An Outdoorsman's Journal

     Mississippi Getaway
Hello friends,

   Once again I headed down to Delta National Forest near Rolling Fork, Mississippi to camp and hunt deer and hogs with my brother Tom. There is so much to write about for this 10 day trip that I will have to be very short in my descriptions.

   Sunday, January 4th
   High 57, low 41

   I got in my truck at 7:00 yesterday morning and at 10:00 last night I had driven 950 miles and fell asleep in The GMC Hotel at a parking lot in Rolling Fork. Red was in the back seat, I was pulling a trailer with an atv and today I was very ready for this adventure that would have Tom and I hunting at what we were hoping would be a slightly, more remote location than in past years.
   Delta National Forest is 63,000 acres and it has been love at first sight for me since I first saw it back in 2019. Here are some of the good and challenging things that we have witnessed. We came here the year after the big flood for the first time, that flood kept the water at 6-foot above ground level for 6 months and the deer and hog numbers took a really big hit.
   The first five years much of our hunting was done by canoeing from camp, hiking in with portable deer stands on our backs and trying to find game. Tom, like most hunters in the south that sit, uses a climbing deer stand.
   We are in a bucks only hunt and the antlers have to have either an 18-inch main beam or a 15-inch inside spread. Both Tom and I are scared to death of shooting an undersized buck and most that we see are.
   Low water, let me tell you, I follow what is happening in the world and one very important fact is that it seems from Tehran to Rolling Fork, there is not enough water there days.
   The river banks are often a straight 10 to 15 foot drop and you simply cannot paddle a canoe to a stand location and think you can climb up the bank, much less load or unload a deer in a canoe. When I drove over the Mississippi River at St. Louis it looked scary as heck with how low my favorite river is.
   I would be camping in my Eskimo "850 XDP" portable ice shack, its 16-feet long and literally a cabin in a minute. Tom would be in his 20-foot toy hauler.

   Tuesday, January 6th
   High 65, low 45

   Two interesting stories to close out this week's column. We have met several conservation wardens in the last 48-hours as they are doing a long-term focus on illegal atving/utving (off legal trails), and the harvest of bucks with less than 15-inch inside spread or 18-inch main beam. I have the utmost respect and admiration for my southern hunting friends but both of these laws are broken frequently here and there has been so much complaining from hunters in compliance that law enforcement is trying to change that.
   Throughout the week, we had visits from both hunters and wardens, I honestly think many of the hunters were not fully aware of where you can and cannot run your machine.
   This morning I was sitting 7-feet up on a long since fallen oak tree, my view behind me was of The Big Sunflower River and in front of me was hardwood forest loaded with buck scrapes as it is peak 2nd rut here. There was a well-used trail leading to the river where the bank is not so steep and it is obvious that hogs and deer are using it to get a drink.
   I am doing a balancing act on this downfall and plan on bringing a portable to it for the evening hunt. I see movement 80-yards away, the brush and vines that grow up the trees and brush make it so that you only have small windows to view, see horns, determine size and make a shot.
   The movement was a buck and he was a dandy, I am pretty sure he came to my grunt call. I picked the next opening put the cross hairs of my scope on his shoulders and fired my BAR 300. Believe it or not I flipping missed, I do not know how, but I did. After the hunt I fired a couple of practice rounds and the scope was on, the shooter had not been.
   I love the south and it’s the back country as much as the people that I enjoy and respect!

   Sunset