LITTLE ROCK — Jackson Point Hunting Club in Phillips County has provided incredible hunting memories to its members for more than 40 years. Its legacy of wildlife stewardship and responsible use of Arkansas’s natural resources highlighted the 2024 Landowner Conservation Awards Banquet held in late July and earned the group recognition as the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Deer Management Assistance Program Club of the Year.
Top photo: Members of Jackson Point Hunting Club were recognized as the 2024 DMAP Deer Club of the Year by AGFC Biologist David Graves (far left), AGFC DMAP Coordinator Jeremy Brown (second from right) and AGFC Director Austin Booth (far right).
The club is nestled in the fertile ground of the Mississippi River Batture, rich floodplain soils offering excellent potential to support a variety of species. Nearly all of the 8,000 acres of property comprising the club are kept in timber, and active timber harvest on the property maintains a variety of forest ages to offer excellent cover, food and space for deer and other game and nongame species. Thinnings and cuts open the forest floor to increase vegetation for year-round food and reduce competition for hardwoods to promote hard mast in winter.
Additionally, the club maintains about 350 acres of food plots, planted in a mix of growing season plots for maximum nutrition and annual winter food plots for additional forage in late winter.
David Graves, a biologist for the AGFC’s Private Lands Habitat Division, has worked with the club since 2017 and has been thoroughly impressed with the devotion club members have not only to deer harvest management, but to record-keeping and habitat management on the property.
“This club is unparalleled when it comes to collecting quality data,” Graves said. “They collect both biological data and observation data every year, and even conduct a trail camera survey to identify individual bucks and estimate the number of does on the property.”
Lying within the heart of the floodplain, the club’s goals must fluctuate with the rise and fall of Old Man River, but the club has done an excellent job of reducing and increasing harvest to match the trends in the data they collect.
“Just a few years ago, their antlerless harvest was recommended at 40 deer per year, but floods in 2020 pushed an extremely large amount of deer onto the property, which sits on high ground. The number of deer needed to be balanced with the habitat, and during the last three years, we’ve recommended a harvest of 120 antlerless deer per year,” Graves said. “Such a large jump in harvest recommendation could cause some landowners to be skeptical, but Jackson Point took our recommendations and we’ve not only seen some balance in the herd, but we’ve also seen an increase in the gross score of bucks harvested on club property.”
Not only did the increased harvest help maintain the balance of the club’s herd, but it increased the number of people who could benefit from deer hunting. The harvest exceeded the amount of deer club members could use, so they partnered with Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry to deliver enough deer to produce several thousand packages of deer meat snack sticks, which AHFH uses in school backpack programs to help children in underserved communities.
The club has strict antler and age restrictions on the buck component of their herd.
“Jackson Point has an extremely strict harvest criteria that a buck should be a minimum of 4.5 years old before harvest,” Graves said. “Recommendations set harvest minimums at a gross Boone and Crockett score of 140, and there is plenty of habitat to support multiple deer in this class each year under their current management strategy.”
In fact, last year 18 deer met that minimum 140 B&C score criteria and were taken by club members.
Jeremy Brown, DMAP coordinator for the AGFC, praised the amount of trust the club places in the program and their willingness to work with wildlife departments of both Arkansas and Mississippi to manage their property to its fullest potential.
“This club gives back,” Brown said. “They give back to the resource by proper management of the land. They give back to those in need by donating deer harvested from the club property. They give back good data to help us make good recommendations.”
Anyone interested in becoming a DMAP club should register for one of the AGFC’s recruitment workshops throughout the state. Visit www.agfc.com/landownerevent for more information.
DMAP is a component of the AGFC’s Private Lands Habitat Division supported, in part, by the AGFC’s cultivating partner Greenway Equipment. The program assists landowners and hunting clubs manage their local deer herd through voluntary management plans. Participants may request free site visits to improve the harvest structure of the deer and learn how to improve habitat to increase the land’s potential for deer and other wildlife. Visit www.agfc.com/DMAP to learn more.
