“I guess you would have to say I was super-lucky to get the big buck,” the teenager began. “I was hunting from a tree stand along a creek bottom on the edge of a cut cornfield. My dad, Pat, was hunting the other side of the field from a tree stand as well. I was in my stand before it got light. I saw some does and a little forkhorn move by. About an hour after it got light, I was looking to my right and was turning slowly when I caught a glimpse of a big buck about 40 yards away to my left. I didn’t count points; it looked like he had a brushpile on his head.

“When I raised my rifle to put the scope on him there was a shot -- my dad had shot at him! The buck ran across the corner of the field and into the brush.

“I was pretty mad at Dad, and called him on my cell phone. He told me he shot because he thought I didn’t see the buck. He had watched it for a couple of minutes and I didn’t shoot, so he decided he would. He told me he didn’t know if he hit the deer or not, but he told me to sit tight, as he was going to go check it out.”

The Milford ninth grader has hunted deer for three years. Having started out with a lever-action .30/30, he currently shoots a Ruger bolt action in .243 caliber, fitted with a 3-9X Simmons scope. He had it set on 5X when the big whitetail showed up for the second time.

“It was something like 10 minutes after I had talked to Dad that I saw the buck coming slowly through the trees along the edge of the field,” Gus continued. “I shot when he got to about 40 yards, and he just stopped and stood there. I quickly cranked a fresh round in the rifle and shot again. The buck lurched forward and piled up.

“Dad came over, and we saw (the buck) was hit by both shots. We were pretty excited when we saw the rack he was carrying -- 13 points on one side and 12 on the other. I couldn’t believe it! When I thought about it later, he had more points on his rack than the other two bucks I had taken combined -- 25 vs. 15.”

When it was time to score the rack, the young hunter was told that it was an impressive 221 7/8. That score places it ninth in the Nebraska record book -- tied with one taken by Gary Hermsmeier, of Jansen in Jefferson County, in 1974.

The top non-typical whitetail taken with a firearm in our state scored 242 5/8. It was shot in Nance County by Robert Snyder of Genoa in 1961. In 2005 Steve Behrens of Holmesville took one in Gage County that scored 216 1/8 and Cal Glidden of Fort Calhoun put his name in the record book the same year with one that scored 214 1/8.

We would be remiss in our journalistic duty if we didn’t get into the biggest non-typical taken in our state. And it was killed by a bowhunter!

Del Austin of Hastings heads the list in the Nebraska record book for whitetails. His kill has dominated the Nebraska book since 1962, when he bagged a huge buck in Hall County. It scored an almost unbelievable 279 7/8. The head also was the best bow kill recorded nationally in the Pope & Young records until 2000 when Michael Beatty arrowed one in Green County Ohio. It scored 294 0/8 and dropped the Nebraska head to No. 2.

Jeff Moody of Hickman holds the second spot for a bow-killed non-typical whitetail in the Nebraska records. He killed a buck that scored 223 in Lancaster County in 2003.

The two Nebraska hunters were obviously pleased with their big non-typicals taken by rifle. We asked young Gus Shy what his plans might be for this fall.

“I’ll probably never kill one any larger, but that won’t keep me from hunting deer,” he said. “This fall will be my fourth season and I’ll crawl up in the tree stand with one thought in mind: I want a buck, and if its antlers are longer than his ears, I will likely shoot him.”