“I definitely don’t consider myself a trophy buck hunter by any means,” Matt Paplawskas noted. “This is my second buck I’ve ever taken since I’ve started bow hunting about 10 years ago.”
But on Dec. 11, the Oak Lawn man arrowed a lifetime trophy with his compound bow on a friend’s small property in Will County.
“The deer is a 10-point mainframe but has triple forked G1’s that are over an inch and I believe are scorable,” he emailed. “If I am correct it would be a 14 pointer.”
The deer is at Realistic Taxidermy in Lowell, Indiana. Paplawskas plans to have it scored (racks must dry for 60 days before being officially scored).
“Either way, I can’t wait to get this deer on my wall,” he concluded. “I’ve put in a lot of time and a ton of failure learning how to bowhunt and this deer definitely makes it all worth it!”
Buck of the Week, the celebration of big bucks and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) from around Chicago outdoors, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times when the time is right. The online posting at chicago.suntimes.com/outdoorsgoes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.
To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).
