GILES ISLAND

Planting on Giles Island

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jimmy Riley is the lodge manager and hunt master for Giles Island, an island in the Mississippi River near Natchez, Mississippi, and Ferriday, Louisiana. He constantly learns more and more about the bucks on this island each season, and his management program has proven success.

Question: What're you doing for the deer? What're you planting?
Answer: We plant 150 acres of fall/winter food plots that we incorporate into our summer plots in the form of oceola clover, which lasts until August. A tree-planting program is dual-purpose -- wildlife and timber value. We plant the green ash in the low-lying areas, where oak trees won't grow, for timber value. We plant the oak tree on the rest of the area to increase the wildlife value. We plant live oaks in the sandy areas. They have a long maturity, but our grandkids may get to see them. We plant red oak, water oak and sawtooth in various places. We've planted a few white oak on the higher-elevated places where the flood may not affect them. We've also planted cypress in a few areas.

Question: You've planted fruit trees, right?
Answer: We've planted a few pear trees, apple trees and peach trees just to play with them and to see what works. A few have survived, but they usually don't do too well because of the island's sandy soil.

Question: Most areas along the Mississippi depend on oak nuts to feed their deer, but you use pecans.
Answer: Yeah. We have a slave levee that extends from the Mississippi River, where the cutoff was made in 1933, all the way back around to the airport across the island. We call it a slave levee because the slaves built it -- not to keep water in or out, but to give access to the island. Most of the antebellum homes in Natchez are made with cypress and oak. And since there aren't many cypress and oak on the island, we think they were depleted back in the antebellum days. As a result, the sweet pecan has taken over as one of the dominant species on the island. The most-dominant tree in board feet is cottonwood, and the second most-dominant is sweet pecan. The pecans are full of carbohydrates and fat, and the deer eat them like popcorn.

Question: What's the difference in sweet pecans and regular pecans?
Answer: None. That's a sweet pecan. They may grow bigger. They're all sweet pecans, and they taste great. Ours are a little smaller than average because they're wild.

Question: How did the pecans get here?
Answer: It's natural. They're native. You'll see them all up and down the river islands. We think all our cypress and oaks were logged-out to build homes.

To learn more about Giles Island, write 461 Old River Boat Camp Road, Ferriday, LA 71334, call (877) 944-5374, or visit www.gilesisland.com.

TOMORROW: GILES ISLAND DEER MANAGMENT