For The Record-PA

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For The record

Ray Ward

Pennsylvinia

Dave Maine

Butler County, PA

Rifle Season 2003

Typical Green Score 175+

For those of you who think there aren’t any big bucks left on Pennsylvania’s public land, take a gander at Dave Maine’s monster buck taken in Butler County.

Dave has been deer hunting for about 20 years and has been hunting the area near Moraine State Park for the past 10 years. Dave had placed a ladder stand near a swamp bottom littered with deadfalls and stumps. Above the stand were some pine trees and about 500 yards through a wooded area was a field. The stand was placed several weeks before season and Dave had checked the stand the day before, and in the process he jumped several deer going to the stand.

On opening morning Dave entered the woods with his friend Bill Stevens, who took a stand about 100 yards away from the ladder stand. At about 8:15 a.m. Dave caught movement. A buck was coming off the hill into the swamp at a distance of about 90 yards. He was on a run and by the time the crosshairs found the target he was about 150 yards away. At the crack of the rifle the buck fell but was trying to get back to his feet. A second shot was fired to dispatch the buck.

Climbing down from his stand with only his rifle, he walked to where the buck had fallen. The buck’s antlers were partially submerged in the swamp water when Dave arrived. He made sure the buck was dead and returned to the stand for his gear and to call his friend on his walkie-talkie to inform him of his good luck.

When they returned and pulled the buck to dry ground they realized what a giant he was. Now the work begun. They had to drag the buck through the swamp and brush for several hundred yards to load him in the truck.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission has green scored the buck as a 10-point typical at over 175 inches. If this holds after the 60-day drying period it will rank in the top 10 rifle kills in the state.