Photo by Ron Sinfelt

By Jill J. Easton

Folks around Leland call Ray Barrett one of the luckiest hunters in the woods. Last December he took a non-typical buck on public land that grossed 214 Boone and Crockett Club (B&C) points and netted 201 3/8 for a new state muzzleloading record. This was only the latest in a long string of impressive deer.

However, luck wasn't the major factor in Barrett's bagging of this buck. Knowledge of the land he was hunting, careful scouting and the staying power to pass up smaller bucks were much more important than a rabbit's foot or four-leaf clover. His monster buck of 2002 was the biggest deer he'd taken, but over the last 20 years Barrett has brought down numerous bucks scoring in the 130 to 160 B&C range.

His story started out no differently than those of thousands of other hunters who took to the woods on Dec. 21, 2002. It was just before daylight and cold - 27 degrees with wind from the south - as he hurried out of the house half an hour later than he'd planned to head for the woods.

"I hooked my stand on the edge of a cutover about 30 feet up a tree just as it was breaking daylight. It was about 7:25 or 7:30 when I heard a racket several hundred yards away," Barrett said. "It was deer running through water. Behind the bunch of does I could hear another deer, which I figured was a buck, following."

He waited as the clatter got closer. When the buck got to a place where he would naturally turn to follow the does, Barrett used a call to slow him up and bring him closer to the stand.

"When he got to the turn, I hit my grunt call. After he heard that, he came in fast, within 30 yards of me," Barrett recounted. "My shot got him just behind the front shoulder. He ran and crashed at 25 to 30 yards."

After waiting a few minutes to be sure the buck wouldn't get up, Barrett went to look at his trophy.

"Everybody in the woods probably heard me holler when I saw the deer up close," Barrett said. "I didn't realize how big he was until I walked over there. I liked to have lost it."

The buck had double drop tines, with 21 scorable points and an inside measurement of more than 22 4/8 inches. It was a monster buck by anyone's scoring method.

During the last few years, this scene has being played out regularly across our state. Since the 1996-1997 season, 43 B&C or Pope and Young Club (P&Y) archery deer from Mississippi have been added to the record books. Big deer are taken with increasing frequency in Mississippi. Around the country we are becoming known as one of the best places for collecting a set of massive antlers.

"Judging from what I've seen over the last five years, Mississippi has produced more incredible bucks than any other Southeastern state. And I'm talking about whitetails pushing or exceeding the 200-inch mark," said Mike Handley, an outdoor magazine writer and editor. "Kentucky has the edge for overall size antler-wise, but it generally yields fewer of them. The only state in the cradle of the Confederacy that can come close to matching Mississippi's numbers of obscenely huge bucks is Tennessee."

Because of his position, Handley closely monitors reports and pictures of huge deer from all over North America, placing him in a good position to judge big-racked bucks. He ranks Mississippi as No. 5 in the nation for trophy deer production. All of the other states are in the North or Midwest, where deer have to grow big and bulk up to survive the winters.

Unlike some experts, Handley credits the hunters and not just the 4-point rule for the improvement in deer size and antlers in our state. Maintaining the discipline to pass up smaller bucks is a key.

"Hunters are simply maturing and passing along their insights to youngsters," he explained. "As far as I'm concerned, the hunters themselves deserve as big a pat on the back as any wildlife manager in Jackson."

Whatever the reason, the last 10 years have put some amazing new records in the trophy books. Happily for those of us without a Delta plantation in the family, some of the best deer, like the Barrett buck, are coming off public land. This is a tribute to Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries Parks work at providing better nutrition on the ground, improving the buck/doe ratio, and convincing hunters to take older bucks and let the younger ones walk.

Still, finding trophy deer requires knowing where to look and what to look for and then being in the right place and making it happen.

PART 1 Last month, we covered the top hunting areas in Mississippi.

"Scouting is very important - you have to know the sign to look for," said Barrett. "The main thing I look for is concentrations of does."

Right before and during the rut, all bucks, but especially big bucks, are going to be maintaining a vigil waiting for does to come into estrus. Many big deer spend this time establishing dominance over other bucks or following the scent of does.

Finding the dates of the rut has become much easier thanks to scientific studies done by the MDWFP. For more than 20 years they've collected health and biological data on deer. The information collected includes the average mating dates of mature does. From this information, the MDWFP has created a map of the breeding dates of does in every part of the state. The peak rut takes place about two weeks before the breeding dates.

Dates of breeding can vary by as much as five weeks from north to south around the state. In the North Delta, peak breeding happens around Dec. 19. In the Greenville area, it's the week before Christmas; in the Adams County area, it's Jan. 9-11; and near the coast, breeding happens about Jan. 26.

Not all trophy-sized bucks are bound by the call of the rut, however. There are also bucks that have grown massive antlers that are very low on the dominance scale. These are usually older deer that can no longer win battles against young challengers. They spend their time hiding, separated from the main groups of deer, trying to avoid getting in sparing matches with other bucks.

Each hunter has his own strategy and favorite places in which to locate one of these two types of big-antlered deer. Barrett's preferred hunting area for trophy deer is along the edges of old clearcuts. He believes the big deer like to bed down where they can keep track of what's going on but stay out of sight and reach of enemies. Spots at the edge of an area with lots of pile-ups and undergrowth are great places in which to hang a stand.

"I was at the edge of a 15-year-old cutover that was loaded with brush and trash when I shot this buck," Barrett said. "Lots of people had seen this deer in the area. The guy hunting down from me even had videotape of him before the season, so I figured it was a good place to hunt."

This buck had it all - a safe place to bed, concentrations of does and good browse. It was a situation that few dominant bucks would abandon.

Other good locations for big bucks are funnels to farm fields or pastures. Areas that combine brushy bedding areas with bottomland hardwoods heavy with oaks also draw deer during years when the mast crop is good.

A map of the counties where top deer were harvested shows a picture that matches big bucks with the rich soil regions. The tally is based on B&C and P&Y records of all the deer that scored 155 points or better through the 2002 hunting season.

Since Mississippi has no statewide checking program, this is the best information currently available, but it certainly doesn't mean that there aren't other trophy bucks that simply have not scored and are now hanging on somebody's wall.

All of the top-scoring bucks have come from 28 of Mississippi's 82 counties.

Three counties - Adams, Madison and Washington - share the distinction of having six top deer each. However, when we look at counties that have produced four or more trophy deer, the locations spread out on the map. Tunica, Wilkinson, Oktibbeha and Lowndes counties each fall into this category.

Just about everyone agrees that the Delta holds the best deer, but the Black Prairie area also has the potential for a lot more record book bucks.

"We see big bucks all the time around our properties," said Dale Grissom, manager of Lifetime Hunts L.L.C. out of Macon. "This soil grows them big, but they don't live long enough to grow big antlers unless they're smart too. It's just going to take the right hunter spending time in this area to take a new state record buck."

Otha Barham, a successful hunter and outdoors editor for the Meridian Star, likes the area centered around Kemper County for the next record book buck. He has reports from several hunters that big deer have been spotted in that area.

However, many areas around the state are hiding trophies, so someday a 200-point-plus deer may be next to your name in the record books.

"Folks around Hattiesburg hunt Clark County on private land and leases. The combination of good deer management, farms and hardwood timber give deer a lot of chances to grow big," said Jim Badger of Hattiesburg. "My favorite sleeper spot is the Ragaland Hills. That area between the Leaf River and Camp Shelby has a lot of big deer no one knows about. Unfortunately, it's mostly smaller private holdings and it's hard to get permission to hunt there."

Two final areas in the coastal region have the potential for big deer: Old River Wildlife Management Area (WMA), near Lumberton, and the demonstration area at Red Creek WMA, in the four-corners area of Harrison, Stone, George and Jackson counties.

Red Creek deer are growing bigger due, in part at least, to a change in the way food plots are managed on this public land. For years most food plots were planted in winter wheat or rye grass. Although they look pretty, neither provides the nutrition for big antlers and big deer.

During the last five years food plots on Red Creek WMA, and on many properties in the Deer Management Assistance Program have been changed over to clover, beans, sorghum and various other plants high in nutrition. Many of these lands have also been improved by massive applications of lime to the soil. Just as in humans, calcium from the lime builds stronger, bigger bones in bucks and, with time, trophy antlers.

Unfortunately, since Red Creek is the closest hunting area to the coast, there is also a lot of deer hunting pressure.

Since deer have been closely managed based on biological necessities, WMAs all around the state are growing bigger deer, and hunters in many spots not known for trophy animals are seeing an improvement in body weight and antler mass.

The deer are out there, so it is just a matter of locating the big ones. Even if you don't have the time or the finances to spend a month away from home scouting and hunting, it doesn't mean you won't have the chance to take a record book buck. Once the basic nutrition for healthy deer is provided, gaining knowledge of the land, doing pre-season scouting and spending time in the woods are keys to bagging a trophy buck.