Hunter's 51-point buck could set national record

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Ill. (WCMH) – -  A hunter in Illinois could be in the running for one of the largest bucks ever shot in America.

According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Keith Szableswki shot the 51-point buck during the opening weekend of deer gun season in November.

Szableswki is waiting for a panel of judges to officially measure the antlers and decide whether it breaks the record for countable points, WSIL reported.

The current record is a 47-point buck shot by a Tennessee hunter in 2016.

He says he has only been hunting deer for a few years, but started hunting waterfowl back in high school.

"When I started putting out geese decoys, there would always be deer running around the field," Szableswki said. "I never hunted deer. There were always deer running around the decoys."

He told Farm Week Now that he arrived at his deer stand at 2:45 p.m. and spotted ‘the beauty’ by 4:10 p.m. and waited for a clean shot.

“The only window I had was a 12-by-12-square-foot opening that I could see clearly on his neck,” he said. “I could have shot through the leaves to hit his body, but I’m not going to do that,” said Szableswki.