A Young Mississippi Hunter's Dream

After watching it grow for two years, Walker Hilbun of Starkville harvested a 167-inch buck on Nov. 2. 

A Mississippi teen first got a particular buck on camera two years ago, and although it was a 10-point shot, it didn't really stand out. Since the buck appeared to be young, the teen's father said they should let him grow, and two years later, that decision paid off with a huge buck that unofficially gross-scored 167 inches. "He was nothing special," said Walker Hilbun, 18, of Starkville. "He was 3 1/2 (years old), and my dad said we should let him go, which was a perfect thing we did. "I passed on the deer four or five times the next year. It was tough to do. It was hard to let him go last year."

When the buck showed up on camera this summer, it was a different story.

"He was just a monster with tons of mass and points on him," Hilbun said. "I was thrilled I let him go last year and immediately wanted to kill him this year."

Harvesting the buck was easier said than done. Hilbun said Patterning the buck was difficult because the cameras on the Oktibbeha County property where he was hunting were set up on food plots and at a feeder, but the buck wasn't frequenting those spots.

Instead, the buck appeared to be feeding on the early crop of acorns in wooded areas, so that's where Hilbun focused his efforts, but the plan needed to be fixed. A month into the season, Hilbun had not had an encounter with the buck. On Nov. 1, the buck decided to eat something other than acorns. While Hilbun was hunting in a wooded area, the buck showed up on camera at a nearby food plot. That prompted a change. Hilbun said his dad said he should hunt out of a shooting house at the food plot in case the buck returned. The following afternoon, that's what Hilbun did. 

"I got in the stand at 3:15," Hilbun said. "I saw lots of deer. I ended up seeing about 30 deer in the food plot." And soon enough, the big buck decided to join them. "He did pop out at 5:30, 5:35, and I watched him," Hilbun said. "He'd feed to me and then feed back." The buck continued grazing in the food plot for about an hour but stayed out of range of Hilbun's bow. Then something happened, and the buck couldn't resist. "It was getting darker, and I had four bucks fighting before me," Hilbun said.

"When he walked up, he was on a march."

Hilbun said he was nervous but managed to stay calm until he got a shot. "It was right before dark," Hilbun said. "I slowly drew back, and when I shot, I think he was at 27 yards. I was really confident in my shot, and I was really shaken up," Hilbun said. "I was super nervous." Long, sleepless night ends with Buck of Mississippi Hunter's Dreams.   SunHerald~

Congratulations to MS teen Walker Hilbun in our great Mississippi wild outdoors!!!

Thankful

 

Bo's Big Buck

Bo Koestler, 7, of Vicksburg, MS, took this big buck in Kansas during that state's youth weekend in September.  The deer weighed 260 pounds and scored 178 inches.  

Congratulations to Bo on a fantastic hunt and buck in our great wild outdoors. 

A True Deer Story

I laughed the whole time I read this.

(A letter from someone who wants to remain anonymous, who farms, writes well, and actually tried this)

I had this idea that I could rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder and hid at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up-- 3 of them. I picked out a likely-looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold.

The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it, it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope, and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED. The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity. A deer-- no Chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.

I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual. Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in. I didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when ..... I reached up there to grab that rope, and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse, where they just bite you and slide off to then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head--almost like a big dog. They bite HARD, and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.

It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now), tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose.

That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp... I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -like a horse --strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.

This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the truck, and the deer went away. So now I know why people go deer hunting and bring a rifle with a scope—to sort of even the odds!

All these events are true so help me God...An Educated Farmer.

Emma Bags a 150-Class Trophy Buck in Mississippi

 "On Oct. 22, 2024, I killed the biggest deer I may ever kill in my life," said Emma Claire Starkey, 16, of Eudora. "It was one of the best days of my life. I thank Jesus for this day and constant experience."

Starkey said the story began in 2023 after she and her father, Adam Starkey, put out trail cameras before archery season began.

"One summer night, my dad and I got a notification from the camera," Starkey said. "It was two giant bucks wrapped in velvet.

"We couldn't believe it. After seeing those bucks, we immediately start excited about the soon-to-begin bow season."

"This deer was ginormous," Starkey said. "On the left side of his rack, he had a kicker on his G2.

"After noticing this, my dad and I decided to give this deer a name. That name was Kicker. After trying to hunt this deer for quite a while, we discovered that he was challenging. He would only come out around midnight."

The two hunted the buck at every opportunity, but he wasn't cooperative and remained nocturnal. However, one Sunday evening, they got a notification from a camera, and there was a photo of him. The two rushed to the stand, only minutes from their home. They couldn't get close enough for a shot with Starkey's crossbow, but they saw him firsthand.

"When my dad and I laid eyes on this deer, our faces immediately lit up," Starkey said. "Our adrenalin was through the roof.

"Kicker was even bigger in person. My dad and I couldn't believe what we had just experienced. We both walk back to the truck in disbelief. After seeing him in person, we had him back on the camera a couple of times, and after that, he was gone."

Starkey wondered what had happened to the buck. Had he been hit by a car, killed by a hunter, or maybe just moved on? Those questions were answered less than two weeks before archery season opened this year while Starkey was at her school's homecoming dance.

There she was, in a room filled with teenagers dancing, strobe lights flashing, and loud music, when she received a message from her father. It said that Kicker was back, and he sent a photo of the buck, too.

"I couldn't believe it," Starkey said. "I thought this deer had disappeared for good."

This year was shaping up to be a repeat of 2023. The Kicker was nocturnal. They had one close encounter with him on Oct. 20 when they received a photo of him in daylight and tried to sneak up on him but couldn't get a shot. The fact that both close encounters were on Sundays didn't go unnoticed.

"On the way home, I started thinking, this deer did the same thing to us last year on a Sunday," Starkey said. "How crazy was that?"

Hunting the deer had become a daily routine, but a week after her encounter with the buck, Starkey said she was exhausted. However, she felt that if she didn't go, the buck would show up during legal shooting hours because that works in the deer hunting world. So, that afternoon, she was back on the stand with her father.

"I was exhausted," Starkey said. "I sat with my head facing down, and my eyes closed most of this hunt."

While half asleep, she felt her father tapping her leg.

"I looked out to see giant horns facing my way," Starkey said. "I immediately started breathing heavily and shaking."

The buck took his time and slowly made his way toward the stand.

"It took probably 15 minutes for that deer to come into range, and I thought both of us would pass out. Our hearts were beating so hard," her father said. "She couldn't hardly hold a conversation."

The buck gave Starkey a shot at 45 yards, and Starkey pulled the trigger on her crossbow. They went to the site where he was standing, and her father eventually found a drop of blood.

"I said, 'Emma Claire, look at this,'" her father said. "She instantly started crying."

The two didn't track him because they thought he might still be alive and run, so they left the area. They came back later that night and found him just 60 yards away.

"She reached down and grabbed those horns and said, 'Oh, my God. He's even bigger than he was in pictures,'" her father said.

Her father estimated the buck's score to be between 140 and 150. When Final Approach Taxidermy in Hernando scored the buck, it was a good bit higher.

The bases measured 5 1/2 inches and 5 1/4 inches, and the inside spread was 17 1/4 inches. The main beams were 23 1/4 inches and 24 inches. The left G2 was 12 inches, and the right G2 was a whopping 14 inches. The total score was 156 1/2.

"She was happy," Starkey's father said. "That deer didn't have any ground shrinkage."

Congratulations to Emma on getting a ginormous buck named "Kicker" in our great Mississippi outdoors! hat's awesome!