Kansas is known for its big deer: Stories of the Top 10 killed in the Sunflower State
The Eagle has compiled a list of the Top 10 non-typical whitetail bucks ever killed in Kansas. The list includes the biggest buck taken by a female in the U.S., and the No. 2 overall buck in the country.
Deer racks are considered typical or non-typical, depending on whether they are symmetrical or resemble a plate of spaghetti.
These are the top non-typicals ever killed in Kansas:
No. 1
Brian Butcher of Andover didn’t have high expectations when he sat in a stand just after trimming trees for shooting lanes. He wouldn’t normally have sat so early in the season, but he sat anyway to see what came through because he was already out there and a cold front had moved through.
He saw two bucks, a larger one leading a smaller one, out in a CRP field to his east. They started heading directly toward him before turning along the tree line and giving him a broadside shot at 25 yards. It’s the second-largest buck killed and found by a hunter in the U.S.
Score: 321 3/8
Weapon: Compound bow
Date: Oct. 11, 2019
Approx. time: Between 5-6 p.m.
Location: Private land in Chase County
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No. 2
Hunter: Joseph Waters of Topeka
Score: 280 4/8
Weapon: Gun
Date: 1987
Approx. time: NA
Location: Shawnee County
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No. 3
Mark Watson, who passed away in 2021, and his brother, Rob, had been hunting the buck on ground they leased in Brown County for three years straight before getting him, Mark Watson said on the Drop-Tine Report podcast
Rob, who is paralyzed from the waist down, has to use stands that allow his wheelchair to get in, Mark Watson said on the podcast, adding he had shot a buck with a 176-inch rack with a crossbow out of his brother’s stand before shooting the “Watson Brothers Buck” on a day his brother couldn’t hunt but encouraged him to go and sit in his stand.
“So now he has forbid me from ever setting foot in his stand again,” he said, jokingly on the podcast. “You can do everything right and you still have to get lucky and I just happened to get lucky.”
Hunter: Mark Watson
Score: 280
Weapon: gun
Date: Dec 2, 2018
Approx. time: Evening hunt
Location: Brown County
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No. 4
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It took five years of hunting for Chris Theis to get his first deer. It only ended up getting scored after someone at a Christmas party a couple weeks later told him he needed to get it measured.
He was 20 at the time and hunting with his father on family farmland. His father shot at the buck first and missed. Theis hearing the shot, prepared for his chance. He saw a doe, followed by the buck, moving quickly, but not full-on sprinting, and took a shot at the buck after he crossed the creek about 30 yards away.
Score: 279 ⅛ inch
Weapon: Marlin 30-30 lever action
Date: Dec. 12, 1992
Approx. time: 10:30 a.m.
Location: Private in Leavenworth County
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No. 5
A Cimarron teen holds the female record for largest buck shot in the U.S. The record before her was held by a Marion, Kansas, mother of two who shot her 1997 buck while pregnant with her third child.
Paslie Werth, who was 14 at the time, got the first crack at a buck her father, sister and herself had their eyes on for three years. The plan was to let him grow to his peak the next year. Werth, now 18, got the first shot at him while hunting during youth season with her father.
Score: 273 ⅜ inches
Weapon: .270
Date: Sept. 6, 2020
Approx. time: 8 p.m.
Location: Private in Kiowa County
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No. 6
Western New York native Gerald Rightmyer is a trophy hunter who has hunted big game all around the world. A friend invited him to come with him to Kansas on a swap hunt the friend has made with some local hunters.
The two had heard about a buck that locals called “Grandpa.” They joked about the chance for one of them to shoot it. Neither thought it could actually happen. Then it did.
Score: 272 2/8 inches
Weapon: .270 caliber Remington model 700
Date: Nov. 29, 2006
Approx. time: 12:30 p.m.
Location: Private in Morris County, Kansas
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No. 7
Trophy hunter Dale Larson’s 1998 deer held the record for the biggest archery buck in Kansas for 21 years until being broken in 2019. His wife had taken a shot at the buck before but the arrow deflected on a limb.
Larson, of Olsburg, grunted at the buck when he was headed in the opposite direction. The buck then disappeared into the thicket. It appeared a few minutes later and closed in on his stand. Larson didn’t have his bow ready but waited until the deer started to walk off before making his shot.
Score: 264 1/8
Weapon: Compound bow
Date: Nov. 7, 1998
Approx. time: Evening hunt
Location: Pottawatomie County
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No. 8
Hunter: Dan Michael
Score: 264
Date: 1991
Location: Franklin County
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No. 9
Hunter: John Band
Score: 258 6/8
Weapon: gun
Date: 1965
Location: Republic County
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No. 10
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Jamie Remmers had been hunting for 15 years and had already shot six decent bucks when she shot the then U.S. record for the largest buck killed by a female hunter.
At the time, she was 35, married with two children and pregnant with their third. She also ran a daycare out of her home. Her husband and a friend pushed deer out of a creek bed toward where she was set up when the 34-point non-typical buck popped out among other bucks and does.
After she shot him, six bucks in a single-file line, according to the size of their antlers, passed 20 feet below her in a draw.
“It was almost like they were paying their respects to him,” she told The Eagle in 1997. “They went in order from a nice 10-pointer to a little 4-pointer. It was the funkiest thing I ever saw.”
Score: 257 1/8
Weapon: .270 caliber Remington model 700
Date: Dec. 7, 1997
Location: Marion County
The Top 10 are based both on Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the Boone and Crockett Club records.
This story was originally published November 22, 2024 at 1:36 PM.