Running the Oak Haven website apparently has its perks. I got a call from Steve Payne, owner of Oak Haven Forages LLC, last Tuesday asking if I wanted to go to the Mississippi River to hunt deer and hogs. Just a month earlier, Steve had invited me to go to east Texas with him to hunt hogs. Even though those hogs didn't cooperate, that trip wet my appetite for a hog. So naturally I decided to go and drive the 3-hour trip to Scott, MS the next morning.

I arrived about 12:30pm and met Steve at Scott Grocery. With him were two representatives from Sportsmans Warehouse, Tyler Flynn [Southaven, MS] and Dwayne Leamond [Memphis, TN]. We ate lunch and then made a stop by the camphouse. There we met up with Bernie White and Brad Burgess, both of whom work at Mississippi State University's Seed Lab. We all got ready to hunt and was in the woods by 2:30pm. It was primitive hunting season and I was using a Winchester single-shot .45/70 with Hornady LEVERevolution cartridges which all belonged to Steve.

That first evening the wind was blowing hard, so I made my way to a stand located in the middle of the property where the hardwoods might knock some of it down a bit. If doing this helped any it wasn't much. Somehow, though, I was able to spot some movement about 150 yards away. I was able to get binoculars on it, but all I could make out was the tail of a deer. It quickly disappeared. Not long after, I heard some tiny steps behind me. I turned around to look and two does trotted in and fed until dark. Just before dark two more joined them. Although Woody had told us beforehand that the bucks were chasing the does, no other deer ever came in.

Deer eating Oak Haven forage on the edge of the Mississippi river just north of Greenville, MS.

The next morning Woody woke everyone with the sound of eggs and bacon frying. We all stumbled around getting ready while grabbing a quick breakfast. Steve and Woody reminded us all about the minimum standard for a shooter buck at this private club. Basically they said that an 8-point or more with a spread outside the ears or a forward extension that went past the buck's eyeball would be ok. They were mostly directing this to me because I've never killed an 8-point of any size buck before and they didn't want me taking out a buck that was too young.

This time I made my way to a stand next to the Mississippi River. The wind was still blowing pretty strong and had a definite chill to it. Not long after I settled in to the shooting house was I staring right into two sunrises. One was the actual sun peaking over the horizon and the other was the light beam from a barge ship. I'm still not sure which was brighter! Within 10 minutes the barge passed by and I was ready to concentrate more on hunting. Not very much later I twice heard the obvious sound of a hog hollering just out of vision off to my left. Naturally most of my attention was in that direction, but once as a scanned back to my right I caught sight of a deer crossing the short opening about 80 yards away. It was still dark enough where it wasn't obvious whether or not this was a buck, but the deer looked bigger than most does and was acting more cautious so I was hopeful. After scoping it with my binoculars it was easy to see it was an 8-point buck with a high rack, but it was approaching the next thicket fast. I set the binoculars down and grabbed the gun with intensions to shoot! Since the buck was to my right, getting the gun placed out that window was very awkward. I soon then realized that I hadn't removed the scope's lens covers. By the time I removed them the buck was safely in the thicket.

For about two minutes I was silently cursing to myself thinking I had blown an opportunity at my first-ever, 8-point buck. Then all-of-a-sudden, that same buck started to cross the narrow road which was in front of me. I placed the gun out my front window and could see the buck walking away from me hugging the right side. Since he wasn't broadside, I used this time to study his outside spread. It only came out even with its ears. Although disappointed, the rack still looked fairly high to me so I told myself that if he turned broadside and his rack went past his eyes I would still take him. A few seconds later he turned to cross the road and his rack only came up even with his eyes. With everything being borderline and with this being early into the first morning, I decided to let him go. Besides, this obviously was a good place to hunt and I didn't want to jeopardize any chance of being asked to come back!

During the next two hours I saw six does and a 4-point all come in and eat away at the Oak Haven forage. One deer actually made her way underneath the shooting house before I saw her. I still don't know how she did that!

About 10:30am my phone buzzed and it was Bernie. He said everyone was going to get down about 15 minutes later and meet up at the trucks. I was kind of glad to hear this because I was still wind chilled and the action had about stopped. I put my phone back in my pocket and looked back down the road in front of me. Something was definitely in it about 170 yards away. My first thought was that it was a hog. I grabbed the binoculars and could instantly tell that it was a hog! Woody had told us earlier to shoot every damn hog that we wanted to so I was about to let some lead fly!

Five weeks earlier, Steve and I went to east Texas to hunt hogs there. Before we went, I decided to research what I could on the internet about hunting Texas hogs and I'm glad I did. I learned beforehand that you don't want to shoot a hog in the same place as you would a deer. If one shoots a hog behind the front shoulder, you basically haven't hit anything vital and the wounded hog will run off and you probably won't find him. Not only that, but a wounded hog running around is a dangerous scenerio! A well-placed hog shot is somewhere between the middle part of his front shoulder and the center of his head. Anywhere in that area will usually drop him in his tracks. After reading this information, I decided that since the neck is directly in the middle of this area it would be my focus point for any broadside hog shot.

Steve's 45/70 has a Nikon scope that not only has crosshairs, but also has circles underneath for bullet-drop compensation. Steve told me that the rifle was sighted in on the crosshairs at 100 yards and that each circle would add about 50 yards of distance. I estimated this hog to be at least 150 yards away. I put the 150-yard circle on the hog's neck and noticed that the 100-yard crosshair and the 200-yard circle was still on him, so I pulled back the hammer and squeezed off the trigger with confidence. The next thing I saw was a dead hog dropped right in it's tracks!

Bernie heard the shot and met me at my stand as I was climbing out. As we began walking down the road to the pig he said, "Man, you reached out a tagged that one!" I said, "Yeah, Steve actually gave me a gun that was sighted in right!"

Scott Williams takes this 125-lb wild sow over an Oak Haven food plot.

We soon had her up on the skinning hoist and the scales showed she weighed 125 lbs. Everyone agreed that she was a good "eatin-size" and soon we had her ready to hang in the freezer. Steve and I cleaned up, ate a sandwich, and made plans for that evening's hunt.

We both climbed into a stand located on the edge of an old dried-up river bottom now planted in Oak Haven's fall forage. One could see down the strip over 600 yards one way and about 250 yards the other way. The strip was about 75 yards wide with hardwoods bordering each edge. We sat and talked about things that would improve Oak Haven and its website.

It wasn't long before Steve saw some movement in the hardwoods. Four jake turkeys were working their way to the field. We tried to take their picture with our cell phones with little success. I had my digital camera with me, but something had it not working correctly. Before the turkeys could make it to the field, something spooked them and they trotted off back deeper in the woods. Steve watched the area closely and soon he caught a deer sneaking into the same area where the turkeys were. All this was happening with my back to the area so I just sat still. Steve then told me it was a buck. When I heard this I grabbed my binoculars and eased around to look myself. Before I actually saw the deer itself, I caught of glimpse of his antlers and thought he could be a shooter. I informed Steve that I thought he was a pretty good one only to have him say, "No, he's only about two-and-a-half years old."

It's absolutely amazing how much bigger things look when you first see them! I immediately thought back to earlier that morning when I was convinced to shoot when I first saw that buck on my own, only to rule him out myself when later given the chance to study him more closely. Although I'm 42 years old and have hunted often, I've never before been fortunate enough to be in a prime area for big deer. They didn't exist where I grew up and I never knew the right people and I couldn't afford to pay for a prime hunt. Also when I laid down that hog that morning I thought it was going to weigh 300 lbs and it only turned out to be 125. So it pays to take your time while hunting when allowed to do so!

For the rest of the time that the buck stayed with us, Steve and I tried to take pictures of him with our cell phones, again with no luck. Only until after shooting light did we see any other deer and those four appeared to be does and little ones.

We drove back to the camphouse and discovered that Woody had taken a 10-point buck. It was the first deer that Woody had harvested there himself in over eight years. He claims that he made a 300-yard shot with his .45/70, but some of us have our doubts about that! Steve ended up skinning the buck with others so Woody could start supper.

That night Woody grilled steaks and baked potatoes. These steaks were not for the timid! They were huge and cooked to perfection. One thing is for sure, if you ever have the priviledge of hunting around Steve you are guaranteed to eat good! Somehow I finished all of mine, but others there couldn't claim the same and they got "dogged" for it.

The next morning I decided to go back to the same stand I was in where I had shot my hog the morning prior. Before I even arrived at the stand I heard a shot that sounded promisingly like one of our bunch. I continued to my stand and got settled in. Not long after I witnessed five does walking down the Mississippi riverside. As they ate among the Oak Haven forage they eventually worked their way to about 60 yards away from me. I snapped a couple of phone pictures of them but it was obvious that they were nothing but small dots.

I looked at my Nikon binoculars and wondered if they could be used similarly. I grabbed them and rested them on the window's bottom edge. Then I placed my cell phone's camera lens into one of the binocular's eyepieces. Once I finally got everything lined up on one of the deer, I snapped off a picture. Even in the phone's small display I could tell significant improvement. When I downloaded this picture to my computer it was very easy to tell that the deer was actually a button spike!

The deer herd split up with three going behind me and the other two disappearing into the thicket in front of me to my right. About that time I heard another shot that was obviously from our group. This woke me back up and allowed me to start concentrating on hunting again.

This button spike was 60 yards away when photographed using a cell phone and a pair of Nikon binoculars as a zoom lens. The same deer at the same distance was taken without binoculars and can be compared with from the upper lefthand corner.

I was right! A buck did come out, but he entered the road from the opposite thicket, which means to me that he was responding to the alarm calls rather than just following them. He was broadside on the road and I already had the gun positioned. One look through the rifle scope and I could tell that he was "antler city" ... a definite "shooter" buck! As I pulled back the hammer, the buck spotted the coyotes at the end of the road. He turned away from me and charged them! I remember looking through the scope at his rear end with this massive rack running away from me. I didn't shoot because I figured he would stop and a better shot would appear. It didn't! He just kept charging the coyotes and chased them away around the corner and never came back.

I met Steve back at the truck, told him my morning story, and asked about the two shots I heard. He said that Dwayne has killed a small 8-point buck early that was just barely club legal and that Tyler had killed a 300-lb black boar. Dwayne had already skinned his buck, but Tyler had his boar loaded into his truck and was going to process him back in Senatobia, MS.

Needless to say, it was an exciting two-day hunt. My last few years haven't been very involved with hunting, but Steve and this season has rekindled some of the fire. Hopefully there will be many more hunting adventures for me to write about and share pictures with everyone!

Tyler Flynn takes this 300-lb wild boar on the last morning.