Country Road Outdoors Feature Stories
My Little Piece of Heaven
April 22, 2009 | By Paul T. Brown
The dream of owning my own sportsman’s paradise goes back to when I joined a hunting club in the mid 1970s. The club leased several hundred acres from a timber company, and its members paid annual dues. While sitting high in the hardwood trees of south-central Mississippi, I dreamed of owning landscapes, trees, and fields like the ones that captured my fascination. For the longest, I thought it was just that—a dream. Maybe more like an illusion concocted in the idle mind of a deer hunter.
I figured owning rural real estate was for the affluent only. But I set out on a path that would eventually lead to owning my little piece of heaven. An opportunity to join a member-owned “hunting club” came along in the early 1980s. The club was actually a cooperative set up for recreational purposes. It was a stretch at the time, but I managed to come up with the $8,000 to purchase one share of stock in the cooperative that owned roughly 1,000 acres of prime hunting land. 
It was a perfect fit at the time. With the exception of one ol’ grouch, we all got along very well. For some 10 years, my family and I enjoyed the hunting and friendships the affiliation with the club offered. Then I ran into a longtime friend, Bob, at the annual Mississippi Wildlife Extravaganza. We began to talk about the member-owned club he helped start. He couldn’t say enough good things about the hunting, the lodge, the family-friendly atmosphere, and the shareholders involved. They had a share for sale, and he insisted I was the perfect candidate.
Bob went on about their quality deer-management program, one that matched my philosophy. He asserted their turkey flock was healthy, and the duck hunting was as good as any in the area. It all sounded enticing until I heard the price. But I was so impressed I thought I should present the idea to my wife.
“Honey, I have an investment opportunity I want to explain to you,” I said in a confident voice.
“Does it have anything to do with hunting?” she asked.
“Well yeah, but its diff…”
“How much?”
“Well, let me tell you…”
“How much?”
“Okay, $125,000. But…”
“Have you lost your mind?”
I soon convinced her I at least owed my friend a courtesy visit. After all, it was the polite thing to do.
We toured the land and luxurious lodge, met some of the members, and enjoyed a wonderful meal. We were overwhelmed. On the ride home, my wife asked in an excited tone, “Are we going to join?” I knew it was a done deal then.
We purchased the only available share and soon moved into our suite at the lodge. It was the right thing to do, no question. Our two youngest kids began their hunting careers there, killed their first deer and turkey on the property, and loved playing with the other children.
It took roughly a year to sell my share in the first club, but I got the established book value of $25,000. More than tripling my money over 10 years was a good investment I reasoned.
Even after several years creating great memories at the new club, I realized it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t my place. The yearning to be a steward of a small piece of God’s creation tugged at my being.
It was time for a change. By word of mouth, I put my share on the market and soon sold it for three times the purchase price. Then the real hunt began, the hunt for that special place, one I could manage for the quality wildlife I desired.
The Holmes County area of Mississippi really grabbed my attention. The huge hills and deep gullies of the central part of the county offered a unique beauty I had grown to appreciate while hunting as a guest of a Holmes County resident.
I put the word out that I was looking for 200 to 300 acres. Soon tracts popped up for sale in the area, and I looked at most of them. There seemed to be something wrong with each, but I kept searching. Three years later, in 2005, I found a 200-acre place that I pictured as the perfect spot. It needed some work, but I loved the topography and the way the open areas meandered through the woodlands.
I was told the $1,500 per acre price was firm, and I had to make a decision fast before it went on the market. Land in that area sells fast. My wife and I drove all over the property the next afternoon and quickly agreed to the seller’s asking price.
We were prepared to make a substantial down payment but needed long-term financing for the balance. In addition, we would use our own capital to construct a nice cabin. Not every lending institution is willing to finance rural property. The traditional mortgage companies with the lower rates were not interested, so we turned to a borrower-owned rural lending cooperative, The Federal Land Bank (now known as Land Bank South).
Its member-borrowers purchase stock in the company at the time of closing and become an owner of the Land Bank, like most other rural lenders. These institutions’ interest rates are typically higher than other mortgage sources (two percentage points is some cases). Generally, because the distribution of profits to its members is in the form of a dividend or patronage refund, the cost of borrowing from one of the rural lending specialists is effectively reduced.
With the financing done and the cabin under construction, my focus turned to managing my new property, which we affectionately called “Cedar Hill.” I am an outdoors writer and wildlife photographer, so I wanted my place to be conducive to photography and offer a quiet place to write, with some hunting on the side.
But there was work to be done. In fact, Cedar Hill had been neglected for a few years and needed a general clean-up. Lots of bush hogging and dozier work had to be done just to see what we had. The 30-plus acres of abandoned pastures were ideal for planting annual food plots and year-round food sources for wildlife.
That fall, I planted about 10 acres of Mossy Oak BioLogic’s Clover Plus—a perennial blend of New Zealand red and white clovers and chicory—to provide a year-round food source for deer and turkeys.
Each spring, I’ve planted a five-acre field of BioMax—a mixture of soybeans and corn—to add more sustenance.
The food plots at Cedar Hill have produced bountiful groceries for the deer and turkeys that wander its grounds. The place certainly looked the part of hunting land.
My interest in hunting took a shot of adrenaline on February 11, 2007, when I found the left shed from a really nice buck. The single beam had 10 points. No one had seen this buck during the previous hunting season. Nor had we gotten pictures with motion cameras.
After measuring 90 inches of antler on the shed, my obsession to hunt this buck grew exponentially. Assuming an equal, matched shed from the right side—20 total scoreable points (1 inch or more)—and a conservative 17-inch inside spread, the buck would gross 197 non-typical. And if he grew just a little more, we’d have a 200-inch buck on our hands.
On September 1st, I set out three digital scouting cameras and began positioning them along trails leading to the clover fields in hopes of proving the dream buck really existed. The following Saturday, September 8, as I collected the 1-gigabyte memory cards, I didn’t see much deer sign in front of the three camera locations. My expectations were low, but to my surprise, the first card—taken from the trail leading into the clover field where I found the shed—contained more than 500 images. As I scrolled through the first 400, I saw only images of does and young bucks. Then image number 460 nearly knocked me off my chair. There stood the buck I’d hoped to see. He was real! At 1:55 a.m., the monster was captured for the first time on camera. Half a dozen pictures revealed a massive rack with at least 16 points. The buck was a main–frame, typical 12 point with one extra (13th) vertical point and three additional stickers.
There was no doubt the shed I’d found seven months earlier belonged to him. I anxiously saved the images, forwarded them to a wildlife biologist friend, and asked him to take a stab at scoring the buck. He soon wrote back saying he and another biologist estimated the rack would gross in the mid 190s and net in the low to mid 170s.
I could hardly contain my enthusiasm. I asked myself, “Could I actually have a Boone and Crockett buck on my own place?”
All summer my excitement and obsession were shared with my two youngest kids, Mark, 23, and Jessi 19, both students at Mississippi State University. My oldest son Paul Jr., 36, was interested enough to help move stands, erect new ones, and help with food plots; he just wasn’t obsessed like the rest of us.
I continued capturing images of the buck on camera and soon established a movement pattern and a good idea where he lived and what food source he favored. But he was only traveling in front of the cameras under the shroud of darkness.
Over the next four months, I captured 40 to 50 pictures of the big buck. The only images captured during daylight were taken September 20, when he was shedding his velvet.
Based on the camera study, the buck didn’t travel far and, I am convinced, never left my property. My approach was to hunt the periphery of what I believed to be the buck’s bedding area and home territory and to pay particular attention to wind direction. And, keeping the property calm and quiet was paramount. Four-wheeler travel was eliminated. Scouting was out, too; the cameras would do that for us. We’d have to be disciplined about not hunting an area when conditions weren’t just right. And we were.
I am not a big fan of hunting food plots. I prefer taking a stand in the woods, but the topography of my property dictated food-plot hunting. The winding gullies have an eerie way of changing wind direction and spreading human scent all over the county.
Archery season opened on Monday, October 1, but my son Mark and I decided to wait until the weekend of October 6 to climb a tree. But with the temperature in the low 90s, we called off the hunt and focused on planting approximately 18 acres of annual food plots.
I kept working the motion cameras while we hunted with bow and arrow. As feared, the big buck only moved at night, often walking right in front of some of our stand locations.
Gun season opened November 17, but the season progressed without a sighting of the big nocturnal buck.
Primitive weapons season came and went with the same result. The buck was feeding primarily in the clover fields; I had proof. But it was at night and just before sunrise. And, he was feeding in all four clover fields.
As the season wore down, I threw in the towel and accepted defeat. It was over. The buck wasn’t going to show in daylight. The rut was coming to a halt, and we hadn’t seen hide nor hair.
On January 16, 2008, at 3:30 p.m., I climbed into a shoot house for what was to be my last hunt of the year. I chose the food plot with the best stand of clover. Still, I wasn’t optimistic at all. An east wind whipped the treetops on the opposite side of the field. Hunting conditions were horrible. As expected, I didn’t see a deer the first two hours. I checked my watch; it was 5:30 and darker than usual for that time of the day. About five minutes later, two deer entered the clover field 200 yards in front of my stand. I found the deer in my binoculars and thought, That’s two bucks, and the one on the right is a pretty good one.
I stuck the gun out the narrow window and quickly put the crosshairs on the wrong buck. Finally, I found the right buck and placed the crosshairs behind his shoulder. I looked up at his rack and realized it was him, the buck we’d been hunting for almost a year. Instantly I began doing figure-eights all over the buck’s front quarter thanks to the worst case of buck fever I’ve ever had. The anticipation, the planning, the dreaming were all on my shoulders at that moment.
I finally gained a semblance of composure and squeezed off. The buck wheeled 180 degrees and went down. It took a few moments to get my breathing back to normal and grasp what had just happened.
I climbed out of the shoot house at 5:45 and jogged over to put my hands on the buck that had eluded me all season. What a trophy!
The buck qualified for listing in Boone and Crockett Club’s Records of North American Big Game with a gross score of 192 3/8 and a net of 171 4/8. The score held after the 60-day drying period and has been accepted by Boone and Crockett. The buck becomes the first typical Boone and Crockett ever registered from Holmes County. The 17 scoreable points are the most of any typical record book buck killed in Mississippi.
Not only has Cedar Hill given up a record-book buck, it’s also produced more than 1,000 pictures of turkeys, and 600-plus images of ducks and songbirds. And I have only owned it for three years!
The dream of owning my own place took a while to happen, but it was much easier than I expected and more rewarding than I could’ve imagined. And, I never had to leave home to realize every deer hunter’s dream of taking a Boone and Crockett buck.
Could a B&C buck increase my property’s value? I think it is only a matter of by how much. However, my emotional attachment to the place may exceed a desire to profit from the hard work and killing of a record book buck. It’s not easy to swap a dream for economic gain.
