Whitetail Trivia: The Largest Bucks of All Time

Luke Brewster’s 2018 buck is the largest hunter-killed whitetail ever. Image courtesy of the Pope and Young Club.

My social media newsfeeds constantly brim with mega-class whitetails — bucks so huge that you or I would probably fall over if we saw one while hunting. Granted, some of them are killed within high-fenced game farms, but many are taken in the wild during fair-chase conditions.

Between TV, magazines and social media, perhaps you’ve gotten an eyeful of world-class whitetails. And maybe you’re wondering which bucks are the biggest ever killed. Do you think you know what the world-record whitetails are? And do you know how and when they were killed? Follow along to see how much you know.

SCORING CLUBS AND MINIMUM SCORES

Before we unveil the world-record whitetails, let’s set the groundwork. You’re probably familiar with the Pope and Young Club and Boone and Crockett Club, but if not, these organizations keep records of harvested big-game animals. Why are there two separate clubs? Pope and Young is for archery records only, and Boone and Crockett accepts entries taken by any legal method.

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A bow-killed buck can be entered into the Boone and Crockett book, but the minimum scores for eligibility are much higher. For example, the Pope and Young Club’s minimum score for typical whitetails is 125 inches, and the minimum for nontypicals is 145 inches. Boone and Crockett’s minimums are 170 and 195, respectively. Now, let’s talk about the world-record whitetails.

BOONE AND CROCKETT TYPICAL WORLD RECORD

Milo Hanson, a humble farmer, according to Mike Hanback’s recent post, made history near Biggar, Saskatchewan, in November 1993. A fellow watched an impossibly huge buck enter some willows the morning after a fresh snowfall. He rounded up a handful of hunters, including Hanson, to make a deer drive. The push yielded only glimpses of the buck but no shooting. Hanson told Hanback, “He looked like an elk.”

Milo Hanson recently passed away, but his 1993 Saskatchewan buck still leads the Boone and Crockett Club’s typical whitetail category. Image courtesy of the Boone and Crockett Club.

The crew continued pursuing the buck in the fresh snow and eventually jumped it again. The buck came Hanson’s way. He shot with his .308, striking the buck high, and ran up and finished it with a second round.

The buck garnered tons of local, regional and national attention after it was officially scored and named the Boone and Crockett world-record typical whitetail. The unbelievable rack netted 213-5/8.

Hanson died Feb. 9, 2026, but his legacy remains, with his buck still in first place more than 30 years after it was taken.

BOONE AND CROCKETT NONTYPICAL WORLD RECORD

Unless you’ve heard about the top buck in the Boone and Crockett Club’s nontypical whitetail category, perhaps you’re imagining an outlandishly huge buck from the Midwest or Canada taken by a rifle hunter. Not quite. The world record for this category met its demise by other means.

This 333-7/8-inch whitetail was noticed lying dead near a roadway in Missouri. The cause of its demise is unknown. The Missouri Department of Conservation owns the trophy. Image courtesy of the Boone and Crockett Club.

Missouri hunter David Beckman killed a deer Nov. 15, 1981, and conservation officer Michael Helland met him along the roadway to check and seal the deer. When the two parted ways, Beckman noticed a dead buck along the road on private land. Beckman informed Helland of the situation, and Helland got permission to pick up the animal, which was then skinned and the antlers removed. The buck was estimated to have weighed 250 pounds and officially measured 333-7/8 inches. The cause of death is unknown, and the Missouri Department of Conservation owns the trophy, which is the highest-scoring wild whitetail on record.

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POPE AND YOUNG TYPICAL WORLD RECORD

The Mel Johnson buck, taken in 1965, still holds the top place in the Pope and Young Club typical whitetail category. That year, Johnson and a hunting buddy secured permission to hunt on a farm in Peoria County, Illinois, and they saw a monster buck a couple of times.

Bowhunter Mel Johnson took this 204-4/8-inch typical buck in Peoria County, Illinois, in 1965. It still leads the typical category in the Pope and Young record book. Image courtesy of Pope and Young Club.

On the afternoon of Oct. 29, 1965, Johnson assumed his position in a ground blind overlooking a bean field. The world-record buck appeared in the distance and then closed in quickly. When the animal walked by him, Johnson drew his recurve and connected with a well-placed arrow. The buck, which tipped over in the field, netted 204-4/8 inches.

POPE AND YOUNG NONTYPICAL WORLD RECORD

Luke Brewster of Virginia made his usual trip to bowhunt big whitetails in Edgar County, Illinois, in November 2018. He and his hunting buddies knew that an unbelievable buck roamed their hunting property. In fact, they took note of it in 2014, when it was an impressive young buck. Eventually, the group named it Mufasa, and by 2016, it was quite a buck but virtually a ghost.

Virginia’s Luke Brewster traveled to Illinois in 2018 and connected with this 327-7/8-inch buck, which is the highest-scoring whitetail ever killed by a hunter. Image courtesy of Pope and Young Club.

Finally, in 2017, one hunter in the group encountered the buck and shot an arrow at it, but it deflected and missed. The chase continued.

Back to Brewster’s 2018 hunt. He climbed into a stand midday on Nov. 2 with pretty low hopes. However, the monster buck suddenly appeared just 30 yards away. The moments between then and when he took his shot are pretty muddy because of adrenaline, but Brewster worried about his arrow’s penetration. Finding the arrow calmed that concern. And when he approached the last place he had seen the buck, he saw it lying dead a short distance away.

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The buck was aged at 7-1/2 years old, and it netted 327-7/8 inches. It’s No. 1 in Pope and Young’s nontypical whitetail category, and it was also entered into the Boone and Crockett book, where it ranks third. It’s the highest-scoring hunter-killed whitetail of all time.