reporting system's year-to-year change. The printed changes after 2020-21 are 16 percent in 2021-22, 13 percent in 2022-23, 17 percent in 2023-24 and 5 percent in 2024-25. The report calls 2024-25 the second consecutive season with a record high in reported harvest. It also says harvest has been trending up under standard reporting methods over the past 5 seasons.

The survey column in that table does not follow the same path. It lists 192,000 for 2020-21 and 239,000 for 2024-25. The difference is 47,000. That is 47,000 divided by 192,000, or 24.5 percent. Table 5 prints a survey decline of 9 percent in 2022-23 and another 9 percent decline in 2024-25. Reported harvest was up 5 percent in that last season. A footnote on the survey series says the hunter harvest survey includes senior hunters for the first time. It also says a change in estimated harvest methodology means only the years since are presented. The asterisk sits on the 2012-13 survey cell of 174,700. The report does not give a reporting rate.

The 2021-22 report is the one that describes a reporting change inside this window. It says the season opened with electronic tagging through the LDWF web portal, LA Wallet and text-to-tag. It also says many hunters quickly adopted the new methods for tagging and validating harvest. Our read is that the later climb in reported harvest can mix more deer with more complete reporting. LDWF does not publish that split.

IIISame names

Eighteen parishes stayed in the printed top 20

Each season's Table 3 was read from that season's deer report. Eighteen parishes are on every list from 2020-21 through 2024-25. They are Avoyelles, Bienville, Bossier, Catahoula, Claiborne, Grant, Jackson, La Salle, Natchitoches, Ouachita, Rapides, Sabine, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster and Winn.

In the 2020-21 report Union is first at 4,074 and Vernon is fourth at 3,171. Vernon is first in the 2022-23 report at 5,563 and again in the 2023-24 report at 6,122. In the 2024-25 report Union is first at 6,686 and Vernon is second at 5,896. Vernon's printed total fell from 6,122 in 2023-24 to 5,896 in 2024-25. The statewide reported total still rose that season.

Beauregard is absent from the 2020-21 top 20. It is rank 20 in 2021-22 at 2,304 and it remains on the later lists. Madison is on the list for 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23. It is off the 2023-24 and 2024-25 lists. Morehouse is rank 19 in 2020-21 at 1,950 and does not appear in the later top 20 tables. Caldwell appears only in 2023-24 at 2,823. Lincoln appears only in 2024-25 at 3,118. Leaving the printed list is not a published decline. These reports never show the next parish down.

The 20 parishes in the 2024-25 table sum to 83,497. Subtract that from 143,527 and 60,030 reported deer sit outside the printed names. The 2020-21 top 20 sums to 53,409. Subtract that from 88,256 and 34,847 reported deer sit outside that season's list. Both the printed names and the unpublished remainder are larger in 2024-25 than in 2020-21. The 2024-25 top 20 is 83,497 divided by 143,527, or 58.2 percent of that season's reported harvest.

In the 2023-24 table Beauregard and Webster are both printed at 3,403. LDWF ranks Beauregard 14th and Webster 15th.

IVLatest table

Union's 6,686 led the 2024-25 reported list

Table 3 of the 2024-25 report is the top 20 harvest parishes derived from total reported deer harvest. The harvest column is that reported total.

VHow to use it

Read a parish only when LDWF printed it

Our rule is to match the question to the column. A parish comparison uses the reported Harvest cell for that season. A statewide trend can use Table 2 if you label it reported harvest. The 239,000 survey estimate answers a different question. Do not set it beside a parish total. These reports do not turn a parish total into one hunter's odds. They also do not give a deer population count for the state or for a parish.

If your parish is one of the eighteen that stayed on the list, the five reports show the reported direction. If it fell off the list or never appeared, stop. LDWF did not publish that parish total in the reports opened here. Check current LDWF hunting regulations before you hunt.