MIKE GILES: Powell siblings harvest trophy bucks

Published 5:15 pm Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Jay Powell grew up in the Martin community and became well-known for his prowess on the baseball field at West Lauderdale and later at Mississippi State and in the pros. These days he’s raising a family of hunters, and his children are pretty good shots, too. McKinna Powell is a junior in bio-medical engineering at Mississippi State University, and she was hunting in Humphreys County with her family over the holidays and was joined on the stand with her boyfriend, Hunter Marlow.

Two does came running into the field from behind the stand, and then a couple of young bucks came in and chased them around.

“We had been watching two small rack bucks when a larger one heard them and came out,” Powell said. “We couldn’t tell just how big he was because he was in the edge of the woods at first. I told Hunter I thought it was the four-point coming back in.

A massive buck with a rocking chair rack came running into the patch chasing the does, and they tried to get him to stop a minute for a shot. Marlow yelled, and the deer locked up.

“Boom!” McKinna’s Remington .270 rifle roared as she pulled the trigger, and the buck vanished.

Mckinna’s father, Jay Powell, came out to help look for the deer, and they started at the shot site and went in the direction the buck had disappeared.

“I found a little blood on a tree,” Jay Powell said. “She was shooting a .270, so it wasn’t the amount of blood you’d expect. We went about 20 yards into the reeds and thick stuff, and he was laying there dead. He didn’t make it far before he collapsed.”

Said McKinna Powell, “When we got to the buck, we were excited and amazed at just how big he was because we hadn’t been able to get a good look at him because it all happened so fast. He was a Main Frame nine-point with a 20-inch spread and was huge, weighing 250 pounds.

“This is my third buck and the best yet, scoring in the mid 140s. I’ve always enjoyed coming to camp and being with my family and eating some good food.”

Harvesting this monster buck was icing on the cake for this talented young lady!

Wyatt Powell’s buck

Whenever you have a family of athletes and hunters, there’s always some good-natured competition and camaraderie no matter who it is, and the heat was on Wyatt Powell after his sister harvested her trophy buck. Wyatt was hunting another buck, maybe even a tad bigger that had appeared on their radar screens a couple of weeks before.

Wyatt Powell is an older brother to McKinna, and he killed another trophy the day after McKinna killed hers.

“Wyatt was in a stand set up like a cross where the lanes are 350 yards long,” Jay Powell said. “It’s a good morning spot and good place to hunt during the rut since you can see in several directions. We’d got him on game cam pictures recently, and my youngest son had seen him while hunting a few days before Wyatt finally saw him.”

Said Wyatt Powell, “I got some time to hunt with my family, and Dad had told me about this buck that just showed up on the cameras, so I hunted the day after Christmas. I actually had a great hunt and saw some good bucks and an absolute cow, a huge buck that day. The next morning, I was back at the same stand looking for the 10-point and saw a couple small bucks and a doe early.

“At 8:45 I looked up and saw the buck walk into the lane at 250 yards. I shot, and the buck turned around and looked. I was shooting a .280 single shot that is really accurate normally, so I was scrambling to get another shell in there. I put the crosshairs on the buck and shot and hit him in the neck, and the bullet came out the shoulder. The buck dropped straight down in its tracks!”

Said Jay Powell, “Wyatt’s buck weighed 230 pounds, sported 10 points with a lot of mass going all the way out to the ends of the main beams, and it green scored 152. The inside diameter was about 20 inches wide! The buck started showing up on our game cameras the previous two to three weeks before Wyatt saw him and killed him.”

Not too many hunters get to kill trophy bucks like McKinna and Wyatt Powell did, and it’s even more rare that siblings do it on back-to-back days, but that’s just what these two deer slayers did. Their bucks may have come a little after Christmas, but they were right on time!

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