Big Buck 411 Blog

Following Orders

Following Orders

By Mike Handley

After two decades of hunting deer on a spit of land once cotton-farmed by the president of the Confederacy, Bill Harvey finally shot his due in 2018.

For two decades, he’s hunted Davis Island, a peninsula before the Mississippi River changed course a couple of years after the Civil War. Now accessible only by water and west of the main river channel, the land is shared by Warren County, Mississippi, and Madison Parish, Louisiana.

It’s named for the most well known of landowner surnames. Jefferson Davis had a 1,000-acre plantation there, next to his brother’s 5,000 acres.

Bill, now retired at 63, hunts with friends. He leaves the treestands to them, however, preferring to stay on the ground. He likes the mobility and comfort his simple dove stool provides.

Last November, while his son, Matthew, remained at camp to do some butchering, Bill struck out before sunrise for an acorn flat where he’d seen a large buck previously.

His host had remarked that it was time Bill shot a “for-real trophy.”

“At 7:55, this huge deer walked out 40 yards from me and stood broadside,” he told Gita Smith, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. Two smaller bucks had materialized as well.

Bill first assumed he was looking at just another of the island’s many 8-pointers, but then he noticed it was not the clean 4x4 he’d thought. At least one brow tine was split, and the rack’s left side had five points instead of four.

He took the shot with his 7mm Mag when the estimated 250-pound 10-pointer was at 25 yards. It’s one of the largest ever to be taken off Davis Island.

“Well, they told me to get a for-real trophy,” he said. “I was just following orders.”

— Read Recent Blog! When Their Brains are Scrambled: Don’t tell Greg Glesinger that the rut isn’t the best time to pin your hopes on tagging an exceptional whitetail.

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