Iowa elevated

Three years ago a man named Jed, from Iowa, walked into my office. He was in Wyoming to help with a prairie dog/black-footed ferret project we had going on at work. He happened to be a big-time hunter and enjoyed the state of Wyoming and its hunting opportunities. Before he left, we exchanged numbers and he encouraged me to apply for whitetail deer archery in Iowa. Well, two years later an archery tag from Iowa showed up in the mail. I’ve been keeping touch with Jed and he's been sending me trail cam pics and keeping me updated, I was really looking forward to this whitetail rut archery hunt as Iowa is known for great big whitetails and corn fields.

I’ve eastern whitetail hunted in Wyoming and Nebraska, but this hunt felt different, I felt like this would be my best opportunity at a big eastern Whitetail. I didn’t practice as much as I should have with my bow but knew that the shots would be 20 to 30 yards which I was practiced up for. The day finally came for me to head east, and after a 12 hour drive, I pulled into Jed’s  driveway. He had killed a giant buck that night out of a tree stand, looking at the mass and overall size of that deer, and it’s antlers, really set the stage for this hunt. Jed is the type of Whitetail hunter that focuses heavily on scent elimination, not through sprays like scent killer, but through keeping your hunting clothing clean in separate containers in the back of your truck as well as cover scent, such as fox urine. He had trail cam pics of multiple bucks,as well as had already set up a handful of ladder stands across multiple properties for us to hunt out of. I felt privileged to be there. Each tree stand could only be sat in with certain wind directions; it my first evening there and I had learned so much already just gleaning info from Jed. 

I was excited for my first morning in the stand, the weather was cold but mostly because you spend your time just sitting. I didn’t know how well I would do with just sitting in one spot from sun up to sundown 15 feet in a tree, but the days flew by and I had plenty of deer sightings, including some decent bucks, but none of them were four years old or older that strolled under the stand. The hours and hours sitting and waiting was somewhat  therapeutic, it forced my mind to ponder and think about things I typically would brush off and avoid. I had sat in the same three or four stands multiple times and was ready for a different view. My day six started in a familiar stand and although I had a couple bucks sightings that morning I felt like I was seeing the same younger-aged deer over and over. The reason for staying in this area was because there were two giant deer, but with the rut in full swing and nobody has seen them for two weeks, so my hope for those two deer was diminishing. 

That late morning I told Jed I wanted to try something different and mentioned another farm that we had looked at, his response was that stand is not the best with this wind but it would probably do. That was good enough for me so off I went. I climbed into the tree stand and it was the warmest day it had been up to that point with a cold front coming the next day. My clothing I had been wearing and keeping clean of scent were big coveralls and with 61° I was sweating even just sitting in the tree stand. shortly after getting to the stand, I had seen a small buck chasing a doe off to my left 100 yards flashing through the edge of a cedar patch which is where the does were likely bedded. I also watched a small flock of Tom turkeys work their way around my stand. After two hours of sitting in the stand and still an hour or two before the magical evening time, I caught a flash of deer leg behind some thicker trees 80 yards off my right. Just knowing it being a single deer, I assumed it was a buck trolling for love. I grabbed my bow like I had practiced so many times for the past six days, I swivel my body backwards onto the platform of the tree stand as I would be shooting off the right side. 

I noticed a flash of antler and knew he would be coming out of the thick trees at around 20 yards, hopefully in an opening. He did just that, and when I grunted and saw the mass and point length, I knew he was a mature buck well beyond what I could have expected. I released the sevr expandable broadhead and watched the arrow hit it’s mark at 22 yards. I can’t remember shaking that bad anytime recent. The pure adrenaline of up close with the bow after six days of hoping and waiting is hard to describe. 

I contacted Jed and by the  tone of his voice, he might’ve been as excited as I was. He met me at the base of the tree stand and we picked up the blood trail and found him just over 100 yards from where I shot him, he was piled up dead. I’m still blown away with the sheer body size, over 300 pounds, and the mass of the antlers on those Iowa whitetails. If I never kill another whitetail bigger, I’m good with that; however Jed gave the invitation to start applying again so no I have something to shoot for! 

I still had one more day before I had to go home, we doe hunted in the morning and I passed one up. I asked Jed if we could do a bird hunt, he laughed and said “well yeah, let’s jump in the truck”. We went for a two hour hike and easily filled our limits of roosters, the longest tailed wild roosters I’ve ever been around. It was phenomenal. Jed was a super host and an extremely knowledgeable Whitetail hunter, and to learn from his knowledge has lit a flame under me to go hunt giant whitetails again elevated in those Iowa hardwoods. Thanks Jed, until next time.