Crystal Springs third-grader tags trophy Hinds County buck no one knew existed

Joey Hydrick told his 9-year-old son, Henry, that his deer-hunting career has likely already reached its high-water mark.

The two were standing at the end of a food plot near Edwards in Hinds County the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 29, admiring a 247-pound, 9-point, 166-inch buck that Henry had dropped at 160 yards with his Savage 7mm-08 – a buck no one who hunted the property knew even existed.

“The first thing I said was, I told him, he may never get another chance at a buck like that one again,” said Joey Hydrick, who actually took a bigger buck, a 168-inch trophy, in 2018 in the Delta.

“Dad was more excited than me,” said Henry Hydrick, a third-grade student at Copiah Academy in his hometown of Crystal Springs.  Then, I thought about what I had killed: the buck of a lifetime.”

And one that no one knew about.

“We were hunting on a friend’s place that I’ve been hunting on and off for the last 20 years,” Joey Hydrick said. “We had no idea this deer was in there. We just decided to go to a food plot that not many people hunt. It was a right place, right time thing.

“They don’t have any (trail) cameras on this place. There was a guy who hunted there who said he had a couple of pictures from the previous year of a deer he thought might be this one. But nobody really had any idea he was in there.”

Does show up first

The father and son were hunting that afternoon from what was basically a ground blind. Joey had found some burlap on the hunting camp back porch and went with a friend and wrapped it around the four posts of a box blind, then stuck a couple of chairs under the box.

Joey and Henry were sitting there, looking over the food plot, which was planted in wheat. Joey Hydrick had already ranged the food plot with his rangefinder; the far end was 180 yards away. At 4:30, three does and a yearling emerged from the woods and headed into the food plot. That’s when Henry – whose 11-year-old brother had already killed his first buck on opening day – got what his father described as an itchy trigger finger. He shot one of them, the doe running only 40 or 50 yards before falling.

“At about 4:55, the three does that had been with the first one came back out, then four more came out,” Joey Hydrick said. “They were coming right toward us, 30 yards, when the lead doe saw the burlap and started stomping her foot and blowing, and she ran to the other end of the food plot and took three of them with her.”

The other three stayed put, Henry saying they “acted like they thought the other deer were crazy.”

Biggest buck on the property

Joey told his son that if the three does left the food plot, they would go and retrieve his dead doe, but a couple of minutes later, the Hydricks could hear horns rattling from the woods at the far end of the food plot, three different collisions. Then, the buck stepped out, and he was obviously a shooter for any hunter – young or old.

“As soon as I saw him, I told Henry to put his ear muffs on,” Joey Hydrick said. “He had his nose down and was bumping those does. I was grunting, trying to get him to stop, but Henry just dropped him right in the food plot.”

Shooting a 139-grain Hornaday SST, Henry’s shot took the buck behind the shoulder as it was quartering slightly away. It dropped immediately.

“When I shot, the bullet went up through his neck and came out of his eye,” Henry Hydrick said.

The biggest buck ever taken on that piece of property, Henry Hydrick’s deer had a wide, massive rack with main beams measuring 25 6/8 and 25 2/8 inches, plus a 21 2/8-inch inside spread. Three tines were in the neighborhood of 11 inches, and the fourth-largest was 8½ inches. The buck was measured for a local big buck contest.

“(Henry) is the big man on campus now,” Joey Hydrick said. “I’ve had to show (the rack) off to a lot of people. And photos really don’t do him justice. You have to see him up close and put your hands on him.”