The secret's finally out. Mississippi trophy hunters have tried to keep the evidence to themselves for as long as possible -- but now the news is spreading fast about the trophy buck potential in the Magnolia State.

By the end of deer season, a tall stack of print-media material will have piled up beside my easy chair, and from then until the start of turkey hunting, I spend a lot of time catching up on my reading. Thumbing through one high-profile national outdoors magazine, I came across a piece on prime prospects among trophy deer hunting sites. As I read on, I cringed: We'd finally hit the big time. In the course of his review of up-and-coming hotspots in America, the author listed two states to keep a close watch on in particular -- and Mississippi was one of them.

MISSISSIPPI'S TROPHY POTENTIAL
I'll never forget the story told by whitetail hunting lodge owner Robin Callender of Port Gibson. For more than 20 years ago now he's attended an outdoor hunting show in Michigan. In his booth he displayed several of the bucks taken through the years from Claiborne County.

"As hunters passed by my booth," Robin recalled, "they would always stop to talk about these mounted bucks being from Mississippi. They had no idea we had such large whitetails. One guy began to get totally indignant about my mounts, displaying his ignorance of Southern buck potential. The last straw was his accusation that these bucks could not have come from Mississippi. I finally just told the guy to move on."

Today, one has only to comb through the record books of the Boone and Crockett or Pope & Young clubs, as well as Mississippi's own Magnolia Records Program, to find proof of Mississippi's big bucks. If there's any doubt in your mind about the trophy potential here, check out the bucks listed in the Boone and Crockett book starting with the one at the top of the list for Mississippi: The Tony Fulton buck, taken in Winston County in 1994, scored 295 6/8 non-typical B&C points. A world record at the time, it continues as the official state-record buck.

Currently, more than 3,100 bucks are listed in the Magnolia Records, all scoring above the minimum of 125 B&C for typical bucks and 155 for non-typicals.

As additional evidence, just ask some of the trophy hunters themselves. A case in point: Cliff Covington, who hunts Claiborne and Jefferson counties. From 1990 through 2004, Cliff took eight bucks that made the MRP list. Most of them 10-pointers, they scored from 130 3/8 up to 150 0/8 -- although that biggest rack was only an 8-pointer!

The bucks are here -- no doubt. The problem lies in figuring out where, and how, you can find yours.

TACTICS FOR MAGNOLIA TROPHIES
The first point to consider: How exactly ought you to hunt a true trophy whitetail? Just placing a stand over a greenfield or food plot in the Magnolia State almost assures you of seeing deer. On the other hand, those whitetails probably won't sport massive racks. You need to hunt, and with perseverance, specifically those areas in which plus-sized bucks hang out -- and then be the beneficiary of a huge dose of good luck.