By By Otha Barham / outdoors editor
Jan. 10, 2003
Samuel Davis walked purposefully across the cutover, stepping carefully over sticks and brush on the ground. He paused often, using his eyes and ears in search of any deer that might have been flushed from the many available bedding spots.
Suddenly a huge buck jumped out of a patch of cane a hundred yards away. The deer chose to attempt a getaway far in advance of Davis arriving at the marshy spot beside a spring fed creek. The buck ran uphill in the 400 acre cutover.
The hunter took his time, waiting to see if the buck would stop. He didn't. Davis aligned the scope sight on his .300 Winchester Magnum Browning rifle and touched off the long range shot. The buck fell, and with just one shot, Samuel Davis downed the biggest buck entered in the Meridian Star Original Buck Bounty contest as of this writing. The huge deer's antlers score 157 and four eighths inches.
Kemper resident
Davis, 33, is a lifelong Kemper County resident who lives in DeKalb with his wife, Gwendolyn, son Sammy E. Davis Jr. who is 9, and 2-year-old daughter Trinity. The construction worker and mechanic is a serious deer hunter, hunting primarily with the Terminator Hunting Club formed by himself, his brother and others.
Davis shared his love of hunting with younger brother Frankie. The brothers still hunt together and the times spent with Frankie and others like Michael Madison and Cadre Hampton at their club out Old Jackson Road are Davis' favorite hunts.
His deer hunting method is not widely practiced in this day of shoot houses and green patches, but one Davis has found productive in the past. It certainly paid off for him this season with the buck that leads the Original Buck Bounty contest.
Slow stalker
He uses a grunt tube sometimes but has never had good luck rattling horns. His grunting brought in an 8-point deer for his brother-in-law Gary Stewart last year. "I study where the bucks are," noted Davis. "I look for tracks, rubs and scrapes." He keeps his eyes open as he scouts. He had seen the big buck he took this year earlier in the season. "If you see him, he'll be in that same place later," said Davis.
Another tip Davis has for deer hunters is not to hunt near roads. He prefers staying away from traveled areas, back where big bucks are more likely to hide. Sometimes he will throw a stick into a thick cover to flush a bedded deer.
In a nutshell, this hunter uses his head and spends a lot of time in the woods studying his quarry. Not bad advice for any deer hunter who wants to bag a wall hanger.