Jody Freeman’s impressive Tate County whitetail sported a 20-point rack with 27-inch main beams. Photo courtesy of Jody Freeman.

Opening day of the 2005 rifle season in Mississippi provided glimpse of a buck that started an unhealthy obsession for me -- but I’m getting ahead of myself.

A large portion of our family lives on or near the family farm owned by my grandfather and managed as a small cattle operation. In fact, I grew on the farm. It is just outside Independence, a very small town about 30 minutes south of Memphis.

The farm covers a little over 500 acres; about 320 of those are huntable, while another 80 are set aside in the Conservation Reserve Program to benefit wildlife.

A major highway separates the tract into two parts, with the majority visible from the road. Most of it is in pastures, with a few soybean fields and some small blocks of woods. Overall, the property is just so open that it’s tough to hunt. Over the years my dad, Wayne Freeman, and I have taken a few decent deer on the farm, but nothing that grossed over about 135 inches of antlers.

On opening morning of 2005, my dad picked me up about an hour before daylight to head to another piece of land we had permission to hunt about 30 miles south of Independence. We always saw more deer there than we do on the farm at home. Though we saw deer that day, neither of us took one

We were passing our farm on our way home at about 10:30 a.m. when my dad spotted some deer, and we pulled off the road to check them out with binoculars. At first look we agreed that one of the deer was a buck and bigger than anything we had ever seen around there. Also, there appeared to be a drop tine from the main beam, but even at 800 yards, it looked too big to be a single point.

The deer next turned and ran into a very small block of woods. Quickly we devised a plan for dad to walk to the thicket, while I took the truck and drove around to the opposite side. Making my best guess as to where the deer were headed, I sat down on a small pond levee about 60 yards out of the thicket.

After about 15 minutes I started to hear deer running through the woods straight toward me. They were does, but at the same time I saw a deer to my left running hard and probably 150 yards out. The area was too thick to get a shot, but the deer ran through a small opening, and I saw his rack. He kept running hard and came out of the thicket 250 yards away and I only caught a glimpse of his left side him before he disappeared over the hill.

Rushing to over the hill, I spotted him standing on the next ridge about 600 yards away in our pasture right next to the thickest cutover that borders our land. The buck stood there for about three or four minutes waiting on his does to catch up, and then jumped the fence and disappeared.