Sporting World Stunned After American Bags Possible World Record Deer
A hunter from Illinois bagged a rare buck that put him in the running to beat the world record.
According to Farm Week Now, Keith Szableswki shot a 51-point buck on private property in Williamson County, Illinois, last month.
While Szablewski has only been hunting deer for a few years, he’s an experienced waterfowl hunter.
However, it wasn’t until November during Williamson County’s first firearm weekend of the season that he became a trophy hunter.
“I was just sitting there and I heard the deer behind me,” Szablewski said, according to WSIL-TV.
Szablewski successfully shot and killed what he thought was a pretty good buck. However, when he saw it up close, he was shocked by how big it really was.
Local hunter kills possible record-breaking buck https://t.co/C3FzvjhLsu pic.twitter.com/E3EhXcyusa
— QDMA (@TheQDMA) December 14, 2018
“When I walked up to him, I looked at it and thought, ‘What a blessing,'” he said.
According to Farm Week Now, Szableswki attributes his success to God answering his prayers.
“I pray before I go hunting,” he said. “And on that day, I did pray to God to bring me a buck, and He sure answers prayers.”
After the kill, Szableswki called the Illinois Department of Natural Resources — though not before calling one of his good friends to tell him about the buck.
He said department officials told him that he needed to get the deer checked out and scored, as they had “never seen anything like it in this area before.”
Szablewski said conservation officers believe the buck was around 7 to 9 years old and weighed around 265 pounds when it was alive.
“I have a John Deere, and getting that deer in the Gator was a fight,” Szablewski said.
The buck will be officially scored by a panel of judges in July. The current world record, as reported by USA Today, was set in 2016 by Stephen Tucker, who shot a 47-point buck.
Szableswki said he wanted to share his blessing with others.
“I took the deer to a processing center, and I’ll get a little meat from it, and then I donated the rest to people that need it,” Szableswki said. “I felt like I needed to. I felt like the Lord was telling me to do that.”
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