The 10-pointer that Rob Stockett arrowed last season is the new state-record typical buck for the Magnolia State. Photo by Robert H. Cleveland Jr.

Mississippi's new record-holder for typical deer by archery can't be accused of ever having had buck fever. Does, however, could be a different story for Madison's Rob Stockett.

“I have to wonder,” said a joking Stockett, who last Nov. 11 set the standard for all Magnolia State bowhunters with an astonishingly typical 10-point typical that had a rack measuring 167 2/8 inches. “I was as calm as could be when I shot the buck. I don't really think I had time to be anything else. It happened so fast.”

The perfect shot, taken at 25 yards, followed by less than an hour two horribly placed shots at a doe. “Don't know what happened there,” Stockett acknowledged, “except to say I just plain old missed. You bowhunt long enough and you're going to miss a few shots, I guess. I'm just glad to say I made the shot that counted.”

The buck, officially scored in January by Chad Dacus, a deer project coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, and by Rick Dillard, co-founder of the Magnolia Records program, nearly gave the state its first typical archery kill that would exceed the minimum threshold for the Boone and Crockett Club all-time record book; it just missed that 170-point score. Needless to say, it far surpassed the minimum score of 125 required to make the Pope & Young Club's all-time record list for bow-killed whitetails.

“When I first saw it, I knew it had a chance,” said Dacus. “It had great mass, big points, a good spread and that amazing symmetry. In all my years of looking at and scoring trophy deer, I have never seen a set of antlers on a buck of that magnitude that had that kind of symmetry.”

Scoring it was easy enough. “We just measured, wrote down scores and added,” said Dillard. “We didn't have to do a lot of subtraction -- there just wasn't any. I mean when you're talking about a buck that grosses 169 2/8 inches and nets 167 2/8, that's only 2 inches of deductions. That's amazing. It is a beautiful buck.”

Stockett's buck has assumed its place atop the record list, replacing a 165 5/8 P&Y deer taken in 2004 by Carl Taylor of Greenville. (Continued)

Taking a record-book buck was the last thing that Stockett had on his mind when he went hunting. “I wasn't out there that day, or any other day that I hunt for that matter, looking for a record,” he said. “Does anybody? I was out there doing what I love -- getting away from work and everything to bowhunt. I was hunting for the pure joy of hunting. That I got the record? Well, that's just a bonus. I was in the right place at the right time.”

Being in the right place was no accident: Stockett's preparation for the hunt was a five-year labor of love. But before we explain the hard work and dedication that went into creating a hunting camp capable of producing a trophy-book buck, let's go back to that overcast afternoon in the north Mississippi Delta and join Stockett in the stand.