When_ Field & Stream_ brought you the story last November of the 17-point typical whitetail shot by Kevin Petrzilka in southeastern Nebraska, we reported that the big buck had a real shot at becoming the new state record. Now the 60-day drying period has passed and the official score is in: 202 6/8. The Boone & Crockett Club has reviewed and accepted that entry score and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission certified the buck earlier this month as the new state record typical. Because it's a top-10 trophy, the rack will still has to be panel verified when Boone & Crockett holds its next Big Game Awards Banquet in Reno in 2013. But Ricky Krueger, the official Boone & Crockett scorer who measured the buck, says he isn't worried. "I'm confident that score will stand.".SHARE
As our deer expert Scott Bestul pointed out in his Whitetail 365 blog, Petrzilka has earned a far greater distinction than a state record. The buck is only the 16th typical to score better than 200 since Boone & Crockett started keeping records in 1830, and it ties for the 7th best typical all-time. Perhaps most impressive, in these days when records seem to fall every season, Petrzilka’s buck is the biggest typical taken in the United States in 39 years.Krueger (left) called Petrzilka recently to break the good news. “He was relieved to get the final official score,” Krueger said. “He thought it was phenomenal; the whole family does.” Though he’s measured hundreds of racks since the 1990s and believes each is a trophy worthy of respect, Krueger admits to getting a special charge out of this one when he got the call soon after Petrzilka recovered the bruiser. “I think it’s awesome: The largest American typical tagged by a hunter in 39 years. It obviously doesn’t happen very often that you run across a buck like this-you just get floored. You’ve got to control your emotions.”The main question–whether the G-3s would be judged typical or nontypical–took up much of Krueger’s time and attention during the scoring process. “I eyeballed it for a long time,” he says. “In the end I felt that they met the criteria [for typical antlers] stated in the measuring manuals and that’s what I followed to make my judgment.” In addition to the measurements we reported in our original story of the hunt (which you can read here by clicking through the following slides), the buck boasts a tip-to-tip spread of 15-6/8 inches, and a greatest spread of 24-6/8 inches.Could this 200-class 17-pointer shot Nov. 19 near Brainard set the Nebraska state record for a typical whitetail rack? It may all depend on the G-3s.Kevin Petrzilka was mending fence with his wife and his son Dillon, 20, when he got a call from his son Mason, 17. The message was blunt and straight to the point, Petrzilka recalls. “Saw a big buck. Gun jammed. Get home now!”Mason (left) was hunting in an old water tank on the family farm that has been modified to function as a deer stand. He’d just gotten to the stand around 4:30 when he spotted the buck and four does 200 yards away. He made a quick shot, missing cleanly, and his rifle jammed before he could get off a second.When he got the call, Kevin immediately lit out for the home place, six miles away. “My boys know good deer. We pass up a lot of 140-class bucks, which you have to do if you want something like this,” he says. “And that stand is where Mason got a 169 3/8 buck two years ago, so it’s a pretty decent spot.”Kevin and Dillon (right) picked up Mason, who had walked back to the road with his gun still jammed, and together they formed a plan.Kevin set out with his Remington 788 in hand to walk the cedar-lined creek where the buck and does had disappeared. Dillon posted along a fencerow they figured the deer would head to after Kevin flushed him from cover.As Kevin drove the creek edge, does poured out–but still no buck. Then, what he first thought was a late-departing doe headed out of the cedar cover into open pasture dotted with cedars. “I caught a flash of horn and figured it had to be him. I pulled the gun up and shot him…at 150 yards, and that was all she wrote.”“When I walked up, Dillon was already there. He said, ‘Big, big, big,’ and he was. There was definitely no ground shrinkage. He’s a super nice, heavy, heavy deer.”“When we loaded him in the truck we knew we had a nice deer, but we had no idea how nice. We went to a local place where we hang out sometimes, and people started calling people and the whole thing snowballed. The game warden and the taxidermist left the Ducks Unlimited banquet and came right over. Someone started measuring and said, ‘You’ve got 105 inches on one side–without the spread. You’ve got something here.'”Official Boone and Crockett scorer Ricky Krueger tallied a green net score of 203 4/8, based on a green gross score of 220. “For a while people were talking world record,” Kevin Petrzilka says, “but those deduction add up pretty fast.”But the Petrzilka buck could threaten the state record, if the green score stays above 200 after the 60-day drying period. According to the Nebraska Game and Parks Department, the top typical is a 199 2/8 buck taken in Saunders County in 1993 by Vernon Virka.After reviewing photographs, officials at the Boone and Crockett Club headquarters say the buck’s status as a typical could be called into question because the G-3s could be ruled abnormal points. “There could be a 20- to 30-point swing based on how those are viewed,” says Justin Spring, assistant director of big game records for Boone & Crockett. “If the G-3s are ruled normal, then you’re looking at a 200-class buck and a potential state record.” If the official dry score tops 200, it would be Boone & Crockett’s first verified typical since 2003, Spring says.The man who scored the buck believes the G-3’s will be judged typical. “I think they’re gonna qualify because of where they are on the rack,” he says. “They look odd, but they do come off the top of the main beam. If only was like that, I’d be worried, but they’re pretty well matched so I’m confident.”The 9 x 8 on a typical 7 x 7 frame boasts a 21-inch inside spread and 26- and 25-inch main beams. The longest tine, a left-side G-4, stretches 12 6/8 inches. “It pretty much filled up the whole score sheet,” Krueger says. “It’s a jaw-dropper. Any 200-inch deer is really neat, but when it’s a 200-inch typical and you put state record behind it, that adds a lot.”Indeed, even Kevin Petrzilka–by all indications an unflappable sort who seems unlikely to lose his head over a big buck–says seeing his name at the top of the Nebraska record book would be pretty cool. “I never imagined it would be me, because I’m not a very lucky person. I’m just not. Until now.”
This amazing 17-point whitetail shot by Kevin Petrzilka in southeastern Nebraska last November has been officially scored as the new state record typical after its 60-day drying period. The buck is also the biggest typical tagged in the U.S. since 1972. Steve Hill got the story from the scorer who taped the rack and on the hunt itself.
