Big Buck 411 Blog

Iowa’s Latest Colossus

Iowa’s Latest Colossus

By Mike Handley

For two years, Jacob Darbyshire invested countless hours hunting a giant whitetail he’d nicknamed Major League. Before Oct. 29, 2019, the closest he came was looking at trail camera images.

Their first in-the-flesh meeting did not go well for the deer.

Two days before Halloween, Jacob and a friend, Bryan Bockes, went out to hang a new stand and cut shooting lanes. The hunter from Morning Sun, Iowa, chose the location because he suspected the buck at the top of his wish list might be using the nearby brushy ravine as a sanctuary.

Bryan went home after the job was done, but Jacob stayed to christen the new setup. It might not be THE day Major League would show, but he felt the deer would eventually follow one of the ridges rising above the brushy refuge.

Not surprising, there wasn’t a lot of activity – as in NONE – for quite awhile. Eager to make something happen, Jacob blew his tube call, offering up full-throated, determined grunts. With feeling.

Nothing to lose, he reasoned.

A quarter-hour later, he heard a twig snap directly behind him, not the direction he expected to hear anything. Chancing a peek, Jacob turned and saw Major League making a scrape in the ravine, only 18 yards distant.

Aware the animal was downwind from him, Jacob waited only a couple of minutes, long enough for the buck to finish its business, to draw his Mathews bow.

“I didn’t have time to range the deer,” Jacob told Josh Honeycutt, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “I just knew he was close enough for my top pin. The shot angle was 100% broadside.”

The Iowa buck hasn’t been measured for the BTR yet, but it’s been rough-scored at one tick below 260 inches.

“This deer consumed my life,” Jacob said. “Ask my family. To be able to harvest this animal after two years of work, dedication and help from friends and family is rewarding and humbling.”

Reckon?

— Read Recent Blog! Detour for Deer: Ryan Boyer can thank his wife and the road department for the incredible whitetail he arrowed in 2019.

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