Simmons Buck - New Iowa State Record

     The state of Iowa deer has produced some of the largest whitetail bucks in the world such as the true typical 7x7 Goad buck that scores 197 6/8”, the 307 5/8” Lovstuen muzzleloader buck and the 253 1/8” Andrews  P&Y buck, the later two both taken in 2003. In 2008 it would produce yet another giant, this time to Iowa bow hunter, Kyle Simmons.


 






 

                                 

     On a mid-October afternoon, Simmons, who had only hunted a couple of times this season, was searching for a place to hang his tree stand on the property that his family had long hunted. Coming to an area that funneled between two coulees, Kyle found a spot to suit his needs. After settling into his stand, Kyle started working a rattle-bag then followed that with soft grunt calls. It didn’t take long for this hunter to see movement behind. Seeing a buck approach from the back, Kyle stood, grabbed his bow and readied himself for a shot. The buck continued to close the distance. Kyle could see this was a big buck and as he drew his bow and waited for a clear shot, he constantly told himself not to look at the rack. At 20 yards the buck step into a clearing and the arrow was released. The buck wheeled around running about 50 yards before stopping. At this point Kyle thought it was a good hit although the hit was a little far back. He watched as the buck stood for a few seconds then went down. Kyle was shaking tremendously with excitement and tried to calm himself by sitting down. For the next three hours Kyle would watch this buck through his binoculars. Twice the buck got up to move but only went a few feet to again bed down. Kyle could hear the buck struggle to breathe and knew it was only a matter of time before he down for good. Although knowing that the buck would die within time, Kyle did not want to spook the huge buck and chance losing him so he sneaked out of his tree stand while it was still light and returned after dark with tracking help.

     Returning with his dad and brother, Kyle found the spot he had marked earlier where he had last seen the buck. As his dad searched the trail, Kyle followed his marks and found the spot where the brute went down the first time, scanning the brush nearby, Kyle spotted his trophy. 

 

This huge buck was more than Kyle imagined. Several times he just stood and gazed upon his trophy in speechless amazement.

What a trophy this was!

This gigantic non-typical had 28 total points, 15 on the right and 13 on the left and sported an inside spread of over 23”.

     This megabuck has the official Boone and Crockett (P&Y) score of 275 5/8” non-typicalwhich makes it the New Iowa State Recordbow kill whitetail and will rank as the sixteenth largest B&C non-typical of all time.