I think this new buck would have a tough time topping Mossyhorns' score of something like 279.
Practically every deer hunter walking into Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium this week wants to see the picture.
They've already heard about the buck through online hunting forums, text messages or word-of-mouth. They know it was checked in at the aquarium.
So far, no one has been disappointed, said Tony
Korth, aquarium director at Schramm Park near Gretna.
"Everybody's saying 'state record' right now," Korth said Wednesday. "It's hard to say."
The 38-point whitetail generating the buzz was shot Saturday by a 24-year-old Texan hunting on private land in Richardson County. On Wednesday, Wes O'Brien told the Journal Star his trophy has received a preliminary score of 281.
The rack's official score won't be determined for 60 days. During the so-called drying period, antlers will shrink a little.
So it remains to be seen if the O'Brien buck will top a famous set of antlers from a deer killed 47 years ago in Hall County by bowhunter Del Austin of Hastings. Commonly called "Old Mossy Horns," the Austin buck scored 279 7/8 , ranking it not only first in Nebraska, but a world record for a whitetail taken by archery.
"I don't care if he doesn't get any records. He's amazing to me," O'Brien said of his deer.
Many people probably don't realize antlers are scored and ranked. But the Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt, devised an official measuring system for big game trophies in the 1920s. Other groups, most notably the archery-based Pope and Young Club, have developed similar systems.
Scorers must go through training and become certified to officially make measurements for the clubs.
Antlers fall into two main categories. Typical racks are generally symmetrical and with a nearly equal number of points on each side. Nontypical racks usually have many more points and asymmetrical sides.
Nebraska's record book not only categorizes racks by type, but also by weapon. The current record for a nontypical firearm whitetail in Nebraska scored 242 5/8 and was shot in 1961 in Nance County by Robert Snyder of Genoa.
Even if the O'Brien buck eventually ranks highest overall in Nebraska, Old Mossy Horns will remain the top archery whitetail.
The O'Brien buck was not scored before the hunter returned to Texas. But as long as it is measured by a certified Boone and Crockett scorer, it will be accepted in Nebraska's big game trophy records, said Randy Stutheit, a wildlife biologist with the state Game and Parks Commission.
Stutheit and Korth, both certified scorers, declined to speculate whether the rack might establish a new record because they have only seen photos.
But Korth said he's never seen another buck like it in nearly 20 years of checking hunters' deer at Schramm Park.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime buck," he said. "Remarkable is a really good word for it."
In more recent years, trophy whitetails have inspired an entire industry. The highest ranking bucks often are sold to collectors, put on public display, given nicknames and reproduced in collectable bronzes, plates and even cocktail coasters.
In other words, there's big bucks in big antlers.
That isn't lost on O'Brien, a meat cutter and warehouse worker from Lexington, Texas, who described himself as a "broke white boy who likes to hunt." He said he has obtained an agent and will consider selling the antlers after they have been mounted.
O'Brien came to Nebraska with a friend who knew a landowner, who in turn gave them permission to hunt in Richardson County. Other than a nonresident license, he said he paid no fees for hunting access.
He shot the buck from about 100 yards shortly before sundown Saturday, not long after he stepped out of a truck to stalk a different deer.
He got lucky, he said, which inspired the nickname he's already given the buck.
"Too Easy."
I'm sure that whatever land that buck did get taken on, that access to hunt that and neighboring land just got a lot tougher. Which is also sad. I know a guy that killed a 230" class NT. As soon as that happened, he lost his permission to hunt that ground anymore and everything close to that property is leased up tight. Horn porn...
As for $6,000 for those antlers. If it scores what they say it might (280+), $6,000 won't touch 'em. That said, there was a big buck taken out in western NE (I heard high 180's typical) that had started all kinds of rumors out there about Cabela's trying to buy the rack, etc. and a guy that works at Cabela's sent an e-mail to an NBA member that said the rumors are pure bull, trying to clear things up. I think a lot of guys who shoot a big buck hear some buddy tell them that Cabela's or Bass Pro or whoever will buy that for $5,000. And then next thing you know, they're telling people that they were actually offered the money, only now it's $10,000. Etc. As we get more and more pen-raised monsters, I suspect that the value of megaracks will actually go down in the future. Which is probably a good thing.
So if that is the case and it gets sumitted into the game and parks record books it will be the new state record deer.
