Talking about the early days of our long hunting seasons usually focuses on the opening of the dove season and this year’s nine-day teal season.

But for the thousands of Louisiana deer hunters, the season for taking whitetails isn’t far behind. In fact, the archery season begins Sept. 20 (teal season opens the same day) in four of our state’s 10 deer hunting areas.

While some will tell deer hunters it’s too late to start a food plot, it’s a good time to consider fertilizing the native plants — called “browse” — whitetails have been eating throughout the late spring and into summer.

Native grasses provide chlorophyll deer need from an early age, and plants like briers can use fertilizer to send out tender shoots needed for berry production next year. Deer love to feast on tender green shoots and you can judge the size of the deer in an area by the height of the newly eaten browse along stands of briers. The higher the height of the browse line gives a hunter the height of the deer.

Another thing this year is we’ve had enough rain this spring and summer to give our nut-producing trees, primarily oaks, enough water to produce an above-average crop of acorns, a primary food source deer will use when acorns and other nuts begin falling in the early fall.

Our all-state angler

Bennett Fontenot, a young bass angler from Krotz Springs, was named to this year’s Bassmaster High School all-state fishing team. Forest Hill’s Justin Blais was an honorable mention selection.

Fontenot was among 33 young fishermen a Bassmaster committee selected for all-state honors, from which 12 will be named to the All-America team later this year. There were nearly 200 nominations.

Qualifications were based on the students’ “success in bass tournament competition, academic achievement (a minimum 2.5 grade-point average) and leadership in conservation and community service.”

The commission

The next move in Louisiana’s quest to remove abandoned and salvaged boats from waterways is among the agenda items for Thursday’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting.

The notice of intent seeks to establish protocols for registration and titling of these boats.

The meeting is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at state headquarters on Quail Drive in Baton Rouge.

Other major agenda items include:

Considering an emergency declaration to allow disabled veterans to use any firearm during the primitive weapons season;Set hunting seasons on the newly established Bogue Chitto and Flatwoods Savanna wildlife management areas;Set the 2025-2026 oyster seasons;Hear an update on the bass and sac-a-lait numbers in the Saline-Larto Complex.

The meeting will be carried live via Zoom.

Snapper count

Through Aug. 17, the LA Creel survey estimate for the private recreational red snapper take is 720,127 pounds or 85.4% of our state’s 894,955-pound annual allocation. That’s a one-week increase of 89,682 pounds from the Aug. 10 estimate.

The Gulf Council

Last week’s Gulf Council added public comments and other data to open the federal for-hire red snapper season on the Friday before Memorial Day next year. The previous opening day varied during the month of June.

The council’s report stated charter operations with federal permits preferred to open the season earlier than in previous years to take advantage of early-summer bookings rather than having their season extend into the fall.

Another council move changed deep-water grouper catch limits, allocations and recreational accountability measures for species like Warsaw, snowy grouper and yellowedge groupers and speckled hinds, a group of fish data shows is “experiencing overfishing.”

The move resulted in a nearly 50% reduction in the allowable catch to end overfishing of yellowedge grouper, and established sector separation for this group of fish.

The new overfishing limit will be 731,035 pounds with an acceptable catch and stock annual catch limit of 555,026 pounds. That last number means the recreational annual catch limit will be 56,668 pounds with the respective commercial annual catch limit and quota at 498,358 pounds and 478,424 pounds.

Both amendments need the secretary of U.S. Commerce for approval and implementation.

On a mission

If you don’t know who Jeff Kolodzinski is, well, stay tuned.

At 5 p.m. Sept. 10, Kolodzinski will attempt to break his world record he set in 2022 when he caught 2,977 fish in a 24-hour period. He will end his try during this charity event at 5 p.m. Sept. 11 at Camp Dallas near Spring Bay, Illinois.