Nate Simonson’s huge mule deer from Cherry County had 20 points and amassed a B&C score of 210 4/8, placing it at No. 24 in the Nebraska record book. Photo courtesy of Nate Simonson.

Two young Nebraska deer hunters -- one 27, the other 14 -- may have reached the zenith of their hunting careers last season, when each bagged a buck that wore a monumental rack.

Pleasant Dale’s Gus Shy nailed his trophy on the second morning of the season, bringing it down not far from the small farming community just west of Lincoln that is the 14-year-old’s hometown. The big whitetail carried a total of 25 points (13x12) and was scored as a non-typical.

Nate Simonson, a 27-year-old Lincoln appliance technician, wanted a “nice” buck, but had only one day to hunt. He scored big on opening day, dropping a 20-point (11x9) mule deer in Cherry County, on a ranch north of Mullen. His buck was scored as a non-typical as well.

“My biggest one before the monster was a typical mule deer that scored 170 under the Boone and Crockett scoring system,” Simonson said. “Lady Luck played a big part in my bagging the big one.”

Simonson was hunting from a bale pile on the edge of a pivot irrigation system. He’d picked the ground blind because relatives had been seeing quite a few deer, including a couple of decent bucks, in the field prior to the season. A native of Mullen, the hunter wasn’t a novice to Sandhills deer hunting, having killed a deer every year, except for one, since he turned 14.

“I was in the bales by 6 a.m.” he said. “Sunrise was about 7:30, which made legal shooting time about 7. Once it got light enough to see, I spotted some six or seven deer coming into the field about 400 yards away, but they moved behind me and went over a little hill out of sight.

“I decided to make a sneak on them and when I edged up over the top of the rise I saw them at 200 to 250 yards. I did note a little spike buck and the big one with the does. When I put the scope on him I still couldn’t see his rack clear enough to count points, but it looked bigger than any I had seen before.”

Simonson was shooting a bolt-action Remington in .270 caliber with a 3-9X Tasco scope on it; he had the scope set (as best he can recall) on 9X. “When I zeroed in on the big buck the light still wasn’t very good,” he said, “but I put the cross hairs right behind his shoulder and squeezed off a shot. He flinched and dropped in his tracks.

“When I got to him, I saw his rack was huge. I began counting the points and found he had 11 on one side and 9 on the other -- by far the biggest buck I had ever taken. I figured he would measure out as a non-typical.

“My dad, Dick, and cousin, Richard Piersol, were back at the ranch house, which was not far away, and heard the shot. They came out to the field to see what I had shot, and they too were impressed with the rack and size of the deer. We guessed it would go over 200 pounds. It took all three of us to load it on the bed of our the truck.”

When Simonson had the head measured for the record book, it scored 210 4/8 under the Boone and Crockett scoring system as a non-typical mule deer. That score places it 24th in the Nebraska big game record book.

Big non-typicals, either mule deer or whitetails, are not all that common in Nebraska. Currently, more than 40 non-typical mule deer in the book that score over 200 were taken with a firearm. The whitetail picture is similar, with the top 20 scoring over 212. The largest mulie taken by firearm was shot in Wheeler County in 1995 by Leo Dwyer of Elgin. Owen Madden of Wauneta has the largest one taken since the year 2000. Scoring 230 6/8, it was taken in Chase County during the 2005 season.

Before Gus Shy whacked the record-book whitetail last year, he’d taken two other bucks -- a 4x4 and a 3x4. Here’s his story.