Rose Blakeney is not your typical grandmother. Oh yes, she’s a wonderful person, loving grandmother and quick to brag on her children and grandchildren. And by the way, she has 32 family members including kids, grandchildren and great grands! But what makes her different is that she’s a natural born buck slayer and amazingly, she only started hunting deer at the young age of 68.
During her first 10 years of hunting she regularly harvested a limit of trophy bucks and was an avid hunter. Due to a few things that came up she slowed down on her deer hunting a couple years, but this year she had a chance to hunt a few times, and boy did she ever take advantage of the opportunity.
Mimi Rose, as she is known by her grandchildren, made a few hunts in January. One particular hunt she took with her son, Kenny, in the Mississippi Delta was quite a trip.
“We got into the stand and it wasn’t long before some does came into the field and I started watching them,” Blakeney said. “It was a beautiful spot with green strips and plenty of beautiful redbirds and other birds feeding nearby.
“After a couple hours of sitting, Kenny had to stand up and stretch because he’d gotten stiff. Well, about that time I saw a deer coming into the field and I told Kenny that there was a buck walking into the field with his head down, but I couldn’t tell how good he was.”
Moment of truth
“Shoot that deer mama!” said Kenny Blakeney. “Take your time, don’t get nervous. Shoot him mama!”
Ka-Boom! roared Blakeney’s rifle. The buck dropped like it had been hit with a ton of bricks.
“I shot him with one shot to the heart,” Blakeney said. “It was an 8-point with thick antlers, a 20-inch inside spread and 23-inch main beams.”
Needless to say, Mimi Rose was overjoyed at harvesting a trophy buck during the final weeks of the season.
After she got warmed up with the trophy buck, Blakeney followed up the next day with a doe harvest, a big doe shot at 187 yards. She was up for the task at hand when any deer came in. Just imagine being 84 years old and still hunting and not only that but successfully harvesting deer at long ranges, to provide succulent venison steaks and roasts for her family.
Blakeney, a Flowood resident, was out of commission in 2019 due to a medical condition that slowed her hunting, but she was back with a vengeance this year, enjoying her time hunting with family and friends and harvesting more deer and another trophy buck.
Last year she also continued her big buck tradition when she finally got back into the woods and killed a trophy 9-point after overcoming those medical issues.
“If I can do it at this age then anybody can with a little help from their friends or family,” she said.
Imagine the possibilities and you just might harvest that big buck yourself next season.
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