"Being as I was in woods I didn't know, I guess I got a little turned around," he admitted, "and my friend Willie and I couldn't find that buck that morning, which was Saturday. It was a deadly shot, but it was high and it didn't penetrate through the deer. It didn't leave any blood trail that we could find."

A man whose sense of religious observance is strict about the Sabbath, Taylor doesn't hunt on Sunday, and the Delta was inundated with heavy rains and lightning on Monday. "I couldn't search in that, so it was Tuesday before I returned," he said. "I went back to the same tree, climbed back up in it and got my bearings; I walked right to him. Coyotes had eaten most of the meat.

"You know, the Lord takes care of all His creatures, and the coyotes got the meal. Only the rib cage, head and antlers were intact. I did recover the antlers."

The rack green-scored 130 inches net -- very respectable for a true 8-pointer. The rack had a 19 1/2 inch inside spread, 5-inch bases, 22-inch main beams and 9-inch brow tines. Yazoo officials aged the buck at 4 1/2 years and estimated its weight at over 250 pounds.

"Like I said," biologist David Linden observed. "We still do have some quality bucks that come through each year." l

Find more about Mississippi fishing and hunting at: MississippiGameandFish.com