By Billy Davis
Panola County deer hunters hit the woods Saturday, the first day of gun season, armed with a new set of regulations for harvesting a Mississippi buck.

The new rules abandoned the “four-point” law in favor of a minimum-inch length for inside spread or main beam. The four-point rule made it unlawful to harvest a buck with fewer than four antler points.

Mississippi’s legislature approved the new harvesting law at the request of the Miss. Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks (MDWFP).

The new regulations began with the 2009-2010 deer hunting season, which kicked off with bow season October 1. The new law includes both private and public lands.

The four-point rule allowed the harvest of better-quality yearling bucks, but research at Wildlife Management Areas showed a decrease in antler size and body weight in older bucks.

Over time, hunters were harvesting the best bucks, which depleted the healthiest deer from the deer population’s gene pool, explained Chad Dacus, Deer Program coordinator for MDWFP.

“Hunters were taking the best of the best,” he said.

The new harvesting rules will improve upon the success of the four-point rule, which Dacus credits for dramatically improving Mississippi’s harvesting records.

Dacus said before the four-point rule, when there was no minimum standard in Mississippi, 50 percent of harvested bucks were 1 ½ years old or younger. In 1995, a decade after the four-point rule began, two-thirds of harvested bucks were 3 ½ years old or older.

“The four-point rule was a great first step,” he said. “The goal now is to protect 100 percent of the one-year-old bucks.”

Mississippi has a deer population estimated at 1.7 million. 

To regulate the new law, the state’s Department of Wildlife carved Mississippi into three “Management Zones” based on how soil regions affect antler production. Highways and interstates were chosen as boundary lines to make the new rules easier to follow.

Panola County is divided into zones 1 and 3. Interstate 55 serves as the dividing line between the “Delta” zone, Zone 3, to the west of I-55. The much larger “Central Mississippi” zone, Zone 1, is located to the east of I-55.

In Zone 1 in Panola County, a legal buck must sport an inside spread of 10 inches or a main beam of 13 inches.

In Zone 3 in Panola County, a legal buck must have an inside spread of 12 inches or a main beam of 15 inches.

The inside spread of a buck is estimated by viewing the deer’s ears. If the outside of each antler beam is approximately one inch inside the ear-tip, the inside spread is approximately 10 inches.

The larger 12-inch spread would normally extend to the tips of the ears.

Viewed from the side, the main beam can be estimated by observing if the main beam extends to the front of the eye, which is approximately 13 inches in length. A 15-inch main beam would normally extend between the eyes and nose of the buck.

 Mississippi’s conservation officers will “use their judgment” when enforcing the new harvesting rules, said Steve Adcock, chief of law enforcement for the MDWFP.

“The law is the law,” Adcock said. “But it’s a new law and that will be taken in account.”
Conservation officers wrote 66 citations in Panola County for various hunting violations during the 2008-2009 hunting season. Hunting from a public road topped the list with 22 tickets written.