Oxford, MS> I started Ole Miss in the fall of 1976. I had many great times at the University, some bad ones too, but trust me when I say that education never really got in the way of my deer hunting. I spent way too much time trying to figure the deer out than I did studying. Of course, chasing girls was on about a par with deer hunting in those days. All depends on what you are hunting.
You can ask Matt about the beautiful women here.
I learned that many very big bucks lived right in town or just on the edge, and I had no qualms about hunting them. There was some piddly rule about hunting in the city limits, but those lines weren’t exactly clear. I spent a lot of time hunting the edges of the town.
On the south side of Ole Miss was the 4-lane hwy 6 and just on the other side was about a 40 acre block of woods that had a closed concrete company on it. While chasing girls, I had seen deer tracks in the large sand piles there. I scouted it and found several good scrapes and rubs. I put up two stands. I took a nice 6-point on the first one. I could see cars whizzing by and could see the Football Stadium from my vantage point.
I took two deer off the second one, one of them a really nice 8-point.
Deer get used to their surroundings and the sound of people talking, dogs barking, and cars coming and going never bothered these deer. These deer lived in the midst of people and were completely undisturbed. From the top of my tree, I could see the campus library and the columns on the majestic Lyceum Buiding.
A year or so later the property sold and now it is all apartment houses. The city limits then was hwy 6 but has been expanded greatly over the years. I learned how well deer adapt and have used it to my advantage many times. Sometimes deeper is not better, especially in congested areas. Sometimes giant bucks learn to sleep in someone’s flowerbed and if you get permission it can lead to a great trophy.
4 comments:
Great post and pictures. My days as a student at Ole Miss preceeded my days as a hunter (I bowed out of a dove hunting trip near Jackson due to the high cost of out-of-state hunting licenses,) but I did do quite a bit of fishing at Sardis.
What you say about the deer is definitely true. The place where the Captain and I do a lot of our bowhunting is very suburban and close to roads and houses, and we've had some success.
What you say about the beautiful women in Oxford (and throughout the great state of Mississippi) is absolutely true as well. I should add that Arkansas is not too shabby either (my wife is originally from Little Rock.)
It's amazing the deer and the moose that wander into the streets here. None of them are afraid anymore and the population of wildlife is equal to the population of people. You could be walking down the streets with deer grazing along the streets and everyone here ignores it as if they are lawn ornaments and it just amazes me since I have moved here. Giant moose wander thru the town as if they own it and the bears swim in the local creek beds. They all have adapted to humans as humans have adapted to them. It's incredible.
The deer in my neighborhood will actually come up onto my deck to eat my potted plants. It's kind of funny that I drive for hours and spend a lot of time and money to hunt deer when I have my own herd right here in my back yard.
Hotty toddy, y'all.
You never want to shoot the deer in your yard, those are just for lookin at.
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