Iowa farmer takes a break from combining to tag a 30-point Behemoth Buck

Two southwestern Iowa farm boys have been keeping an eye on a very special buck on family land for the past three years. The more they watched the deer on the cameras, the more obsessed they became with the buck, which they nicknamed “Big P” (short for Big Pimpin’).

One of the obsessed young men, 20-year-old Dustin Shuler, says that earlier this year they saw that the buck’s rack had exploded with more points and more antler mass than they ever thought possible. But Shuler says the deer would never see daylight, and the only trailcam photos they took were at night.

Shuler, the hard-working son of a farmer, was running a combine on October 19. He had received a notification on his cell phone before dawn that morning.

“At 1:59 I got a cell trailcam photo of Big P scraping. It had been scraped before, and it was near one of our bale blinds in a field,” Shuler said. “It was the first time we had seen him in 17 days.”

Shuler had received another trailcam photo around 3 a.m. showing a doe working on the same scrape. He figured if there was ever a day he could catch the buck in daylight, that was it. But if he wanted a chance to hunt, he would have to leave work early.

“I begged my dad to take over running the combine so I could go hunting that afternoon, and he did,” Shuler said. “It turned out that this was the greatest gift a father could give his son.”

Shuler was out of the combine and ready to go by 4:30 p.m. He contacted his hunting buddy Matthew Johnston, who had been tracking Big P with him. The two friends went to the same large field, but sat in different stands, about half a mile apart.

“I was in the bale around 5 p.m.,” Shuler says. “Matthew had his bow and he stepped into another blind on the other side of the field. We both looked at an overgrown ditch along the edge of the field.”

Although he is a bowhunter, Shuler brought a muzzleloader to the stand that afternoon. He had borrowed the old CVA 50-caliber rifle from Johnston’s father, who runs the Midwest Antler Company, a deer and turkey supplier.

“That old muzzleloader shot more deer than most people have seen,” the elder Johnston says Outdoor living.

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After settling into the blind bale, Shuler spotted Big P around 6:45 p.m. The deer veered out of the ditch along the edge of the field and headed straight for the scrape that was only 70 feet from his blind.

“I was shaking so bad when I put that telescope behind Big P’s shoulder. I pulled the trigger and the smoke went everywhere. I was completely shocked,” Shuler recalls. “I thought I had made a good shot, and before the smoke cleared I heard it crash out of sight into the ditch.”

Shuler immediately called his friend Johnston.

“He never heard my shot, so he didn’t believe me at first. But I told him he better come over because I needed help to drag him out.”

After about an hour, Johnston showed up and the two hunters went to where Big P was standing when Shuler shot. The 250-grain Hornady bullet had done its job and the buck lay dead at close range.

After transporting the buck to a ranch building, they placed him on a scale where he weighed 255 pounds. But it’s the gigantic, atypical rack that really stands out.

“Big P had 30 points to score, and three others that were broken up by fighting or rubbing against trees,” Shuler said. “We estimate he’s five or six years old.”

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Looking back on the hunt, the young man says he doesn’t regret taking the buck with the borrowed muzzleloader. But he still can’t get over how close Big P was to finally getting his chance.

“At 70 feet, it was lined up perfectly for my bow, and I’m still kicking myself for not having it with me,” Shuler says. “But I never dreamed Big P would be so close that night.”