Bear Grease - Ep. 491: Backwoods University - Mississippi Deer History

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

What would you think of a whitetail deer herd that jumped from 1200 to over 1.5 million in less than 100 years time? That is exactly what happened in the state of Mississippi. We are joined by Mississippi Deer Program Coordinator, William McKinley who knows all the wild tales that make up this incredible wildlife conservation story. Connect with Lake Pickle and MeatEater Lake Pickle on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. Big shout out to Onex Hunt for their support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle.

And on today's episode, y'all are going to hear one of my favorite kinds of stories to tell. It's a story of redemption. It's a story of wildlife conservationists pulling up their sleeves, reaching down, and pulling an entire species and hunting culture out of a deep, deep hole, and literally saving it from becoming nothing more than a memory. White-tailed deer hunting, the most ubiquitous type of hunting in the country, hands down, was at one point almost lost in the state of Mississippi. And we're going to hear how it was triumphantly brought back to the high populations that we know today. Let's get into it. Now, before we dive off into this one, it's important to know that we, and by we, I mean myself and y'all, the Backwoods University listeners, have kind of already laid some groundwork for this episode.

In fact, this particular subject is a long time coming, because its first mention goes back to the very beginning of this show. It's astounding, man. Like there's an episode that I'm working on right now that delves into the state of Mississippi because we're Mississippi is one of the last states to put in a formal game and fish agency and have established laws. Um, and that's when loop hold made his trip down there and he wrote and he wrote a report in 1929 where he basically just goes over the status of all these game animals and it's astounding. Especially like now the the white tail deer population in Mississippi now is like like 1.5 million. Okay. Like our game agency is asking, they're imploring hunters, like, please shoot more deer. We have too many. When Leopold was there in 1929, in his report, it was estimated we had 1,200 deer in the entire stage.

Oh, my gosh. You've got to be kidding. It was that bad down there? Wow. It's like going through it and like how bad. And it wasn't from, a lot of it was during the Great Depression. And people weren't, they're mainly just, this is how I feed my family. But again, it's just like really.

trying to grasp how heavy of an influence we have. It's wild. The episode that I was working on that you heard me mentioned turned out to be the Fannie Cook episode, which is still to this day one of my most favorite episodes that we've ever put out on this show. Seriously, if you've not heard that one, you should go back and listen to it.

Episode 346, Backwoods University, the woman who saved Mississippi's natural resources. Fannie Cook, without a doubt, one of the greatest conservationist to ever live. And in that episode, you will have heard us mention the state of Mississippi's white-tailed deer population. But, my friends, the detailed story of events that happened after the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission was established in 1932

to pull that deer population up and away from near extirpation to now being one of the most dense deer populations in the country is a story that simply cannot be glossed. to overt. And as we slowly creep towards those beautiful fall months, those wonderful days of cooler temperatures and days spent up a tree or in the woods, some facet, I humbly present to you this episode in hopes that all of us be reminded of just how good we have it as hunters in this beautiful country. And hopefully implore all of us to never take this resource for granted. I am now sitting across from a man that I have a whole lot of respect for. His name is

William McKinley, and he is the White Tailed Deer Program Coordinator for the state of Mississippi. He is excellent at his job, and he also knows all about the history of this state's deer herd. Let's dive in. I want to go as far back as you want to go to really lay the foundation of what we had and where we came from and where we are now. Well, we're going to start with what do we look at? that today and we're looking at a herd of right at one and a half million deer. So there's only about three million people in the state of Mississippi guys. And so it's a lot of deer out there, a lot. And our harvest last season, based on our hunter survey, we do every year since the late 1970s, 279,000 deer harvested by licensed hunters last season. So 279,000 deer harvested by licensed hunters last

season. So 279,000 deer harvested. That's about on average 3,400 deer a county. In 1929, the population estimate for the entire state was 1,200 deer. So we're back up less than 100 years, just under about 95 years ago, 1,200 deer. That's when Aldo Leopold came to Mississippi and he wrote a report on his findings. He was considered like the father of conservation. He was one of the first wildlife biologists. Y'all know who I'm talking about. Well, we talked about him in the Fannie Cook episode because he went and visited her and then actually we found out that he sent his report to Fannie to look over. I didn't know that. That's good. Well, he reported just a few isolated deer populations along the Mississippi River along the Knoxby River system, along the past

school of river system and along the big black river system up outside of canton uh those are the only residual populations and we were looking at a they were looking at a state that had been basically completely cut over how he figured out how many deer were here i got no idea i'm still having trouble with that myself so uh but um yeah we had a few wildlife laws you know uh after we gained statehood in 1818, when the state of Mississippi was formed, you fast forward until 1903 before there was a first actual game law passed in our state, and there was no game and fish agency. So how did you enforce that? How was it enforced? That first law was actually to prohibit the practice of fire hunting as a tactic to push deer out to shoot them. I know we're on a bit of a role here,

but let me interject quickly just to make sure we don't miss anything. Key point number one, in 1929, we had an estimated deer population of 1,200 individual deer. This estimate came from none other than Aldo Leopold, who made a special trip down here. And while we do not know the exact methods that he used to come up with his estimate, I can tell you simply based off geography that by deciding to survey the Mississippi River, the Knoxby River, the Pascagoula River, and the Big Black River, he did cover a good portion of the state. Key point two. In present years, we have an estimated deer population of somewhere over 1.5 million deer.

So the question is, how in the world did we pull that off? How do you go from 1,200 deer to 1.5 million deer in less than 100 years time? Something significant had to happen. Something very significant. Especially since we learned that the first wildlife law passed in Mississippi in 1903 was simply to stop, quote, fire hunting. which is the practice of using literal fire to push out deer so you can shoot them. I don't think that practice would be widely accepted today. However, I do think that Brent Reeves has probably tried it before. But maybe not. The first hunting season was set up in 1905, and hey, I'm going to give credit where credits due.

In 2001, outdoor writer John Jay Woods put together a catalog, a document. here of what happened throughout the history of Mississippi restoration efforts and our season structure and such. And I'm going to rely heavily on his document. When our Magnolia Records Program formed in, which is our state deer measuring handler records program, it formed in 01. He actually wrote this to put in the cover of the first book that was printed there. So I'm leaning heavily on his work here because I can.

couldn't find, he'd already done the work for me. But the first deer season was set in 1905. Remember, we didn't have game wardens at the time. That was just a county level, okay, you just need to hunt from September 15th to March 1 if you're going to shoot a deer. Can y'all imagine? I mean, really, can y'all imagine a deer season, just a general, wide-open deer season that lasted from September to March. It's not really a mystery why the Mississippi deer population was plummeting so much back in those days. Deer herds were low, low.

Market hunting, y'all had already mentioned that, had already driven this population down. And there were just pockets of deer in the state. And people were probably dependent on those pockets for food, but they had already been market hunted out in a lot of areas. by 1910 bag limit was set at five deer per season but once again still no gaming fish commission how much do you

do you have any sort of speculation whether or not people were truly following that regulation oh boy what do you think like I'm just I'm just trying to pause a little bit on what you've touched on already because what you're explaining and the state that you know all of us grew up deer hunting in

sounds so foreign to me. You know, I mean, you said state that was pretty much completely cut over. Market hunting. I mean, like, you hear the term market hunting, but to imagine being alive when that's actually taking place when it's just basically just mowing deer down and taking them to market, you know. Taking them to market to get sold for food. Yeah. A lot of them, if there was a railroad nearby, they could be piled up on the cars and taken out.

And that was happening all over the U.S. I mean, look at, look at the, look at the, the. Bison, look at the American Bison. I mean, that's the big example, but you think of that when you think of market hunting and the destruction of a species. And then come down here to Mississippi. We had black bears during that time, a lot of them. There are a lot of reports of cougars in the state.

I mean, Teddy Roosevelt came to Mississippi in the early 1900s right around the turn of 1900 to hunt mountain lion and bear. It was so many of those here, and they've got virtually exterminated. It's still got a few bears. Yeah. Still get a few cat reports. And documented one in a few decades. Yeah.

You hear that, Clay? There's not been a documented mountain line down here in Mississippi for a few decades. But I digress. Let's move on. So 1905, they have a, was a statewide regulation, five deer? Statewide regulation. No, the five deer was set in 1910. 1910.

But statewide regulation, five deer, five deer bag limit. And in 1915, that was changed to bucks only. But once again, our deer herd at that point, by all accounts, was getting lower and lower and lower. And it never was as high, we think, as it was today, even before settlement. Sorry to interrupt again, but William just gave us some information that I cannot move past. He said it's believed that the deer population in Mississippi, even before human settlement, was never as high as it currently is today. And ironically, a big reason for that is because of the amount of manipulation to the forest. Today, Mississippi has a lot of timber activity.

Pine plantation, planting, and clearing, clearings that lead to a lot of cutovers, thickets that equate to a lot of deer cover. Deer cover in an abundance that was not anywhere close to what it was back then when you just had a lot of big old-growth forest. And you mix that lower amount of deer covering with the fact that these deer were being market-hunted heavily and you have a recipe for disaster in terms of the Mississippi deer population. They certainly were getting hunted. They were getting hunted by those cougars.

They were getting hunted by those bears. Red wolves were present all through the state back then. So they were getting hunted, plus by the Native Americans here, by the tribes, Chalktaws, Chickasaws, Biloxi, Natchez, you name it. There were several Native American tribes in the state. But their numbers after that, when we started to market hunting, that's when it really started plumbing. And in 29 is when Aldo Leopold made that report.

But he also noted that this state carried a really strong desire to try to manage and manage this wildlife back. There was a lot of interest here in the people he spoke with. They wanted deer to come back. Lake, I sent you some pictures last week of some of those early restoration efforts. Near being let out, people would gather. and we'll get into that in a minute, but people would gather just to watch that never seen a deer, never seen a deer track.

I got the chance to see these photos, and if you catch this episode on YouTube, you'll be able to see them as well. It's kind of bizarre to look at. These days, you see whitetail deer in people's flower gardens. They're about as common of wildlife species as you can draw up. But here, in these old black and white photos,

you have people gathered around just to catch glimpse of one. It's important history, and it's a big part of it. this story. We moved forward and in 1932. The year the agency was established. We got established. Yeah. Game and Fish Commission. And we were established from all of what I hear, game wardens assigned the counties. They were, you know, it's still a dangerous job. It was dangerous then too. My understanding is they had to provide their own weapon. They had to provide their own vehicle in many

cases they were out there with a dedication in 1932 to conserving this wildlife they're risking their life for wildlife yeah well and i keep going back to i have to keep going back to that fanny cook episode because they coincide so well but one of the things that we learned from that is when fanny came home and started this basically this campaign to get the agency established and to get some regulations put so we could work on restoring some of these populations for white tails and many others is she one of the things they notated very early they put this fine distinguishment between market hunters and conservationist like there was a very clear line between people that wanted to market hunt and people that wanted to hunt

and conserve the way that we do now and and she notated that the relationship between that kind of hunting and conservation and organizing those people she accredited that to being able to finally get the agency established and I would guess that kind of attitude is what led to some of those first game wardens because like you said, like good grief, what's their incentive? Right. It certainly wasn't paid. Yeah.

I mean, you're going to go out and risk your life for wildlife conservation for wildlife for wildlife that wasn't even there yet in many of these counties that is just about to be reintroduced. And so one of the first thing from here after, I'll call it, our agency, it's changed names a few times, but it's still that agency. and it's still full of people dedicated that are willing to risk their lives and our conservation officers and devote their careers to try to manage this wildlife resource that we have today. So I'm going to preface that. I work with some really great people, really dedicated, and I'd put them against any agency out there in the country by far,

and they would stand out. So one of the first things our agency did, close. some counties to deer hunting. Boy, don't you know that was popular? Probably one mini deer, if any deer in most of these counties they were closing, but just when you take something away, that mentality of you no longer can harvest a deer, even if you see one. William is about to turn this conversation more towards looking into the details of the actual

work that brought deer back to the Mississippi landscape. But before we kind of change topics, I have to make sure that we drive home the importance of what we just talked about. Game wardens that had to provide their own weapon, had to provide their own vehicle. I don't know what they were being paid, but my friends, it could not have been much. These people were operating on passion

and the drive to do what they knew was right. Like I said at the very beginning, this is a story of people, conservationists, that were willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work. And that's what we're seeing playing out right here. And that's part of the reason why I enjoy telling these stories. Not just so we can appreciate what happened back then, but because we can learn from those people and learn that that attitude and that willingness to work what it can really do.

Obviously, we're in a much better place as far as wildlife resources go now than then. However, that does not afford us the luxury to put it on cruise control, so to speak. We see wildlife issues, natural resources, and land access come under attack all the time. Imagine what might have happened had the people around back then been nonchaline, rather than having the initiative and dedication to do things like becoming a game warden despite how difficult that job had to be back then. Sorry to get on my soapbox, but that's one of the most important parts of this entire story. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month.

Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Connection is everything. Before we get back into it, I want to tell you about the new First Light Bear Grease bibs. I have collaborated with First Light to build the perfect backcountry utility bib overall. And these might be new to the world, but they're not new to me. In 2019, almost seven years ago, I sketched out the first drawing and I wanted these bibs

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They're made for working on the farm. And they're the bear grease bibs, man. They're now for sale at the meat eater.com slash bibbs. Let's dive back in. And the state began to establish refuges. So we're going to talk a little bit about the Leaf River refuge down there in Perry County. And so it was one of the first ones set up. And these refuges, you know, the agency then began trapping deer.

They used some old Michigan box traps. And that's just called a Michigan box trap. That's where they first started building them, I guess. In a nutshell, it's two pieces of four by eight plywood laying set upright lengthwise. with a top and a dirt floor and guillotine-style sliding doors on both ends. I've used these before. We used them in Lowndes County, and we caught like several hundred deer and tagged them as part of a research study back in 2010, 11, 12.

These things, they still weren't. So they would feed down through the inside of it, and deer would start walking through it. You had to have it long enough. It had to be eight foot long so that when a deer triggered it right in the middle, the doors could hit the ground before the deer got to the edge. And so once you got deer to coming through, you put a piece of string in the middle for them just to hit as a trip wire, triggered the doors, they dropped, you had the deer. Many of those older ones, they had a floor and they could lift the whole trout and then move the trout to and take trap and all with them.

We actually designed a smaller box and a netting type that we would put them from the big trap to the smaller one for a transport. if we needed to move them wherever, but that was used as well. But these traps were being used to catch some of the few remaining deer in the state and deer will be brought from other sources. But by and large, the majority of the deer that were brought in to these refuges came from the native populations of deer in Mississippi along the Mississippi River, and that was the primary source. So they would catch a few, put them on these refuges.

It was a mixing pot. refuge was. It had a lot of deer from in-state. It had a few deer from Mexico, a few deer from North Carolina, a few deer from Wisconsin and other sources, and then they were protected. The term conservation officer wasn't out there

then. It was a game warden. And they were protected and heavily protected on those refuges. And as their numbers built, they would catch some of the offspring and move them. And I saw some of the, you know, we still have a lot of the original records. I've looked at them of written

in pencil on old sheets of paper where they released deer in Winston County off by the low butcher bridge off of Highway 14, released 17 deer, and that's how that whole area got stocked. Another population released in a Tala County. That was happening all through as they would catch the deer from the refuges, move them and haul them in a trailer, put them out in a new area, and those deer just flourished because it was brand new habitat. Leaf River Refuge was essentially ground zero for the Mississippi white-tailed deer restocking and restoration efforts. And I know y'all have heard me say this before, but I just flat out love hearing these old conservation stories. It reminds me a lot of our turkey restocking episode we did with Mr. Benny Herring back during the spring. Wildlife conservationist and biologists back then did not have the vast amount of data that we have to look back on now. They had to figure it out. trial and error, boldly pressing forward with optimism and determination.

Michigan box traps, moving deer in from different states, moving deer in from Mexico. Did all of these methods work? Well, no, but some did. And by the way, I would love to see those old written records about them releasing deer in certain areas like William mentioned about them turning out 17 below a highway bridge. That's some cool stuff. Looking here, 1939 is when a deer-proof enclosure. they actually put up a fence at Leaf River to start it. And they started with those deer with deer from in-state and deer from Mexico starting down there.

And by 1940, remember 1929, we were estimated 1,200 deer. By 1940, we were at 4,600. So pretty slow growth, but 1,200 can only grow so fast. Yeah. So we allowed deer hunting back then. in 1941 and that 41 season out of that 4,600, hunters turned in, reported 738 deer. So you got to figure most of that was probably a hounds. And so I got a little interesting story here about a great uncle of mine that lived down in Kemper County.

And the Kemper County deer season opened in the early 40s. And other than the stint he served as a P-O-W in World War II, he harvested a deer every year that the deer season was open in Kempark County up until the late 90s when he couldn't. Wow. And he said, he used to joke, I'd sit and listen to some of his stores. He had these immense deer hanging on the wall, you know, and I'm a little guy back in the 80s. you know, I'm just hunting, hoping to see a spike. And if I did, I shot him. You all know. That's right. You run out there and snatch him up real quick, hoping you can find a fork on him somewhere. And so, but Uncle Wilmer harvested a deer, according to him, every year except when he was prisoner

war. And these deer that he was harvesting back in were mostly killed by running hounds. And he said, you know, quite many of the time we would have only a four or five. day season. And he said, we would ride for one or two days looking for a deer track to turn the dogs loose on. And he used to joke that Kemper County there, he said, you better have yourself on Highway 45 when those dogs jumped because that deer was headed to Alabama. And he said, if it crossed the state line, you lost your dogs for the rest of the deer season. But that was an expanding population of deer. That deer wasn't going where he didn't know. He was not just running aimlessly. So we had expanding populations coming in from neighboring states.

We had restoration efforts from within state. So this herd has grown to what it is today, but not many people know stories like that anymore. Imagine heading out deer hunting and your primary method, your most effective method, is driving roads for multiple days until you cut a fresh deer track. That is wild. I also really appreciate William sharing the deer hunting story,

about his great uncle, getting a deer all those years. And I also think it's a perfect time to highlight that deer hunting with hounds was the most primary and widely accepted form of hunting back then. I know the folks that deer hunt with dogs is a small group these days, but they are a part of this deer hunting origin story. And frankly, I still support them for what that's worth. 42 season, deer hunting was allowed in 27 counts. and so we're 10 years or a little about 10 years into our agency being formed or getting game wardens in counties.

And so, you know, we still have a very low deer population and we got numerous counties out there that still have not had any deer reintroduction at that point. By 43, the estimate was a little over 10,000 deer in the state that herd starting to build now. We've now doubled in just the past few years from 4,000 plus to over 10,000. thousand, the very first deer hunting license came about in 1943. The 1943 deer hunting license could be purchased for $5.25. Now it's important to note that I am far from a mathematician, but from what I can work out, $5.25 in 1943 comes out to roughly $101 in 2026, so this was by no means a cheap license. By 45, we were live trapping deer on Leaf River Refuge and Mood.

moving them to these different counties. Like I was saying earlier, Leaf River was one of the hubs, and deer population started to increase. Suddenly, we were putting deer into new habitats, and the fastest a deer herd grows is when it's well below carrying capacity. And it's starting to increase, increase, increase, because there's plenty of high-quality food out there. And it's having twins, a lot of triplets, and that herd grew pretty quick.

to an estimate of 25,000 by 48. Once again, it's doubled in just a few years. It just started snowballing. It seemed to start to snowball. And once again, deer estimation methods, you know, we got to lean on these numbers, and that's what was put down deer hard to count. They don't stand still, guys. They still don't.

So, but these numbers were increasing. We were beginning to see deer. People were seeing deer that have never seen deer before. Some of those old pictures that I sent you, you know, there would be a whole crowd of people gathered around just to see the truck that gaming fish brought out to turn those deer loose in this area. And then they were under strict protection and no hunting season until they built up to a level that could sustain some buck hunting in those areas.

And, you know, when I started to work in 01, there was still a pretty strong mindset that you don't shoot a dope. So you had areas where there was virtually no deer. game and fish would come and release deer, and they were under strict protection for a certain amount of years. Then once the deer population hit a certain number, it was allowed for people to deer hunt. But only for bucks. No doze were available for harvest. Then, over time, the population grew even more, to a point where doze needed to be harvested. But there were so many people around from the low number days that folks were even hesitant to think about killing a dough. I can even speak from personal experience here. I remember when I was a kid, hearing old-time or

talk about how you should not shoot those. It was bad for the deer. It's such a stark comparison to now when we as a state are literally needing to shoot more deer because we have too many, according to some biologists. I would just love to know what some of the original game

wardens, biologists, or anyone who worked or was around those days in the original restoration efforts, what they would think if they could see our deer hurt today. What an incredible story. Just that big picture. Restoration. No deer, restoration, increase in herds, topping out at carrying capacity,

and now we're trying to actually manage a herd that is, in many places, overpopulated. So maybe too much of a good thing in a few places. But hey, what a success story. At the time this was written, we had had our first Boone and Crockett deer killed in 1951. Really? Yep. Where is he killed at, does it say? Bolivor County.

And you think, I mean, from having 1,200 deer in the state to having, you know, your first Boone and Crockett killed in 1950. I mean, that's a feat. 20 years. That's a feat. Yeah. I get excited and I get very keenly interested in, especially the history of our own state, you know, that we, because we, you know, like I said, we grew up here. We did most of our hunting here. but just stories that just do nothing but show how much of an impact that sustainable conservation and hunting can have on wildlife on the positive.

That's just so interesting to me. And I love learning that kind of stuff. And again, yeah, 20 years is a long span of time. But from the rear view doesn't look as long. And looking from that to 1951, and we've still got a lot of ground to cover between 1951 and now. but to have your first boon and crockett deer harvested. That's crazy. We started this story out in the early 1900s.

We made it to 1929 when the deer were almost completely wiped out. We fast forwarded to 1932 when the Game and Fish Commission was established thanks to Fannie Cook and several other determined conservationists. And then we followed along for 20 years of this journey. They went from that low number of deer to having their first Boone and Crockett buck killed in 1951 and having some areas in the state repopulated to a point where hunting was made available to the citizens in that area. What a crazy, cool wildlife conservation story. But here's the beauty of it.

It's not even close to being over yet. Next time, we'll be right back with William McKinley to get the rest of this incredible Mississippi deer herd story. I want to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University, as well as Clay's Bear Grease and Brent's this country life. I know I say it all the time, but it means a whole heck of a lot to all of us over here. If you like this episode, do me a big favor and share it with someone this week. A friend, a coworker, someone you're a better hunter then, whoever you want. And stick around. Because if this podcast was an old-school deer hunt with dogs, we've cut a fresh track,

but we haven't even turned the dogs loose yet. We're just getting started. There's a whole lot more on the way.