Nov 8, 2014 5 min read

I was talking to a neighbor the other evening and the subject was about big bucks I have scored for Boone & Crockett, Pope and Young and the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

My neighbor, Jake McEwen, has taken a few big bucks himself with the bow and perked up when handed a copy of the commission’s new record book. After all, his name is in the book.

Although it is not listed in the state’s record book, I thought of a big buck taken by Tim Kerns in Greene County. The buck scored in the low 170s and he bagged it with the bow. This 10-point is in the Pope & Young book and was written about in a few archery magazines.

While it is hard for me to believe, it was 20 years since Renny Colagiovanni decided to take his rifle with him as he checked the Grouse population near Dividing Ridge Road.

As happens so often deer were the farthest thing on his mind as a huge non-typical buck broke out of the briars and he downed it instinctively. It scored 188 4/8 non-typical.

I remember well when two large archery bucks turned up within two weeks of each other.

First was Adrian Whipkey with a big 8-point that measured 156 0/8. This buck was taken with a bow in Greene County. Less than two weeks later, Dale Robison of New Eagle showed up with a large buck he downed with a bow in McKean County.

Robison’s buck scored 157 4/8.

I measured other big game for Dale and he also downed a mule deer that makes book.

Incidentally, Robison became a friend and is one of the people that helps me score bucks at the winter sports show.

Then, there was the No. 1 buck from Washington County. This monster came from Peters Township by Ron LaBross and scored 172 6/8. As I write this and look at the state record, I note there are only five bucks from Pennsylvania none taken with a rifle that top the mark. And only one of these came from the local area.

I didn’t measure it, but Ivan Perry’s buck from Greene County that measured 184 6/8. For many years, this full-mounted buck was in the window of Joe Riggs’ sporting store in Waynesburg.

But there is a funny story about the LaBross buck. He couldn’t get away the weekend of the measuring session at Ligonier and asked me to take his mounted head up for him.

My friend, John Dino, carried the mount into the commission’s building and he drew a crowd. Matt Hough, now the executive director of the commission, nudged me and said, “Look George. Everyone thinks John shot that big buck.”

A couple of newspapers and a television station were doing an interview of the hunt for this big buck. Afterwards both Matt and I asked him why he didn’ttell them it wasn’t his buck. He answered with tongue in cheek was they didn’t ask me if I shot it.

I also attended the writers meeting and accepted Ron’s certificate for the best archery buck of the year.

I had the honor of scoring the state’s top buck taken with the bow. Gerry Sikunis saw the buck before and decided to hunt for it passing anything smaller. His work took him to southern Allegheny County, so it was no trick for him to hunt this big buck almost every day.

He placed his tree stand close to where he knew this buck traveled and finally, he bagged it. He did pay a price for this trophy as the tree he had placed his stand in was covered with poison ivy vines; the worst case I have ever seen.

I knew this was going to be a tough measuring session so I asked for help from Bobby Rogers and Dino.

Trouble was every time we counted points of better than one inch we came up with a different number. Finally, we decided that 36 of them were legitimate points and went to work.

We came up with a final score of 209 5/8 making it the No. 1 non-typical archery buck.

There are others of course. Roges has two bucks, one firearm and one archery, in the books.

Somewhere I think he may have a third but the score sheet has never been sent in. Measuring deer for both Boone & Crockett and Pope and Young brought me in contact with some wonderful people and after 25 years I can say with all honesty there was only one hunter that cursed me and thought I measured his deer to low.

My challenge to him was measure it yourself. It seems someone from the Safari Club got 1/16 higher than I did.

Someday I may tell the story of that incident but for now, one bad one isn’t too bad after 25 years.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.