36 Point Buck!

[RocketFoot]

By Bob Frye
TRIBUNE-REVIEW OUTDOORS EDITOR
Sunday, January 6, 2008

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_545913.html


Jerry Simkonis has had a lot of success hunting whitetails over the years, as the multiple eight-points hanging on his walls attest. But he'd never before killed a deer like this one.
Hunting in wildlife management unit 2B -- that's as specific as he'll get -- this past season, Simkonis killed a monster buck that is all but certain to be recognized as a new state record. The 36-point non-typical rack had 21 points on the left side, 15 more on the right. It scored 2082/8.

The existing record, which has stood since 1988, scores 2033/8.

"It's certainly the biggest deer I've ever gotten, especially with a bow," said Simkonis, who lives in Washington. "And it looks like I've got the record, so I'm pretty happy about that."

George Block of Eighty Four, an official Boone & Crockett Club scorer, measured the rack. He said he's scored 70 or or more deer every year for the last 20 years, handling bucks from all over the country. But he's never seen one like this.
"A fantastic buck. It's probably the highest total score I've ever scored," Block said.

Simkonis got the buck through what he calls a combination of luck and skill. The landowner on whose ground Simkonis was hunting had seen the big deer just twice in two years, both times after dark. When he mentioned having seen a deer with at least 18 points, though, Simkonis set his sights on getting it, despite never having seen it himself. On the morning of Nov. 2, he got it after letting both an eight-point and a six-point wander by. He wasn't aware of just how big the buck was until it was on the ground.

"That was the first time I saw the whole rack. Then I really started shaking," Simkonis said.

The deer -- whose antlers are palmated in spots and spread out and then down, almost like a ram's horns in reverse -- was probably 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 years old, said Beth Fife, the Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife conservation officer who aged the deer.

"It had some wear on its teeth, but nothing to get too excited about. It wasn't young and it wasn't old," Fife said.

The process of recognizing Simkonis' buck as a new state record should be fairly simple, said Mel Schake, information and education supervisor in the Game Commission's regional office in Bolivar. Simkonis has only to submit Block's official score sheet.

"We would recognize that. We wouldn't rescore it," Schake said.

The commission hasn't conducted any scoring sessions since the late 1990s, Schake said -- though some are planned for this summer -- so there's a chance someone else out there has an even bigger deer that could top this one, Schake said. But that seems unlikely.

No matter what, though, Simkonis should justifiably be proud of his buck, said Craig Krisher of Macungie, near Allentown in Lehigh County. He's the man who has since 1988 held the record Simkonis appears to have broken.

"I'd be the first to shake his hand. That's what everybody dreams of doing, getting a buck like that," Krisher said. "It's the buck of a lifetime."

The Game Commission hasn't had any official scoring sessions to measure deer antlers and bear skulls for the state record books since the late 1990s. But that's about to change.

The agency is right now finalizing plans to hold scoring sessions at each of its six regional offices this summer, said spokesman Jerry Feaser. In the southwest, for example, tentative plans are to conduct a session sometime in June. Details of how the sessions will be run are still being worked out.

The commission may ask hunters to register for specific blocks of time, for example, so that people don't stand in line for hours waiting to get a head judged, said the commission's Mel Schake. it may also ask hunters to somehow rough score their trophies to get an idea whether it has chance at the record books. In some form, though, the sessions will be a go.

"It's an expensive proposition to do these sessions because you have to bring everybody in and tie up an entire region, including the clerical staff, for a whole weekend, but the commission's made the decision to go ahead with it," Schake said.

[CoyoteJack]

That's one horny buck!

[RocketFoot]

That's one horny buck!

Yeah, I bet he had all the Doe knockin at his door!

[27hand]

I saw a few more pics of this deer.

His kid brought them in to the jobsite.

He was pretty vague as to the whereabouts of this hunting location. I couldn't understand why.

27nicebuckhand

[vetter3006]

That's one hellava deer. Congradulations to him. The bad news is now he has to shoot deer that are bigger than that now! ha,ha.

[knight0334]

Yeah, I bet he had all the Doe knockin at his door!

We all hope so.

[axmdr40]

He was pretty vague as to the whereabouts of this hunting location. I couldn't understand why.

27nicebuckhand

would you want half of western pa's hunter coming to your special hunting spot next year after seeing this story?

[27hand]

would you want half of western pa's hunter coming to your special hunting spot next year after seeing this story?

He was SO vague, he gave the wrong county (as I would)

27shootslittledeerhand

[Plinker]

Steroids ! I tell ya'. Steroids ! LOL =)

[ScaredOnce]

Wow... Beautiful! Congratulations, sir!