So, this is technically an Iowa 2022 whitetail, but is from last season. Our late muzzleloader season runs until January 10th and it's the season I hunt because I'm a Lutheran pastor and the regular gun seasons in the weeks before Christmas simply don't give me enough time to hunt. My oldest daughter and I hunt from ground blinds and last year we moved to a new part of the state in southeast Iowa. I struggled to find good spots that would work for a ground blind, but was invited to hunt a parishioner's small plot of timber because they hunt the regular gun season in early December. I spent over 40 hours sitting in the blind before I finally had a decent opportunity on January 8th. The weather had been unseasonably warm and the deer weren't really moving much. We had gotten a few inches of snow on New Year's Eve and then it started to warm up to above freezing during the day. On January 8th we had heavy cloud cover and it started to lightly mist around 3 p.m. I got on stand at 3:30 p.m. after kids got home from school, not real optimistic because it was already so gloomy, though I've killed a lot of deer in snow and rain conditions. End of legal shooting time was 5:22 p.m. and by 5 p.m. I couldn't see much of anything in the old growth timber leading down to the Mississippi River unless it had snow for a background. But I stuck it out. At 5:18 p.m. I checked one of the incoming trails again with my Swarovski 10x42 SLC binocular and saw the white band of a deer nose sticking out and moving around. I positioned my tripod rest to where I though he would go on a trail leading toward the blind, well aware that I was running out of time. As soon as I got into position I saw the silhouette of an adult deer against the backdrop of snow across the ravine from where my blind was at. It was on one of the trails on the sidehill across from me. I quickly moved my rest again, back to where it was originally, and struggled to find the deer in my scope because it was so dim. Once I did locate him, seeing the crosshairs was a serious challenge, but I could see them above and below and in front of and behind the deer. So I used my best judgment on where to center the crosshair on its should. I gave a low whistle and it stopped. I touched the shot off, certain it was good. When I brought my gun down I checked the time. 5:21 p.m. My wife was texting me while I was trying to shoot, wondering when I'd be in for supper. I called her and said, "I have to go track a deer. I'm quite certain I made a good shot, but it's so dark that it's hard to tell." I reloaded the TC Encore with another .357 Maximum round and left the blind and made my way over to where the deer was, 60 yards away. I found tracks in the snow, but no blood. Shoot. I kept tracking the hoofprints and found blood within 5 yards, searching by the light of my headlamp. Then it looked like the snow was painted red two bounds later. Excellent. I found the deer piled up about 30 yards beyond where I shot it. I had no idea that it was even a buck when I pulled the trigger. My criteria for filling tags is shooting adult deer, not focusing on horns. And I walked up on the biggest 8 point whitetail I've ever shot in 30 years of hunting. The experience also led me to understand why lighted reticles or red dot reticles have a place. So when I purchased another handgun for hunting deer here in Iowa, I made sure to find a lighted pistol scope. Fortunately I was able to purchase a 2-7x32 Burris ElectroDot that now rides on my .350 Remington Magnum center grip XP-100. the late muzzleloader season starts here on December 19 and runs to January 10. I doubt I'll get out before Christmas, but Grace will probably want to hunt as soon as she gets back from college. She claimed the TC as "hers" last year and told me to find a different gun. 
