The one-eyed Tennessee mountain giant known as “Cyclops” carried incredible mass and taped 206 inches.
December 30, 2025
By Clifford Neames
Back in 2023, Aaron Crabtree saw a video of a good buck that someone videoed from their front porch. The buck had only one good eye — probably a product of fighting — so he quickly gained the name “Cyclops.” Duly impressed, Aaron did what most deer hunters would do — begin a thorough search for the right place to kill it!
As luck would have it, the big buck showed up on a friend’s property the very next year. He was on and off there at first, then arrived on a farm that Aaron could hunt late in December. Things were starting to shape up. Well, hold that thought…
The eastern part of Tennessee is mountainous and hunting the high hills is challenging to say the least. The buck was also a real roamer and hard to pin down. He disappeared for two months, returned and stayed there briefly, then showed up again for one picture on the friend’s farm three quarters of a mile away in August of 2025.
Aaron Crabtree shares the moment with his child after finally tagging the legendary one-eyed buck. Moving forward to September 15th, the buck walked in front of Aaron’s cell camera at night. Aaron hung his lock-on stand in response, and the huge buck countered by disappearing again for almost two weeks.
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“It was crazy how much he moved around,” Aaron noted. “At the first part of October I really wanted to get in there, but it was hot and the wind was all wrong at first.”
Then, like magic, the pattern changed in his favor.
On October 3rd, Cyclops showed up after dark. Then he was in front of the stand just before daylight the next morning. Aaron decided it was time to make his move.
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Cyclops fell to a perfectly-placed arrow during a rare daylight appearance in the Tennessee mountains. He slipped in at 3 p.m. that same afternoon and set up his Ozonics unit, then quietly waited for the moment of truth. A little after 5 p.m., Cyclops appeared in the hardwoods just 60 yards away. It was looking as if he would to cross on Aaron’s left side, which would present a perfect 15-yard broadside shot.
“I sent the Swhacker and watched him go 30 yards and fall,” he smiled. “Then I called my dad and said, “I got him!”
Aaron’s previous biggest buck was a 125-inch 8-point, so Cyclops was a tremendous upgrade. The chocolate rack had extremely heavy mass, four tines over 12 inches long, a giant flyer, and tapes out at 206 inches — a fantastic Tennessee mountain trophy!
