Deer Hunting
Scoping it out
Joe Poole is nothing if not consistent. While shooters will tell you glass is much more important than the rifle on which it sits, Poole has found it unnecessary to spend big money on a scope. […]
Deer Hunting
Deer Hunting
Practice makes perfect
It takes more than proper equipment to make deer die at extreme ranges, so time on the range is a critical part of the equation. […]
Deer Hunting
Stability a must
Making long shots absolutely requires a rock-solid shooting platform.
“No person is going to free-hand one and hit one, that’s for sure,” Joe Poole said. “I’ve never shot a deer free-hand past 250 yards and hit it, and that was when I was young.” […]
Deer Hunting
Nuts and bolts of shooting distances
OK, so you’ve got the right rifle, scope and bullet. You’ve added a good, solid rest. Now you’re looking at a deer through the scope at 500 yards, and the crosshairs won’t sit still. […]
Content
The Community Scrape
In search of vegetative foliage, five bucks — a mature 8-pointer, a 3½-year-old, two spunky spikes and a curious button buck — go single file along the forest edge, ascending a bluff. Occasionally the group stops to forage; yet one of the spikes and the button buck, by instinct, prefer to assertively test their status with bouts of mock sparring. […]
Content
Cover: January 2012
January 2012 […]
Content
The Right Time
Randy Pope climbed into his elevated tree stand well before dawn on a recent hunt and prepared for the morning. Pope has hunted big-game animals all over the world and is an expert at finding, hunting and harvesting trophy whitetail bucks. […]
Deer of the Year
Hunter kills 180-class buck on small tract in middle of Black Prairie WMA
Neil Waggoner and his family live on 40 acres he grew up loving, a familiar tract of gently rolling hills and a 10-acre lake surrounded by the Black Prairie Wildlife Management Area in Lowndes County.
For the last few weeks, Waggoner had been using his three tracking dogs to help other hunters. He also missed an 8-point buck that rattled him.
“Buck fever or I looked up or something, I guess,” Waggoner said.
A few days later on Dec. 18, amid an orange sunset casting enough light to make a set of antlers glow, Waggoner knew the big buck in the edge of the field was a good one. […]
Deer of the Year
Father-son team trip over 150-class Issaquena County buck
Collin Ladner wasn’t thrilled about going back to camp for the night after seeing the biggest buck of his life scurry into the woods. […]
Deer of the Year
Leake County gives up 178-inch 17-point
Elmer Busby was just enjoying an afternoon in the woods last Friday (Dec. 16), watching a group of does feeding in the green patch stretching down the Leake County gas line in front of the box stand.
He didn’t even lift his rifle when a 5-point walked out to join the crowd.
But Busby couldn’t get his hands on the gun fast enough when a huge buck stepped out of the woods about 5 p.m. That deer later scored 178 4/8 inches Boone & Crockett. […]
Deer of the Year
Persistence leads to monster Laflore County 18-point
Stephen Henderson was distracted at work the entire week of Dec. 12, but it wasn’t because of Christmas preparations. Nope, it was because he couldn’t help thinking he had missed his opportunity the previous weekend to bag a big buck he and his buddies had been chasing for a couple of years.
“He was 20 yards from me,” Henderson said.
The Madison County hunter resolved the issue on the afternoon of Dec. 16 when the big buck, which has been green scored at nearly 190 inches Boone & Crockett, made a fatal mistake. […]
Deer of the Year
Yazoo County hunter takes triple-beam buck that scores 190 inches
Gary Counts couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Hunting the afternoon of Dec. 8 with his boss on private land in Yazoo County, Counts watched several does and small yearlings being chased by a doe. She zoomed around the planted food plot, running off one deer after another. […]