When the word and photographs reach the Midwest whitetail deer hunting fraternity about the huge buck taken in neighboring southeast Nebraska, hunters will be abuzz.

    Wes O’Brien found our neighbor state to the east has some proud assets beyond the Husker football team. O’Brien ventured from his home in Lexington, Texas, to hunt the excellent whitetail habitat in the southeastern corner of the state. At his youthful age of 24, he left little to look forward to in future year hunts when he rifle harvested a massive 38-point non-typical whitetail buck.

    This whitetail will surely challenge the state record book. Time, measurements and comparisons will be made with to determine if the preliminary Boone and Crockett Club score of 281 will stand. If it does, it will exceed the 242 5/8 score of a whitetail taken in 1961 in Nance County, a large region some 50 miles north of Grand Island, Neb. What is encouraging about both the O’Brien buck and the Nance County whitetail, both were taken on open, private land without the involvement of a guide or managed deer hunting club.

    For anyone questioning the significance of this whitetail buck, a look at established Boone & Crockett Club official world records suggest O’Brien has the top non-typical rifle harvested buck. There are two categories antlers fall into. One is the typical, which are equally symmetrical and with a nearly equal number of points on each. The other is non-typical, which have many more points, non-symmetrical shape on the two sides and more variable lengths to each main antler trunk.

    The current standing record typical whitetail buck was taken in 1993, in Biggar, Saskatchewan, Canada and measures 213 5/8 and the non-typical record whitetail was taken in St. Louis County, Mo., in 1981 with an official measurement of 333 7/8. This non-typical record has a total of 44 total points on both sides. The O’Brien buck has 38 total points.

    Colorado has produced record mule deer bucks in the timbered high county of the Rockies. Whitetails are found along Colorado’s eastern river basins, yet lack the rich timbered landscapes missing on the prairie lands. But the extensive blanket of dense tree stands and heavy brush habitat of Nebraska and neighboring mid-western states is just the environment in which whitetail deer seek out and thrive.