Photo by Mark Werner

Mississippi deer hunters ordinarily register trophy bucks, especially those that qualify for prestigious national record books. Check out the all-time record book of the Boone and Crockett Club or their awards record book, and you'll find a number of Mississippi bucks listed that were taken with firearms. Oddly, however, the 2004-05 season saw only one Magnolia State buck enter either one of those listings.

That's not to say that Mississippi deer hunters harvested no trophy whitetails last deer season. Nine bucks killed by archers made the Pope & Young Club's all-time record book. Also, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks' Magnolia Records Program recorded dozens of fine bucks taken last season. The minimum score to enter a kill in either of these latter programs is 125 typical points or 155 non-typical.

But the minimum scores for the B&C awards programs are considerably higher. To get into the all-time book requires scores of 170 for typical racks, 195 non-typical. For the organization's awards record book, the thresholds are 160 and 185, respectively.

That's what sets Woodville deer hunter Keith Boykin head and shoulder above his peers. The only deer so far entered on either of those B&C lists from last year was his 162 4/8 point typical.

"It was the evening of day one of the gun-hunting season -- Saturday evening -- when I took him," Boykin said in recounting his trophy tale. "I was hunting on a farm in Adams County where I've worked for 30 years. But beginning in 2000, we enrolled 3,400 acres in the Wetland Reserve Program to put erodable land back into trees. We planted cypress, oaks, gum and other trees."

Woodland brakes and "islands" are key locations for hunting trophy deer along the Mississippi River and on Delta farmland where longtime agricultural practices have cleared much of the hardwood forests.

"I've hunted this buck for three years," Boykin continued. "I can't say for sure that I've seen the same buck all that time, but I look at deer all year long. When you look at them all the time, you just know. How many Boone and Crockett bucks do you see every day? I feel like his antlers -- the general shape and those long tines -- were antlers I'd seen before."

Then, late in the afternoon on a rainy Nov. 20, 2004, Boykin put his binoculars to his eyes and spied the buck again. "He was right at a tree where I had hung a tree stand during the bow season, hoping I might get him then," he said. "But he started loping away just about the time I was ready to shoot. I was saying to myself 'Stop … stop … stop' -- and just before he cleared the right of way, he stopped! I hit him right behind the shoulder. He didn't go but about 40 yards before he dropped."

Boykin's buck green-scored 175 3/8 B&C points, but 12 7/8 inches in deductions reduced the final official score.

WHERE BIG BUCKS ROAM
What's not unique about Boykin's buck is the area in which it was killed -- or more specifically, the type of habitat in which it was taken. Mississippi's agricultural industry has expanded across what's arguably the richest farmland in the nation, leaving tiny woodland stands amid wide fields that stretch to the horizon. These woodland brakes along the Mississippi River and its Delta region stand as oases of sorts in which whitetails roam and grow to large proportions.

The largest block of bottomland hardwoods remaining in the Delta stretches across 60,000 acres of Delta National Forest and the state-operated Sunflower Wildlife Management Area. Otherwise, pockets of woodland brakes dot a relatively narrow belt of land adjacent to the Mississippi River, particularly inside its levee system.

"It's all about the quality soil throughout the Delta and some other drainages in the state that leads to trophy-buck production. That's not to say big bucks can't be grown in other places," explained deer study leader William McKinley of the MDWFP, "but the trends in trophy-buck harvests clearly displays that big-buck production revolves around the pH levels of the soil.