Big Timber Bucks

The painting features the huge, non-typical buck that he took with a bow last fall. It had a final net score of 237 3/8 making it a new, Iowa state record, P&Y, non-typical. Ironically, the record held for only eight days when an even higher-scoring buck was taken!

Whereas the first print in Larry’s Big Buck Series, Big City Bucks, featured bucks living in Des Moines, Iowa, the second image, Big Timber Bucks, features three bucks, that spent much of their lives in heavy timber. In fact, Larry and our two children, Chris and April, harvested all three bucks within a few miles of each other in Southeast Iowa in 1999 and 2000.

Larry was fortunate to be able to videotape the children’s hunts, Chris’s with a bow, and April’s during early muzzleloader season. Both children’s excitement and pride were only surpassed by Dad’s! April’s buck, harvested in October 2000, is the buck at the left of the painting and scored over 161 inches. Chris’s mature, 5 1/2-year-old buck, harvested in the fall of 1999, is in the background of the painting following a doe. Harvesting is an important part of maintaining a balanced herd, and, along with the rest of the family, I have taken several. Larry wanted to include all family members, so the doe in the background not only adds to the story but gives everyone in the Zach family a deer in Big Timber Bucks.

A set of incredibly massive, non-typical sheds was found by a turkey hunter in Southeast Iowa in April of 2001. One of the sheds can be found in the background of Big Timber Bucks and gives a clue to the main subject of the third and final print to be released in Zach’s Big Buck Series. This painting, tentatively entitled Big Country Bucks, was released in 2002.