Located a short 20-minute drive from Jackson is a private 400-acre spread that would be the envy of almost every outdoorsman. Named Double L after its owner Bob Lloyd, this lush land is filled with monster bucks, comfy shooting houses, big-bearded turkeys, pole-bending bass and a cozy cabin to come home to at night. It also has an outdoor fire pit, modern barn with a covered skinning rack, tool shed, horses and ATVs to ride, satellite TV to catch one’s favorite ball games when not hunting or fishing, someone to clean the deer and, best of all, a large congenial family with which to share the blessing.
Located six miles northwest of Canton along the fabled Big Black River drainage, Double L and its compatible neighbors — Cameron Farms, owned by the Hannon family of Kentucky Fried Chicken renown, and Sanctuary, owned by former Lt. Governor Eddie Briggs — operate on a combined management program like one large camp encompassing 8,000 acres.
Adhering to a strict trophy buck program that dictates a large doe harvest and only removing a few big bucks annually (these harvested bucks must be 4 years old and more than 200 pounds), Lloyd’s land is prolific at producing big bucks, as the horn-filled walls of Double L’s cabin attest.
My visit to Double L came in early December, a time when the rut in Mississippi was just beginning to kick into high gear. I hunted with Lloyd, his work associate Joel Melton and Joel’s brother Michael from Natchez. Saturday morning with the temperature reading an ideal 28 degrees, I sat a ladder stand over a boomerang-shaped green field that bent to my left and right with my stand just inside the point of the woodline.
I had a half dozen does come out to feed, but no bucks came into view. In the meantime, I enjoyed watching several large flocks of turkeys that meandered in and out of the field that morning as a cold rain drizzled on me for a while, but finally eased up. Occasionally, noisy groups of Canada geese would honk their way overhead, and a lone coyote would make eerie calls from inside the woodline ahead.
Later in the morning, two bobcats that I had heard howling in the far woods passed through the field at the far end and disappeared into the thickets. In a few minutes, several small deer bolted out of the thicket farther down, and sped across the open field to the safety of dense woods on the other end.
All of these wonderful sightings are the events that outdoors memories are made of. Although I didn’t see a wall-hanger, the lushness of the woods and fields, plus several impressive rubs, spoke of the brutes that roamed this secluded land.
During the midday lunch break, we drove over to Cameron Farms to a skinning rack to take a gander at the huge buck Lloyd had bow shot late Friday afternoon from a stand appropriately named The Honey Hole. The buck was a long-bodied, heavy-horned mainframe 8-pointer scoring around 155 gross and weighing in at 255 pounds. Lloyd had made a perfect heart/lung shot at last shooting light, but had wisely waited until the following morning to trail it. He found the perfectly preserved body a mere 75 yards from where he had shot it the night before.
On Sunday, Lloyd put me in one of his fine shooting houses located over a small green field with a creek running through the far end. My shooting house was very plush with its sliding plexiglass windows, carpeted floor and comfy chair. The surrounding woods harbored a fine mast crop for the deer as well as ample shelter.
The easy approach Lloyd takes lets the deer feel secure and non-threatened, so very seldom do you hear a deer snort or see it run helter-skelter through their woods. Most are easing around from cover to feeding grounds as it they didn’t have a care in the world. This casual approach also gives the hunter more time to view a potential trophy through a scope before deciding whether to pull the trigger.
Several does eased stealthily past my stand, occasionally glancing up my way. I wished it had been bowseason for this would have made for a perfect setup to put some tender meat on the table. Although I didn’t take a buck, this same stand would go on to yield several trophies later in the season.
During my brief visit to Double L, I soon realized that it’s not just a place to harvest trophy animals, but like most other Mississippi Hunting Camps, a place for the Lloyd family and their friends to enjoy family, food, fun, faith and fellowship. Here, Bob and wife Beth enjoy their times with the extended Lloyd family, which includes Dad Bill — alias “Cosmo” — Mom Chloe, brother Ted and wife Andrea, brother Ben and wife Sara, and a host of nephews and nieces as they gather around their favorite place, the outside fire pit.
During a later muzzleloader hunt, Joel Melton scored on a long-beamed, wide-spread 8-pointer nicknamed “Buckzilla.” Melton’s impressive buck looks good from any angle.
Also, Lloyd’s 18-year-old nephew, Ted Jr., would later take a monstrous 19-pointer scoring around 130 that amazingly had only a 7-inch spread.
Several other nice bucks were taken during the long season, but the best of all was the huge brute that Kirk Hannon shot that took the blue ribbon at the Mississippi Wildlife Extravaganza as the Buck of the Year.
An upcoming improvement Lloyd has for Double L is a lake that is in the making. He also plans to continue to improve his habitat, providing the game even more cover and better food sources.
With his low pressure approach to his woods, the quality deer program Double L, Cameron and Sanctuary are on, and the reputation the nearby Big Black River already has for housing monster bucks and other trophy animals, the future just looks brighter and brighter for Double L under Lloyd’s good stewardship.
What’s not to like?
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