Deer of the Day - Hawkeye State Whitetail, Scott Bischoff

This buck was taken the first firearm season in Iowa on Dec. 4, 2011, in Adams County, Iowa at 9 a.m.

I was sitting in a box blind facing west with a pond about 20 yards in front of me and a  fence that runs north and south five yards behind me.

I had a nice eight-point cross in front of me right at day light but I let it go. I'd heard lots of shooting around me early in the morning and seen several small bucks.

At 9 a.m., several does and five bucks jumped the fence coming from the east. They were on the move, but I hadn't heard shooting. After jumping the fence, the deer landed  in a 15- to 20-yard wide by 100-yard long shooting lane. This was by far the largest buck in the group (there was a nice 140- to 150-inch 10-point also in the group).

This buck was the last deer to jump the fence. When this buck jumped the fence in to the shooting lane, it stood about 25 yards away, stopped, then looked right at the box blind and started running again. Hunting with my T/C  Pro Hunter FX, I got a shot off.

I could tell I hit the buck hard by the sound and the deer's reaction. Ten yards in front of me was a stand of cedar trees; the buck ran behind the cedars and stopped. I started to reload; while I was reloading the buck started to cross a dam at the end of the pond.

Not running but on a very fast walk, I was waiting for the deer to tip over while I frantically reloaded. I finally finished reloading, the buck was still on the move but slowed down. I let out a very loud grunt and the buck stopped quartering away. I ranged it at 72 yards. I put my cross hair on it shoulders and a little back and shot again. The buck went right down as if it had its legs where cut out from underneath  it.

While I was  reloading again, the buck rolled off the dam and out of sight. I sat there shaking like a leaf, not sure what had just happened. I knew it was a nice buck, but not sure how nice. I replayed the event over and over in my head for an hour before I got up to recover my trophy; it laid at the bottom of the dam.

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It grossed 183 3/8. I live in Michigan and have hunted whitetails for 40 years, so this is truly a buck of a lifetime for me.

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