In response to the 2010 census, Mississippi’s Issaquena County was the least populated county in the US east of the Mississippi River. The area is probably finest generally known as “south Delta nation” due to the fertile lowlands and darkish soil that lie inside the floodplain of North America’s largest river.
Due to its wealthy floor, the world yields bumper agricultural crops and affords wildlife a cornucopia of meals. Japanese turkeys and puddle geese (in the course of the fall migration) are plentiful, and so are whitetails. And Delta bucks can develop large. It’s flat floor, providing hunters lengthy vistas to identify sport. It additionally offers rifle hunters the possibility to make pictures about so far as they’ll see by means of optics. Victoria Darden Garland, a 30-year previous South Delta farmer, has shot a number of deer at distance.
“I’ve shot deer out to 444 yards with my .243,” says Garland, who took her first deer 20 years in the past at age 10. “We hunt the large open fields within the South Delta, and my .243 is the proper rifle for it.”
She shoots a custom-built Remington 700 bolt-action rifle with a particular aftermarket barrel, and handloads her .243 ammo utilizing 105-grain bullets.
“I’ve shot it loads through the years, and my Burris Eliminator laser rangefinding scope helps in judging yardage and makes my .243 the proper gun for me,” she says.
Thomas Garland, Victoria’s husband, started getting path pictures of a big farm buck he’d handed the earlier season due to a damaged tine. By Dec. 2021, the buck had returned to their 1,200-acre non-public searching farm, and on Christmas Day, Thomas obtained an extended shot on the buck, however missed.
Two days later, Victoria was searching in a field blind throughout an unusually heat December afternoon. She was pondering she ought to be sitting poolside as a substitute of in a deer stand, when she occurred to look as much as see an enormous buck. She immediately acknowledged it from path cam pictures because the deer Thomas missed.
Learn Subsequent: Mississippi Medical Scholar Tags a 170-Inch Whitetail on Her First Hunt
She obtained her rifle on the buck standing 173 yards away and shot, however the deer didn’t transfer. So she chambered a second spherical, aimed and fired once more. The buck turned and ran, exhibiting no signal of being hit. Checking the world the place the buck had stood, she didn’t discover any blood path to comply with. So the Garlands obtained their trusty two-year-old black Labrador, Maverick, to path the deer.
“Maverick obtained on the scent immediately, and went proper to the buck,” says Victoria. “There was no blood to comply with, and the deer solely went 100 yards. Thank goodness for Maverick.”
The six-year-old buck weighed 230 kilos, sported 9 factors, and scored 146 2/8-inches.
