Spook Spann's awesome main-frame 6x5 Kansas giant sported a total of 23 points, including the signature 8-inch drop tine on the left side that made the buck so recognizable. In order to shoot this deer, Spook and his cameraman crawled across a CRP field and ended up getting within six yards of the buck.

Thanks to the record-keeping system of the Boone and Crockett and Pope & Young clubs, we have records galore on North America's favorite big game animal. But what you're about to read involves a different kind of whitetail record. Not only is this story about a high-scoring P&Y (and B&C) buck, but this buck also happens to be the highest-scoring whitetail ever captured by the Realtree video cameras.

Incredibly, this monster Kansas buck, grossing 230 3/8 non-typical inches, was taken on the ground at point-blank range after a classic sniper-like stalk rarely seen in outdoor television. Spook Spann and his cameraman L.J. Planer snuck up on the deer, and Spook was able to put an arrow into the huge buck at a mere six paces!

Just as this is no ordinary buck, William "Spook" Spann of White Bluff, Tennessee, is no ordinary hunter. His focus is on world-class whitetails (as well as a variety of other big game species), and in order to achieve his goals, he's willing to make sacrifices that most ordinary hunters would find inconceivable. For example, during an Alberta hunt, Spook passed up three different B&C bucks in a single day.

"It was the first day of the hunt, the moon was right and the weather forecast was perfect," he explained. "I knew I'd never kill a 200-inch buck if I didn't have the guts to pass on those 170-class bucks."

On another hunt in Kansas, Spook watched an "upper end" whitetail buck sneak within range right at dark. But he had previously seen a 200-incher and felt that he was sitting on top of a tremendous food source while also being only a few steps away from prime security cover.

"You can wait your turn when you know you've done your homework and aren't relying totally on luck," the unusual bowhunter commented.

GETTING A GLIMPSE
In 2006, Spook started thinking about owning his own hunting land in Kansas where he could film and hunt and enjoy the off-season chores of habitat improvement. Spook's friend Tom McMillan told him about a 160-acre tract adjacent to some property that wasn't being hunted. "When I checked it out, it had so many rubs -- I'm talking trees as thick as your legs -- that I told Tom he must have made them with a machete. I'd never seen anything like it."

Now most avid bowhunters might not appreciate this parcel; only 15 acres of it was wooded. But Spook knew big-buck country when he saw it, and he bought the property in early 2007.

"It was classic," he said. "Scattered cedar thickets, dense switchgrass, plumb thickets, even an old homestead -- the kind deer like to frequent.

"A neighbor captured a heavy-racked buck with unusual split-brow tines on his trail camera," Spook continued. "L.J. and I estimated that he'd score right at about 190 inches. During the summer of 2007, Tom's dad, Jerry, saw the same buck in velvet. That's when I made up my mind to go for broke on this one individual animal."

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