Using a borrowed muzzleloader, Gloria Montgomery got her buck in Issaquena County. Photo by Robert H. Cleveland Jr.

Mississippi's 2007-08 deer season was -- as has been reported over the past several editions -- full of record-book bucks. It was also full of stories involving great if not quite Boone-and-Crockett-class deer.

THE 2-FOR-1 BUCK
Kelly Kennedy couldn't believe how fast word spread about the big buck he killed Dec. 10 -- and another that he found dead -- at Twin Oaks Wildlife Management Area.

Twins Oaks offers only a draw hunt opportunity for deer, and Kennedy had been selected for a Sunday afternoon, Monday and Tuesday hunt. When he and a hunting partner arrived on Sunday morning, they were surprised to learn they could scout.

"I found a scrape line and started following it, and I used my GPS to get a good location," Kennedy said. "When I studied it on a map, I learned I could get in on a different route, on a levee that would be much easier."

That afternoon Kennedy was walking the levee to his stand when he stumbled on a startling discovery. There on the ground, half on the levee and half in water was the decaying body of a giant buck.

"If you didn't walk right by it on the levee you wouldn't see it," Kennedy said. "That afternoon on my way out, we took a saw and cut off the antlers.

The next day Kennedy went back to the stand and continued his hunt. He killed a good one that was traveling with does.

The buck that Kennedy killed was a 13-pointer scored at 164 B&C; the one he found was a 15-pointer reckoned to be in the 150s. Two sets of antlers measuring a whopping 300 inches combined: In a deer-crazy state like Mississippi, that gets people's attention.

"I couldn't believe the crowd that came out to Twin Oaks to see my deer," Kennedy said. "They had called all the game wardens, and they had called their friends. And I guess somebody called somebody back in Pearl River County." Word even beat him home to Picayune, where he's a fireman. "When I returned on Wednesday, I was already getting calls about the buck I had found.

"Two people called about it, but one of them, believe it or not, was a Picayune fireman who lives in Poplarville. His name is Zach Barret, and I talked to him, and I talked to several Picayune firemen that I know, and he had told them the same story."

As it turned out, Barret had drawn a hunt a week earlier, shot at a big buck in that same area, searched for it and failed to find it. "It all matched up," said Kennedy. "I am 100 percent sure that he was the guy who shot the deer, so I gave him the antlers. He was happy to get them."

The story could end there -- but it doesn't. And it got even better for Kennedy. "The next Saturday, I killed a 10-point here at my club in Pearl River County," he said. "It scored 122 inches plus and -- for around here -- is a great deer."

A CHANGE OF MIND
Gloria Montgomery of Madison is a staunch advocate of bowhunting whitetails -- or, at least, she was.

After a pre-Christmas hunt in Issaquena County with several other women, Montgomery was rethinking her Christmas wish list. A giant buck that she took with a borrowed .45/70 rifle during the primitive weapon season kindled a new passion. Her 245-pound monster, an 11-point non-typical with tremendous mass, scored 152 inches and finished second in the Women's Non-typical Division in the statewide Big Buck Contest.