The movie A River Runs Through It depicts the intertwining relationships of a family and a community both with one another and with the river that plays an inescapable role in the daily lives of the characters. The river is always the backdrop.

That scenario's not a whole lot different from the relationship of the Big Black River to a huge segment of the trophy deer hunting community in that river basin in southwest Mississippi.

This river corridor is very significant in terms of yielding trophy-class whitetail bucks in the Magnolia State. In fact, the waterway's basin has earned a reputation is as one of the top buck-producing areas in the Southeast, and the 11 counties along the flow of the Big Black River -- Claiborne, Warren, Hinds, Yazoo, Madison, Holmes, Attala, Carroll, Montgomery and Webster -- are consistently found near the top in rankings of Mississippi's best trophy-buck regions.

THE FACTS
Mississippi's trophy bucks are classified under three different rating systems. As is true throughout North America, the Pope & Young Club recognizes trophy archery kills, and the Boone and Crockett Club tracks the state's trophy bucks taken by means of firearms. Mississippi goes one step further with its Magnolia Records Program. Each of these systems has separate categories for typical and non-typical racks.

To make the P&Y all-time record book, a typical rack must score 125 points, while non-typicals must total 155. For B&C the threshold is 170 for typical and 195 points for non-typical racks. And any buck scoring 125 typical points or better makes the Magnolia Records, regardless of how it was killed. The minimum for non-typicals is 155. Additionally, the Magnolia Records are broken down into archery, muzzleloading and modern firearms categories, with the bucks also listed by county.

To date, Mississippi has given up 68 bucks that have made the P&Y record book. Of that number, 26, or 38 percent, have come from the 11 counties in the Big Black River basin.

With regard to B&C records, 58 Mississippi bucks have made the all-time list. Of that number, 17, or 29 percent, came from this river basin.

Finally, of the top 100 bucks listed with the Magnolia Records Program -- out of the current total of 2,749 on the list -- 32, or 32 percent, came from the Big Black River counties.

Rounding the data off suggests that about a third of the officially recognized trophy bucks from Mississippi have been surrendered by the counties in the Big Black River corridor.

ESSENTIAL HABITAT
The obvious question that comes to mind is: Why does this area of the state produce so many record-class bucks? The answer lies in understanding the fundamental elements that whitetail bucks must have to thrive and to grow big racks.

The three key factors are nutrition, age, and genetics; you can also throw in cover. This habitat has all of these critical elements.

Mother Nature is basically responsible for providing the nutrition for wildlife, and she's done an admirable job in this regard within the Big Black River basin region of the state. But there's more to it than the simple luck of an area replete with more-than-ample supplies of nutrient-rich natural browse.

Tracing the origin of the Big Black River from Webster County southwest to its confluence with the Mississippi River in Claiborne County takes you across a wide swath of some of the finest soil in America. This dirt, an extremely calcium-rich soil type known as "loess," is a heavy, loamy soil highly conducive to growing the high-quality plant cover that's extremely beneficial to a big buck's development. Calcium is vital for bone growth, which is the basis for producing large, heavy antlers.