Parker Temple is like many young men who grew up in the Magnolia State with dreams of harvesting trophy bucks with rocking chair racks.

While many people dream of the big bucks, Temple has taken his quest for trophy deer to the next level by using every modern tool at his disposal.

To say he’s been wildly successful is putting it mildly.

But just imagine getting a call or text from the buck of your dreams.

How can that happen you might ask?

It can happen, and Temple recently got such a call, or text. as it was in this case.

Though Temple’s time to scout is limited by his job and other responsibilities, he utilizes game cameras to scout while he’s working and sleeping. And not just any camera, but the high-tech cameras that take pictures and send them to your phone and that’s where the difference comes in. In the pre-camera days hunters scouted and found buck signs and then hunted for a glimpse of a deer or buck without a clue as to how big or mature they were.

“I use the game camera to locate good bucks,” said Temple. “I had some deer on one of my cameras before the season, but all the pictures were at night.”

Making a Move

“I moved a camera the day before bow season and started seeing bucks in daylight,” Temple said. “Opening day was exciting, and I had deer all around me as it was getting dark. I drew my bow but couldn’t see through the peep sight and spooked the deer when I let my bow down.”

Temple had just bought a new Matthews bow, so he hadn’t tried the peep sight in low light conditions and it may have cost him the best bow buck of his life.

“I didn’t get any more pictures for a few days and then he came back at night,” said Temple. “I had to plant over the weekend and couldn’t hunt so I planned my work week around hunting the bucks. I’d planned to make a late afternoon hunt one day but before I got to the woods my cell phone was blowing up with pictures of deer coming in, so I was worried that they were feeding earlier that day.”

Though distracted by the volume of pictures coming through his phone Temple persevered through his workday and headed to the woods as soon as he could.

Opportunity knocked

Before he arrived at his hunting lease the call, or text came in from the big buck. Yes, he walked into the camera and it sent a direct cell phone invitation to Temple.

“I went to the stand and the deer started moving with a few does and spikes coming in,” Temple said. “Then a big rack buck came into the end of the small field and turned facing me while feeding with his head down.”

With does feeding under his tree stand, things were getting tense again and Temple steeled his nerves and readied himself for a shot.

“I drew back and released my arrow and the deer turned 180 before I hit him,” said Temple.

Elation quickly turned to despair as the buck disappeared into the woods.

“I went back to the truck and waiting on my hunting partners to get there,” Temple said. “I wasn’t confident in my shot and worried about finding him.”

After trailing spotty blood for about 150 yards they stopped at a thick cutover edge for fear of spooking the buck.

Game changer

“I decided to call Jay Willams from Neshoba County to see if he could help us locate the buck,” said Temple. “There ain’t nothing like his tracking dogs. I’d seen them work one time before and they made a believer out of me.”

It took Williams about an hour to get to their area in Kemper County, but his dogs were raring to go.

“We stayed out of the woods until we met them at a store around 9:00 and the dogs went straight to him and found him about 150 yards from where we’d left his trail,” Temple said. “We found him about 9:30, only a few minutes after the dogs went to work!”

Temple’s buck was a trophy, indeed, as it sported a rocking chair 8-point rack with a 17.5-inch wide spread that made its 180-pound frame look small. Parker’s trophy buck was hard earned but was the result of utilizing all of his skills and tools at his disposal.

Ultimately the bucks’ cell phone call from the Covert Game Cam photo spelled his doom.

That’s one call that Temple doesn’t regret taking!

Call Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or email mikegiles18@comast.net.