Georgia Hunter Profile – Meet Eddie Biggers

Eddie Biggers knows big bucks. Today, his No. 1 hunting companion is Walker, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

“Occasionally,” Eddie Biggers says with a smile, “my wife will tell me that I just need to go to my room. That’s not altogether a bad thing.”

He’s been married to his bride, Melinda, for 41 years now; long enough for her to know what a place of peace that room is. Walk into it, and if you’re a hunter of big whitetail bucks, you just might have to pick your jaw up off the floor. Surrounding you on the wall are 30 shoulder mounts, with several of the European variety interspersed. Piles of sheds lie on the floor. A plus-300-inch elk head dominates the back wall. Oh yeah, Eddie Biggers is a deer hunter. One of the best. So when I went looking for tips on taking big bucks, his Cordele home was the first stop.

There are many ways to harvest a high-scoring whitetail. Some hunters put in years; others almost trip over one walking in to a stand. The hunter who stands out to me is the one who takes big bucks consistently, year after year after year. Eddie’s bucks have garnered him spots in the GON Truck-Buck Shoot-Out on three different occasions: 1999, 2010 and 2021. He decided at the last minute not to enter an opening-week buck in the 2022 Shoot-Out. With B&C scoring the way it is, who knows how that would have gone? (And yes, he has a word to say about that, too!)

As you may guess, none of this success comes by osmosis; one doesn’t simply wake up one morning with a head crammed full of deer knowledge. Eddie turned 69 the first day of this month—which means he’s only been deer hunting for 54 years now.

“My first deer came from Hancock County, near Sparta,” he recalls with a rueful grin. “I was 15, borrowed a Ruger .44, and had to ride with the fellow I borrowed the rifle from because I didn’t have a driver’s license. That was a 7-pointer, in 1968, and you couldn’t tell me nothing when I killed that deer.

“When I first started, I thought the sign of a good deer hunter was how many deer you could kill. But as I matured, I learned that there’s no reason for a grown hunter who is experienced to kill a young buck. You have to let bucks get some age on them, at least 3 1/2 to 4 1/2. After I kill my two bucks, I don’t quit hunting; I love to sit and watch and see what’s out there, and hope it will still be out there when the next season comes in. It’s not unusual for me to go two hours or so in the morning, then back in the afternoon, five days a week. You can’t do that without a good wife, and Melinda has never complained. She used to hunt with me some, but now it’s just Walker, who goes everywhere I go. He lays up in the blind and snores away.”

One proof that a man knows how to go about killing big bucks is when he has a room like this in his home.

Having worked in the timber business since he was 14, Biggers has had his own business, Peach State Timber Company, for over 38 years.

“In my business I’ve met a lot of folks who let me hunt, and others who don’t want hunting on their land. I started hunting a Jones County tract in 1969, and the owner said his taxes were 50 cents an acre; that’s what we paid for our first lease!”

Nowadays, Biggers feels he’s smack-dab in the middle of it all, right here at home. 

“If you draw a 30-mile circle around Cordele, you’re in the prime deer hunting spot in Georgia,” he says. “We’ve got it all right here, with tons of farming and two rivers, the Flint and Ocmulgee, plus timber everywhere you look.”

OK, so we have the area nailed down. How do we go about ferreting out those big bucks that inhabit it?

“What I believe is the key to killing big bucks is hunting by yourself and not filling the woods with scent,” Eddie says. “If I take one buddy, I’ve just doubled the amount of scent being put down in the woods. You can fool a deer’s eyes sometimes, and you can fool his ears. But you will never fool that nose. When he gets a hunter’s scent, he’s gone, and he may not come back, especially during daylight.”

Eddie Biggers is too outgoing a guy to be a total recluse—but this is big buck hunting.

“I’ve been in deer clubs, and some great deer clubs. I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie, the outdoor meals where everything always tastes better, and just being part of a good group of guys. But sometimes, deer hunting changes people. Many times, the key to killing a big deer is what the people around you are doing. You can’t shoot everything you see and ever expect to grow a deer big enough to hang on the wall. I went years and years when I couldn’t afford to mount a deer head. It has to be special even now.”

With his job, Biggers obviously sees a lot of prospective hunting territory. What’s special?

“My very favorite place to hunt is a clearcut or cutover,” he relates. “Does always seem to run those areas, and when they do, you know what’s behind them. I don’t use much scent of any kind; I always hunt the wind. If you’re hunting with the wind at your back, you might as well be sitting at home. You simply can’t get past that buck’s nose, ever. The faintest sniff will stop him in his tracks.

“I hunt out of ladder stands or ones that I build myself, then carry in with a tractor and set up. They’re enclosed, so I can even fire up a little heater if it gets too bad for me and Walker. I don’t hunt over 10 or 15 feet and never saw any reason for it. I hear people talking about climbing 30 or 40 feet up a tree, but I never understood it. Plus, the canopy won’t allow you to see most of the time at that height.”

Eddie bowhunted for years, and still goes with his crossbow; compounds are getting a little tough to draw. The 1999 Shoot-Out buck was a 129-inch Pope & Young taken with a bow, as was the big Montana elk. But for the last 30 years, it’s been all about one—very deadly—rifle.

“Since 1991 I’ve used a .270 Weatherby Magnum with a 140-grain bullet. I don’t shoot a long ways, even though that gun will definitely do it,” he says, and then breaks into a big grin.

“There’s a sandbag in my stands, because I’m no good shooting offhand. If I was, I would have won a truck! But if he gives me time to get on that sandbag, we can walk out there and load him up.”

He’s loaded up quite a few big ones thanks to that rifle. But mostly to what he’s learned inside the trees.

“I’ve learned a lot by mistakes, but I’ve been in the timber business and in the woods just about all my life,” Eddie muses. “I remember back when I first saw a deer track, farmers would talk about it for a week. Along the way I read somewhere that ‘the spirit of the woods is like an old, good friend, and it makes me feel warm and good inside.’ That fits the way I feel every time I go. I like to see young people hunt. To me, they’re a lot safer in the woods than they are on the streets in these crazy days. Parents know where they are and who they’re with as well as where they’re not and who they’re not with.”

I sit in this room with Eddie, looking around and realizing what a treasure trove of memories hangs on these walls. Every single buck is impressive; and even with antlers hovering in all directions, I have a hard time taking my eyes off a certain SIX-pointer.

When you qualify for three GON Truck-Buck Shoot-Outs, you become family. Don’t be surprised to see Eddie Biggers back in a fourth Shoot-Out at some point.

“That was a huge-bodied deer, and I really thought he was an eight,” Biggers recalls. “He scored 126 inches, not bad for a six. People get a glimpse at a deer or see one on camera and it becomes a 140-inch buck. Well, there just aren’t a lot of 140-inch bucks out there in the first place, and the ones that are can be really hard to find. If they’re going to make a mistake, usually there’s a doe involved. He finds a hot doe and he’s going where she’s going, even if he has to jump I-75 in downtown Cordele!”

I tried to narrow the field, seeing if we could pick out a favorite or two, starting with the Shoot-Out bucks, We’ve mentioned the bow-kill; the other two are a 2010 11-pointer from Dooly County that scored 146 7/8; and the most recent, 2021’s Turner County bruiser that came in at 149 even.

“Boone & Crockett scoring is what it is, and that’s what everybody is scored by,” Eddie says. “As long as it’s the same for everybody, you can call it fair. But I think a buck ought to get credit for what he grows. That Turner County deer grossed at 161 inches before deductions. Between the 2010 and 2021 Shoot-Out deer, I entered a buck that grossed 156 but deductions knocked it down to 144 7/8. I got beat out—less than an inch—by a perfectly symmetrical 10-pointer that fit inside my deer’s rack and rattled around. But again, the system is fair for everybody; I’m just glad to have the opportunity to have bucks to enter. 

“I’ve got some good bucks on the property this year, but they come and go. Fortunately, my neighbor trophy manages, too, so we’re letting them grow. One other thing hunters might want to keep in mind is that of the last five big bucks I’ve killed, only one showed up on a camera. I never knew the others were around and will never know how far they came from to get onto the property. But I work hard at my deer hunting because I love it. Putting in the time is what it takes. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years, and when I turn 69 on Nov. 1, I plan to be hunting. I mentioned my buddy Walker, who is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, which I’d never even heard of until my wife showed up with him. He’s a special friend that just turned 10, and he’ll be right there in the stand with me. We’ll just have to see who else shows up.”