First Light: Pennsylvania’s New Archery Record Buck

Ron Shaulis of West Newton, Pa., took the new Pennsylvania state typical archery record buck on Oct. 24, 2017, with a compound bow on public land in Westmoreland County.

The record rack had a net score of 1854/8, which beat the previous record of 1782/8 from a buck taken in Allegheny County in 2004.

“The 13-point rack was very symmetrical, and lost only 77/8 inches in side-to-side deductions, which included an inch-and-a-half abnormal point off the right-side G-2 point,” said Bob D’Angelo, Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) Big Game Scoring Program coordinator. “That’s not much in deductions on a set of antlers this size,” he explained.

The rack has 25- and 26-inch main beams, G-2 and G-3 points longer than 11 inches, an inside spread of more than 20 inches and 4½ inches or more in circumference at the locations where such measurements are taken on the main beams.

“I didn’t know what I had until I took the rack to the taxidermist,” said Shaulis.

Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans also congratulated Shaulis on his state-record buck, and the hunter acknowledges his record wouldn’t have been possible without the PGC’s deer management methods.

“Ron’s enormous buck is the trophy of a lifetime and representative of the amazing quality deer hunting available in Pennsylvania today,” Burhans said. “While Ron’s buck takes the top spot for a typical taken with archery equipment, no record is safe in a state where more than 150 successful buck hunters have their names added to the state’s record book each year.”

For proof of Burhans’ statement, consider the state’s new No. 1 record non-typical archery buck, a whopper scoring 2286/8, which was killed in Pennsylvania’s Clearfield County just last year.