Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks’ Wildlife Management Area Statewide Coordinator Jeff Mangrum said there are a few factors to growing a trophy buck.
“Age, genetics and available food are critical factors in growing record book bucks,” said Mangrum, who also is a former deer biologist for Lauderdale County.
But of all the factors, age is what he speaks of most often.
Local Conservation Officer Thomas Williams agreed and suggested another interesting point.
“We have a good number of very big bucks in Lauderdale County,” he said. “But they are nocturnal.”
Williams believes the pressure put on the deer population by hunters makes the older bucks hole up during daylight hours.
“They are much like people,” he said. “When they get old, they don’t travel as far.”
Ricky Sullivan agreed with this thinking: Although one episode with Pea Vine was when he was with a doe during the rut, the deer was not chasing her and he was never seen chasing during the rut.
Also, when Pea Vine was killed, following the main rut, he was in good shape with no ribs showing.
Of course Sullivan and Wilson hope the big buck left an abundance of his genes in the vicinity.
The state agents agreed that Pea Vine likely would have died of old age were it not for Sullivan’s and Wilson’s care.
“The extreme effort the men went to in keeping their scent out of the buck’s core area likely kept him in that area instead of nearby properties that may have had hunter scent widespread a large part of the time,” Williams said. “He chose to stay were the scent (pressure) was less.”
One MDWFP official who didn’t want to be quoted said, “It won’t likely happen again,” when asked how such a high-scoring buck could come from the hilly sand and clay habitat.
This statement was based on data showing Lauderdale County hunters (and most hunters across the state) just won’t let bucks walk long enough for the age factor to have any impact on antler growth.
There is truth and an irony in his assertion: Sullivan and Wilson hunted Pea Vine hard the first season he was discovered, and would have gladly shot him any time they could.
But the deer’s antlers had so many measurement deductions that he would not have made the typical record book. For example, one brow tine was much longer than the other, and there was a lot of trash that would have stacked up deductions.
Yet the antler spread was actually 2 inches wider that first season.
How did the hunters know?
“We measured the distance between uprights on the trough where Pea Vine fed and compared these with his antlers as he ate, using both seasons’ photos from the scouting cameras,” Sullivan explained.
A computer assisted in this analysis. Accuracy was confirmed when the buck’s antler width measurement after harvest was within a half inch of what the hunters calculated.
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