Phillip Vanderpool is no stranger to big whitetails. He’s stacked more deer than most, and a big percentage of those are monster bucks. Last season, he added another big Kansas deer to that list.

He hunts a 40-acre tract of land. He runs 22 trail cameras on it, and knows what’s in the area. Every trail has a trail camera.

He has one trail camera video from November 29, 2021, of this deer. “No question, it’s him,” Vanderpool said. “He was probably at least a 4 ½-year-old deer.”

In 2023, he was 6 ½, maybe 7 ½ years old. On November 7, 2023, he returned. From that day until November 22, he was all over the place. Vanderpool had a lot of photos and videos of the deer.

November 22 proved to be the big day. Vanderpool wanted to hunt one spot, but the wind wasn’t right for it. So, he went to another blind that worked with a west wind. A creek runs through the property, and it’s about 50 yards from Vanderpool’s hunting blind location. The immediate area showcased CRP-like grass in open timber.

Around 4:45 p.m., Vanderpool pulled out his binos and glassed down toward the blind he wanted to hunt, which was about 100 yards away. Immediately, he spotted a doe. Seconds later, he glassed a big 8-point buck. He thought it was tending the doe.

While watching those two deer through the glass, another buck walked into view. It was him — Cyclops. “He’s a one-eyed monster,” Vanderpool said.

The bigger deer entered the scene and ran off the other buck. Vanderpool grabbed his grunt call and sent a few grunts downrange. “I couldn’t see Cyclops, but I could see the doe,” Vanderpool said.

Vanderpool’s decoy was about 18 yards away, and he hoped the big deer walked within view of it. Suddenly, a yearling buck stepped into view instead. It saw the decoy, and the live doe, and took off toward the latter. The duo set off on a chase, but the bigger deer never joined the parade.

With all the commotion, Vanderpool grabbed a louder grunt call, and hit it several times. He added a snort-wheeze to the mix. Within seconds, the huge buck sprinted back through the timber and past the doe decoy.

“He’s standing behind trees,” Vanderpool said. “I’m at full draw. I have three cameras running. For three minutes, he just stands there looking around trying to find that buck. I let down on two different occasions. Finally, he turned and looked toward the doe and snort-wheezed.”

Seconds later, the buck walked down toward the doe decoy. It stopped, turned to look toward the creek, and that’s when Vanderpool took his shot. The 25-yard opportunity struck true, and the arrow blew through the vitals.

“I didn’t know he was that big until I got to him,” Vanderpool said. “He’s one of the biggest-framed deer I’ve had the opportunity to shoot. He didn’t have really heavy mass except for the bases, which were over 6 ^4/8 inches [in circumference].”

Incredibly, the G2 on the left side is 15 inches long. The buck is 23 inches wide. The deer has 14 scoreable points and measures 185 ^6/8 inches.