The 2025 Mississippi Velvet Hunt is in the books! Mississippi is one of the most recent states to add the hunt to their season calendar, giving bowhunters a chance to notch a tag on a unique whitetail trophy to kick off the fall season.
The hunt took place September 12-14, 2025, on private and authorized state/federal lands. The archery-only hunt required a $10 permit for resident hunters (the fee was included in the deer permit for non-resident hunters).
Hunters were allowed to take one legal buck, which counted toward their annual bag limit for the season, and all successful hunts had to be reported by 10p.m. the day of the hunt.
Keeping the CWD risk in mind, hunters were also required to participate in CWD sampling at a drop-off site or participating taxidermist within 5 days.
Avid bowhunter, J.T. Mardis, has enjoyed the challenge of chasing velvet bucks since the opportunities first became available in Tennessee and Mississippi in recent years. This year’s velvet hunt found him notching a tag on one of his best bucks yet.
“The story really started last year when I got a picture of a heavy, 125-inch 8-pointer in a dried up duck hole on the edge of an ag field,” says Mardis. “
“I knew he had potential to be big, but when he showed back up on trail camera this summer, I could tell he was going to finish out way better than I imagined. So, I came back in the middle of August and sprayed out the weeds and planted a no-till food plot blend.”
“The buck started using the plot almost every afternoon. On Friday of velvet season, he came through at 1:00 in the afternoon, so I knew he had to be bedded close. I snuck in at 4:00pm and got set up. The buck finally showed up at 7:00pm – all by himself. When he turned broadside at 35 yards, I heart-punched him. A few seconds later, I heard him crash in a patch of palmettos.”
Another Mississippi bowhunter, Tobey Smith of 21 South, took advantage of the chance to punch his first velvet buck tag in his home state over the weekend.
“It was a God thing if I have ever seen one before,” says Smith. “The winds blew wrong for three solid hours, until the moment a deer came into sight, and it switched on a dime. It sounds so simple, but to understand our Lord and how he works – you just had to be there to feel it.”
These early velvet hunts continue to be the perfect way to scratch the off-season itch and get primed and ready for the upcoming bow season.
A big congrats to all the successful bowhunters this past weekend in Mississippi!
