Little info, lots of talk about huge buck

Chicago Sun-Times

December 20, 2006
It's a big enough buck that it will take bucks to get details.
Big enough that taxidermist/scorer Gary Wilford knew instantly why we called, but the hunter would not allow any information to be released. Expect a checkbook story in a deer magazine.

Here's what we heard secondhand.

Apparently, a monster non-typical was bagged in Vermilion County during Illinois' muzzleloader-only season Dec. 8-10. One account had it green-scored in excess of 290 inches, with unverified details of antlers still in velvet and the deer being sterile.

Racks, which must dry 60 days before being officially measured, are scored by adding measurements (tines, rack spread, base circumference, etc.), then making other subtractions.

A note of caution: Even veteran scorers have trouble agreeing on monster non-typicals.

Just when the 2006-07 season in Illinois -- the top destination for trophy whitetails -- looked like it was solid but unspectacular, along comes this apparent world-class rack.

If that 290-plus score holds, it would be an overall top-10 non-typical and rival the non-typical record by muzzleloader in Illinois of 294, bagged by Scott Dexter in McDonough County in 2004.

Officially, the non-typical record listed in the fourth edition of The Longhunter Muzzleloading Big Game Record Book -- James Smith's 31-point buck (259¬), shot in Virginia in 1992 -- has been eclipsed several times, most notably by Dexter and Tony Lovstuen.

In 2003, Lovstuen, then 15, bagged a 38-point buck, recognized by the Boone and Crockett Club as the world-record non-typical taken by a hunter (307"/'), in Iowa with a muzzleloader.

Jerry Bryant's 37-point buck (304ÃÂ), taken with a crossbow in 2001 in Fulton County, is the top overall non-typical bagged in Illinois.

Dale Bowman