Mississippi’s January bucks

Take these tips from a veteran hunting/videographer for getting close to big bucks late in the season, and you may punch a big tag this month.

Jordan Blissett is a talented hunter and videographer for Primos Game Calls who travels the country searching for deer and hunting big bucks. 

He hunts in the Midwest every year, but he also hunts at home in Mississippi, and he’s learned a few things about finding and harvesting late-season bucks. In the process he’s harvested some spectacular deer. 

“I had a deer on camera in August last year, and it disappeared in bow season,” said Blissett. “Around the end of November, I started hunting his core area, which was about 40 acres. This area was about a 15-year-old cutover area with (agricultural) fields surrounding it.”

Blissett got the break he needed over the Thanksgiving holidays. 

“I saw him at 210 yards and squeezed off a shot at him,” Blissett said. “The buck disappeared, and I didn’t find any blood. I hate wounding a deer and losing him, so I got my dog and searched and searched for the deer or blood but didn’t find a trace.”

Blissett searched for many hours and put out cameras throughout the core zone, but he never caught another glimpse of the buck, which disappeared from his radar screen. He knew he’d either gone off and died or left the area. Blissett was just sick about possibly wounding the deer and causing his demise. 

“I was sure I made a good shot, but I just never found any evidence that I’d hit the buck,” he said.

Big break: He’s baaaack!

“On Jan. 20, I got a picture of him back in the area, and I was really excited,” he said. “It had been a really good late season for acorns, as the water oaks and Nuttall oaks were bearing heavily. We had some floods, and when that happens in there, the water pushes all of the acorns out of the 100-acre hardwood swamp bottom to the edge of the hills.”

Conditions were just right when the big bruiser showed back up on camera. 

“That makes a really great hunt,” Blissett said. “The acorns are pushed up along the hillside about 3 feet wide and 300 yards in a line. The bucks just feed down the acorn line, and they’ll travel awhile, feeding, and you can pinpoint where they’re going to come from and where they’re feeding, too.” 

Blissett and Troy Ruiz made a beeline for the woods after they spotted the buck on camera via a cell-phone app and quickly set up their climbing stands so that Ruiz could film the hunt. 

“We got in there about 2 p.m. and saw a couple of young bucks,” said Blissett. “About 4:30, Troy said, ‘There’s that buck coming straight towards us.’ He was walking with a slight limp!” 

As the buck fed into an opening, Blissett squeezed the trigger slowly. 

Tic-Boom! Blissett’s Savage .308 roared, and the buck collapsed in a heap.

The deer was a trophy by any standards in Mississippi. It sported a wide rack with an 18-inch inside spread, and it scored in the 140s, tremendous for an 8-pointer.

Hunt regularly

Blissett hunts around the country more than 100 days a year and learns more about deer and hunting bucks by spending a lot of time in the woods. He hunts a wide variety of places, watches a lot of bucks and learns more by watching bucks than by pulling the trigger upon the first sight of them. But you must be selective if harvesting a mature buck no matter where you are hunting. 

Late-season: Food, beds

“During the late season, I want to hunt areas where the food and bedding areas are close together, where the deer don’t have to travel far,” Blissett said. “You are upping your odds if you are hunting close, because that buck will be worn out from chasing does and tired from the rutting activity. He won’t move far to find food, so he’s going to bed up as close to the food source as possible.”

This year, Blissett has already had success, and he recently filmed Ruiz shooting a 130-class Mississippi buck with his .308. 

“I put in a 3-acre food plot that was surrounded on two sides by a 5-year-old pine plantation,” Blissett said. “The deer can bed down in the thicket and stand up and walk 30 yards and enter the food plot. We watched 30 deer, and Troy shot the buck about 4:30. This was our first year to hunt this 900-acre lease, and we’re already seeing a lot of deer with just a little preparation.

“I’m looking for 3 things during the late season,” Blissett said. “Since late season success is dependent on finding food, I want a good food plot, abundant native browse (and) late-dropping acorns.”

Create your spots

Blissett gets to work on establishing hunting properties geared to producing deer and quality bucks, and he’s continually helping change the landscape to make an area better for the deer and other game as well as for the hunters. 

“I’ll usually establish a couple of food plots near prime bedding areas,” he said. “Sometimes, we’ll go into a new place and establish a good bedding area by just leaving 40 to 60 acres alone so it can grow thick. We have one new place just like that where we let tall switch grasses grow, and it’s provided the deer with a core bedding area close to the action.”

Access to a good location is a key when it comes to hunting a big buck after you have located him. 

“If you can access your stand without alerting the bucks, or without them knowing you’ve gotten into the stand in their bedroom, then you are much better off,” Blissett said. “During the late season, we don’t hunt a lot during the mornings — just late afternoon — to take the pressure off them. 

“If you go in there every day and hunt morning and afternoon, they will know it and adjust accordingly. If you put too much pressure on the mature bucks, they’ll relocate. It all boils down to hunting pressure the way we hunt. We want to hunt deer that haven’t been pressured, even though that’s hard to find during the late season.” 

Catching bucks unawares during December means getting on the downwind side of the food source or food plot. While some hunters try to fool bucks with scent killers and coverups, Blissett hunts strictly by the wind. 

This season’s monster

This season, Blissett hunted an area that had good deer, but he didn’t catch a glimpse of a buck after nine days, so he went home and let the area rest. 

“I was hunting an area in Iowa that had a lot of rolling agriculture, as well as timber draws,” said Blissett. “After laying off a couple of weeks, I went back to the same area and caught the buck following a hot doe on my first day back in the woods. 

“In fact, there were six to eight bucks following that doe, as well as a fine 9-point. I’d been hunting all day, and about 2 p.m.,  the buck followed a hot doe into range, and I nailed him.” 

That buck green-scored 178 inches but fell just short of the Boone & Crockett Club after deductions were factored in.

Late-season food plots

By the end of Mississippi’s deer season, bucks that have survived are rundown and hungry from all of the rutting activity, which includes fighting other bucks, breeding does, evading hunters and eating very little. Primos was one of the forerunners in food-plot mixes for different soil types and seasons, so Blissett has a lot of experience to draw from when determining what to plant for late-season food plots. 

“We’re going to plant a base of wheat, oats and cereal grains, about 150 to 200 pounds per acre,” he said. “At Primos, we have a fall mix of wheat, oats, brassica, clover and a couple other things. But what I like to do is I’ll use that and come back and overdress purple-top turnips, seven-top turnips, triticale and Daikon radishes. I’m a big fan of Daikon radishes; deer will use them at different times of year. We’ll plant some white and red clover as well, and they’ll last through the spring and sometime through summer. I’ve got a smorgasbord of grass and we’ll fertilize it with Triple 19, which has nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.”