The Town of Rocky Springs - Part 1

Yesterday, I traveled to Rocky Springs, MS, on the Natchez Trace Parkway with my daughter, Kathy and grandson, Carl to celebrate my granddaughter, Lucy's, 16th Birthday at the campground.  After the celebration we all went over to the site of the old community of Rocky Springs to look around and take pictures.  Below is the story of once upon a time, Rocky Springs.  

At the end of this trail is evidence of a once thriving rural community. First settled in the late 1790's, the  town grew from a watering place along the Natchez Trace, and took its name from the source of that water - - the Rocky Spring.  In 1860, a total of 2,616 people lived in this area covering about 25 square miles. The population of the town proper included 3 merchants, 4 physicians, 4 teachers, 3 clergy and 13 artisans; while the surround family community included 54 planters, 28 overseers and over 2,000 slaves who nurtured the crop that made the town possible - - cotton.

Looks like my Granddaughter, Victoria, hubby, Jamie and great grandson, Ian, did not read the marker.  

Objects laying on the ground going towards the church on the hill.

Rocky Springs Methodist Church

This church was built in 1837 by the Methodist congregation of Rocky Springs.  Earlier the town had been a station for a circuit-riding preacher who only stopped by once or twice a month.  The church is preserved by the former congregation members who hold regular services here and gather here at an annual "homecoming" each year.

A worn doorway of many visitors.

You can sign your name in a book as you walk in.  Grandson Carl checking out the church.

Window of the church with the reflection of tree in panes.

The exposed roots of the tree across from the church.

To be continued...

Tripple T and Split T

My Facebook friend, Dave Quick, who lives in Indiana, posted this video of Tripple T and Split T.  I have never seen a deer blow but have heard it many times.  Deer seem to see or smell you before you see them! A good video Dave and I know you can't wait till hunting season starts.  Wishing you GOODHUNTING in our great wild outdoors!

How Hunting Benefits Society

Today, I am happy to announce that I have a guest post by Blake Anderson of Huntertreestands.com, who contacted me recently about his NEW website of tree stands. 

I checked out his products and saw that he had top brand reliable tree stands of climbers, fixed, ladders, tripods and accessories that is very important to own if you are a hunter. The site includes customer reviews, staff recommendations and detailed listings of their stands.  This would be a great place to buy your hunting tree stands with hassle free and cheap shipping. Also, you will never be charged sales tax and the tree stand experts are available to answer any question you may have. 

Take the time to read this informative article he has written on how hunting benefits our society today and please check out his website at Huntertreestands.com.  Also, let your hunting buddies know about this site as well.  GOODHUNTING to all in our great wild outdoors!     

How Hunting Benefits Society by Blake Anderson

It’s no question that hunting has its own sets of pros and cons for society in general; after all there are bad apples in any sport or hobby. However, most hunters and individuals with enough common sense will quickly realize that hunting isn't just an exciting hobby, but it provides a great service to society as a whole. So keep reading, and if you disagree with the previous reason, hopefully we’ll soon change your mind!

We've talked about it before in our Wild Hog Problems in Mississippi article, and we’ll say it again: hogs, deer and nearly any other wild animal that lacks natural predators can have a huge negative impact on communities. They tear up crops, destroy vital vegetation and cause dangerous accidents on highways and busy streets. It’s quite obvious that the need to hunt wild game has significantly decreased over the last hundred years and is no longer necessary for survival. Well I’m here to tell you that hunting deer may seem cruel for certain individuals, but what’s even crueler is allowing them to overpopulate and considerably increase violent car accidents for humans. Humans are one of the deer’s only few natural predators, and without hunters and an increased source of food to match a population increase, they will quickly began to wander into areas inhabited by humans in search of food.

Our second and equally important reason why hunters provide a great service to society is because they often provide products that benefit people. You may have heard about the Mississippi Hunter’s Harvest program provided by the Mississippi Wildlife Federation. Essentially the program gives hunters with the ability to collect venison and give it to hungry people throughout the state of Mississippi. Everyone involved in the generous program is greatly benefited, and most importantly those who are in dire need of food are given delicious meat for consumption. Their slogan reads, “Remember, hunters never go hungry, but children do.” Programs such as the Hunters Harvest are prevalent in many states across the country and they provide hunters with the capability to give back to their communities.

The last reason we’d like to share that may convince you that hunters are in fact beneficial to society, is that it actually helps wild life by protecting species. Animal trapping is when a device is used to remotely catch an animal for food, wildlife management, hunting and pest control. It provides an essential tool for protecting the health and sustainability of various endangered plants and animals. After certain predators are trapped by hunters or biologists, they are quickly removed and relocated to other areas where they won’t endanger specific species of animals. Tools like trapping devices and hunting tree stands provide hunters with a great method for hunting and capturing animals to prevent overpopulation and damage to crops and vegetation. Hunter tree stands allow hunters the opportunity to quietly hunt from above ground areas without disturbing the natural habitat or the environment of the animals. 

Whatever reasons you agree with, I think it’s safe to say that hunters provide a great benefit to society as a whole. 

Britney's First Black Bear

Facebook Prois Field Staffer, Britney Starr's nabs her very first Michigan black bear taken on opening day yesterday in Carney, MI. My congrats to Britney on her bear kill in our great wild outdoors!  You go girl!  

Mack & Queen

Monday afternoon I drove by the Louisiana Circle to see if anything was going up or down the river.  I saw one headed north towards the bend in the MS River at Vicksburg and was able to get some pictures of a huge towboat pushing a large load of empty containers. After I got the pictures I wanted, I left to go back home. As I was crossing the bridge where the trains pass under near the river, I saw a huge ship coming out of the mouth of the Yazoo Diversion Canal and looked like a riverboat cruise ship.  I turned around and went back to the circle and took more pictures.  I hope you enjoy!

Big empty containers.

M/V Harry M. Mack heading north with empty containers.

Heading towards the bend.

Trying to make the wide turn in the bend of the MS River.

Turning...

...here comes the riverboat cruise boat at a fast clip.  Diamond Jacks Hotel/Casino far right.

It's the Queen of the Mississippi!

She's headed towards the two bridges, old Hwy 80 and I-20, at Vicksburg, MS.

A little glarey trying to take a picture of her heading under the bridges.

A Mississippi Wild Hog Problem

Mississippi lawmakers heard from wildlife and hunting experts on possible programs recently to combat a growing wild hog population.

Mississippi wildlife officials say wild hogs are now in more than half the counties of the state, tearing up crops and destroying other kinds of vegetation.  They said wild hog populations are growing because they reproduce often and can survive in virtually any habitat.  The animals also lack any natural predators.

"It concerns me that many Mississippians are not aware of the serious nuisance and threat Mississippi's feral hogs present to our economy.  If this was a virus, it would be considered an epidemic," Sen. Giles Ward, R-Louisville, the Senate wildlife committee chairman, said in a statement.

"These animals are reproducing far faster then they are being eliminated.  They can destroy a huge row crop overnight.  It's great that many sportsmen are hunting the animals, but these are not sport animals.  They are a nuisance and we have got to develop and effective plan for reducing the ever growing population of wild hogs."

Members of the House and Senate wildlife committee met at the state Capital in Jackson. 

Giles said lawmakers heard from experts on what state leaders should do to curb the growing threat that the animals pose to farmers and landowners.

A new state law took effect July 1 that added wild hogs to the state beaver-control program.  The law created a Beaver and Wild Hog Control Advisory Board to come up with a program to control or eradicate beavers and wild hogs.  The program is administered by the Mississippi Department of Agriculture.

Earlier this summer, the MS Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks removed all of the rules against shooting wild hogs.  Officials said a landowner and leasehold can kill hogs or other nuisance animals any day of the year, day or night, without any type of caliber or weapon restrictions.

WOW - ANOTHER BIG MS GATOR!!!!

My congrats to the Gatorslayers!  The team broke another record of 741.5 pounds, 13 feet, 6.5 inches long near Port Gibson, MS.

Congrats to Dalco Turner, John Ratcliff, Jennifer Ratcliff and Jimmy Greer for the capture of this monster gator in our great wild outdoors!  

Note:  Someone commented on Facebook's Miss 103 that they heard on Good Morning America this morning that Nightline tonight is going to be about Mississippi tracking the gators in the swamps!  It comes on ABC at 11:37 CST. So stay tune! 

This just in from Louisiana...

Last weekend's Gator hunt with Supreme Court Justice Scalia...the gator was wrapped around a log and Drew and the crew thought his head was wrapped tighter to it than it actually was while trying to get the Justice a clean shot.  The gator quickly proved otherwise!  He did end up shooting the gator.

Black Bear With White Cubs

 

This has to be very rare but they could have been born with a temporary white coat and as they matured would possibly turn black.  Only in our great wild outdoors! 

John Luke's First Deer

My friend on Facebook, Terry Partin, had tears of joy this morning for John Luke, his grandson, who got his very first deer, a nice velvet buck with his first bow!  According to Terry it was a Mission Riot bow with G5 strikers that had put it down within 40 yards. Seeing the video above brought back memories for me when I took my grandson, Carl, hunting and he got his very first deer, a 5 pt. buck with my .270.  I'm so happy for John Luke as well as his grandfather for sharing these precious moments that will last a lifetime.  A great bonding experience in our great wild outdoors! 

John Luke barely 12 with his first bow deer! A pretty velvet buck with a split G 2 with kickers and lots of mass.

A Cheap Hunter

Know any hunters like this?

Hunter's Bragging Gator (Elmer) Rights!

Eli Baylis - The Vicksburg Post

From left, brothers Dustin and Ryan Bockman and friend Cole Landers stand behind their record setting alligator that weighed in at 727 pounds.

The Vicksburg Post had a very nice writeup in the paper about the BIG story of the Vicksburg hunters who set the gator record last Sunday.  It was all over the news, NBC, ABC, Facebook, etc., and my blogging/hunting friend, Jack of (Long Ridge Deer Camp), said it made it all the way to New Hampshire!   Here is the complete story of the interview by Josh Edwards of our paper that I wanted to share with you today.

- - - - - - - - -

Rascally old Elmer started stealing the show the minute the gun barrel exploded.

Elmer - all 727 pounds of him - was caught by brother Dustin and Ryan Bockman and their friend Cole Landers early Sunday in the Mississippi River near Port Gibson, breaking a state record that was set two hours earlier in Issaquena County.

"We chased it for about two hours before we got close enough to hit him with out bow fishing rig," said Dustin Bockman, who was gator hunting for the first time.

The gunshot that shredded the barrel of Ryan Bockman's shotgun wasn't the final blow for the 13-foot, 4.5-inch gator, but it swung the tide of an hours-long battle of man against nature.

"We had to stick the gun barrel in the water, and it peeled back like a banana peel," Dusting Brockman said.

Following the blast, the gun look like it belonged to Elmer Fudd after an ill-fated encounter with Bugs Bunny, which is how Elmer got his name, Dustin Bockman said.

The result and conditions were far from perfect for taking on a gator that was too big to be snared around the neck and had to be restrained by the snout, Landers said.

"After we  snared him, both lines broke," said Landers, also a first time alligator hunter.

After two more blast from the mangled gun, the hunters thought Elmer was down for the count.  But the behemoth had a few surprises left as they moved him onto a sand bar.

"I was on his back, and he got up and started moving," said Ryan Bockman, who had been alligator hunting only once before.

After some fierce hand-to-snout combat, the hunters killed Elmer with a machete and waited for help dragging the animal from the water.  

"It was 17 hours from the time we put in our boat until we got him out," Ryan Brockman said.

The feat of bagging a state record alligator on one of their first hunts was amazing but not unbelievable for the group of hunters, said Reggie Bockman, Dustin and Ryan's mother.

"They could fall into a hole and find buried treasure," Reggie Bockman said.  "The are that lucky."

After he was weighed at Mahannah Wildlife Management Area by Mississippi's alligator program coordinator, Ricky Flynt, Elmer unseated a gator caught earlier in the morning by Beth and Rob Trammell of Madison.

"We held the record for right at two hours," Bob Trammell said.

The couple, who was assisted by Sean King of Yazoo City, caught their gator about six miles east of the U. S. 61 bridge over the Yazoo River in Issaquena County.

The 13-foot, 5.5-inch long gator, weighed in at 723.5 pounds, shattering the previous weight record of 697.5 set last year.

"We knew we had a nice sized alligator, but we didn't know we had something that big," Trammell said.

Alligator hunting season began this past weekend and runs until Monday.  Permits are dispersed through a random drawing and each permit holder and assisting hunter must take a class on hunting alligators.

The alligator is in a deep freeze at Dave's Custom Meats where I take my deer to be processed.

3 Legged Bear Walking Upright!

How cool is this!  Amazing!

Afternoon Pix @ Navy Circle

 

Drove by the Navy Circle this afternoon and took a few pictures at the site of Battery Benton, a Union siege position consisting of two 42-pounder rifled cannon, named after the Union gunboat "Benton" of Admiral Porter's river fleet.  The battery dueled with Confederate positions located at South Fort, and sustained casualties when a Confederate shell exploded within its fortifications.   

 

 Ameristar Casino Hotel in the background.

 

Looks like a huge thunderhead building up north of town.

 

Big wheels!

 Looking inside the barrel.

Boom!

 

View of the bridges (I-20 and old Hwy 80) at Vicksburg, MS, Battery Benton site.

 

Leaving with an ominous cloud due north.

Two-700lbs Alligator's Caught

 

Gator record broken - twice
700-pounders caught on Yazoo, Big Black rivers, MDWFP says

Vicksburg's Dustin Bockman, 27, stands in the Mississippi River holding up the tail of Mississippi's new state record for heaviest alligator. Bockman, his brother Ryan and friend Cole Landers caught the 727-pound monster early Sunday morning near the mouth of the Big Black River. The gator was 13 feet, 4.5 inches long, was 67 inches around in the belly, and 45.5 inches around the tail. under picture

A flurry of activity on Sunday saw the record for heaviest alligator taken on public waters in Mississippi broken twice, as hunters enjoy a great opening weekend of the 2013 season.

“This is just crazy, just crazy,” said Ricky Flynt, the biologist who heads the alligator program for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. “My cell phone is burning up with hunters calling me about these alligators. It is exciting, as usual.”

Crazy? Exciting? Try this for Flynt’s Sunday schedule.

First, the biologist drove to Vicksburg where he certified a new heavyweight title-holder at 723 ½ pounds, caught by a six-member crew between 1 and 4:30 a.m. on the Yazoo River diversion channel near the U.S. Highway 61 bridge in Yazoo County.

A photo of this beast can be seen at the bottom of this story.

Permit holder Beth Trammel of Madison got to enjoy her state record for about an hour.

Flynt quickly drove over to Mahannah Wildlife Management Area, where Dustin Bockman of Vicksburg was bringing a gator his team took overnight on the Mississippi River near the mouth of the Big Black River.

Bockman’s monster pushed the scales to 727 pounds, and — for now — is the new record.

Oddly enough, neither one broke the record for longest alligator, which remains 13 feet, 6½ inches.

Flynt wasn’t done.

“I had one more to check, that someone had called me about, but turns out it didn’t top 700 pounds,” he said.

Yeah, it weighed ONLY 673 pounds.

As impressive as those big bulls are, the alligator Flynt was most interested in is a new record for female gators taken Friday night on the Pascagoula River.

A team led by Brandon Maskew of Ellisville caught a 295.3-pound female that measured an even 10 feet, both new records. The previous records, held by different alligators, were 9 feet 9 inches and 283 pounds.

“At 10-feet, that alligator is just two inches short of the national record for longest female alligator ever taken anywhere by anyone,” Flynt said. “It was 10 feet, two inches and I captured it, tagged it and released it on the Pearl River at Barnett Reservoir.

“You think about it, now. Think about all the alligator that have been caught over the years in Louisiana, Florida and now here in Mississippi, and that’s the biggest. That 10-footer you know has to be 40 or 50 years old, at least. She’s at the upper end of the range for females.”

At noon Sunday, Flynt’s harvest data indicated that a total of 96 alligators had been reported killed by hunters.

Mississippi’s 10-day public lands season continues through noon on Sept. 9. The private land seasons continues through 6 a.m. Sept. 23.

Another Mississippi RECORD Gator, (for about an hour). This 723.5 lb gator held the MS record for about an hour. It was landed by Rob Trammel, Parker Coleman, Beth Trammel, Sean King, Tommy Jackson and Amanda Jackson. Dustin Bockman's 727 lb gator beat it about an hour later.

My congrats to all the hunters in our great wild outdoors in our own backyard!

September 5 followup article posted - Hunter's Bragging (Gator) Rights

Man Guilty Of Killing Black Bear

Louisiana Black Bear

Recently, a Brandon, MS, man pleaded guilty to killing a Louisiana Black Bear while bow hunting last year in Issaquena County.

Ryan C. Murphy, 32, pled guilty in U. S. District Court on August 14 to killing the bear, a federally protected animal under the Endangered Species Act.

Murphy killed the bear with a bow in the largely rural Delta county on November 16.

U. S. Magistrate Judge F. Keith Ball ordered Murphy to pay a fine of $10,000, $10,000 in restitution to the state and $5,00 to the BEaR Group of Mississippi, a non-profit organization that focuses on black bear conservation, research and education efforts in Mississippi.

He was also sentenced to two years of probation and prohibited from hunting anything for two years.

His bow was forfeited as part of the sentence.

Investigators with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks (MDWFP) and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service handled the case.

MDWFP Chief of Law Enforcement Col. Steve Adcock said in a statement the killing of Louisiana Black Bears is serious offense.

"We take robbing the wildlife resources of Mississippi very seriously and will investigate and vigorously pursue the prosecution of any individual who violates laws designed to protect these resources," he said.

The bear was killed near Mayersville, which is about 10 miles west of Rolling Fork, near the Mississippi River.

In 2002, the MDWFP created the Black Bear Program to boost the species' number in the state.  In 10 years, the number of Louisiana black bears in the state went from fewer then 50 to 150 today.

The MDWFP website points to an increase in female black bears, which has led to the births of dozen of cubs in the last 10 years.  Before the program began, a black bear birth had not been documented in Mississippi since the early 1960s. ~ by Matt Stuart  matt.stuart @vicksburgpost.com