The General: The World Record Whitetail That Got Away

There have been plenty of famous bucks in whitetail history. The Hole in the Horn, the Jordan Buck, and the Missouri Monarch to name a few. Many of these bucks have incredible stories to go with them. However, a buck known as "The General" tops them all. This mythical typical out-tapes almost every typical on Earth!

This buck was bigger than Milo Hanson's 213 5/8-inch world record typical. It was bigger than the infamous Rompola buck. Why isn't it better known? The only reason we know this is from the shed antlers it left behind. Most believe it is the biggest typical whitetail deer to ever walk the planet. Incredibly, we're still learning new things about this buck nearly 70 years later!

The Sheds

Our story begins in Custer County, Nebraska with a man named Ben Barnhart. He was a Navy Veteran of World War II who had returned home to the Cornhusker State to take over the family farm. Fast forward a few more years to 1959. The accounts are somewhat conflicting here. Ben was either mending a fence or looking for a lost calf behind the family home near the town of Sargant. This part of the story doesn't matter much. What does matter is the fact that he came across a massive, matched set of shed antlers. Most accounts have one antler on the ground tines down. The other was hanging low in a bush.

Whitetails were not nearly as popular in 1959 as they were today. Still, the antlers made an impression on Barnhart because he picked them up. Upon returning to his farm, he tossed the antlers on a worktable in the barn. That's where they would sit for the next 30+ years. The antlers were later mounted on a plaque and moved into the farmhouse. In hindsight, it's fortunate the barn didn't have a rodent problem. The antlers were not damaged during their time outside the house.

That might have been the end of the story if not for a Kansas outfitter named Tim Condict. He was looking to expand his outfitting business to Nebraska. At some point he talked to one of Barnhart's neighbors. The neighbor directed him to Barnhart.

Condict could hardly believe what he saw hanging on Barnhart's wall. This animal had it all. The buck had 32-inch main beams. It had mass measurements over seven inches. Some of the G-2, G-3, and G-4 tines towered over 12 inches. Each size measures over 100 inches by itself.

The buck would likely net somewhere between 218- and 230-inches net. That is assuming a conservative inside spread of 23-24 inches. Most experts doubt the spread would be narrower. Those measurements put the deer roughly five inches larger than the Hanson buck on the low end.

The Buck Becomes a Legend

Condict knew The General was a world class buck. His discovery later led to the buck being sold for the first time to an antler collector named Brad Gsell. An interesting footnote here is that no one seems to know anything about Gsell. According to Deer and Deer Hunting, it appears that Condict later took possession of the antlers.

North American Whitetail wrote the first story about the buck in December of 1996. It didn't take long for the buck to become a Nebraska legend. The antlers then changed hands more than a dozen times over the years. In 2016, Cabela's purchased them.

Cabela's later recreated The General for a bronze statue in front of a Minnesota store. That statue still stands in front of the store today. Hunters far and wide found the story of the sheds intriguing.

One of the more interesting facets of the story was that The General wasn't alone. Barnhart claimed he saw the buck several times in 1958 before he found the sheds. He claimed the giant buck was always running with two other bucks around the same size. This only fueled the imagination of hunters further. It's hard to believe one buck running around that nets over 200 inches typical, let alone three. Unfortunately, no evidence of the other bucks has emerged. It's not out of the realm of possibility that another set of antlers could be in a barn or attic somewhere. Connecting that set to The General would be another matter.

It seems like that should be the end of the story, but The General continues to make hunting headlines. In 2025, there were two new revelations about this 67-year-old story.

Evidence of Alterations

The General sold again in March of 2025 to antler collector Josh Duncan. The staggering $1 million price tag was enough to drop any hunter's jaw. That was only one of the surprises this old deer had in store in 2025. One month later, new photos of The General emerged. These new photos have a time stamp that appears to place the year as 1995. They were likely shot after Barnhart first showed the antlers to Condict.

It wasn't the date of the photos that got everyone talking. Instead, it was the presence of two very clear sticker points jutting from the buck's G2 and G3. That means someone cut them off the rack. It's unknown who did the alterations. We can guess at a rough timeline though. The first photo of the sheds in North American Whitetail shows the rack without the stickers. That means they were likely lopped off in 1995 or mid-1996.

It seems that someone did it to increase the score of the sheds. The person who did the alterations is unknown. Duncan estimates the two sticker points were likely three to five inches of antler in total. Both points would detract from the buck's final score. Still, it's shocking that the alterations went unnoticed for 30 years.

The alterations could boot the antlers from official shed hunting record books. Most record books do not accept altered racks. While disappointing, it doesn't take anything away from the buck itself. The irony here is that the removal of the two points means little in the grander scheme of things. Many believe the buck would still outscore the Hanson buck, even with the stickers intact. We'll never know for sure because The General was never harvested.

More Sheds Emerge

As if the story of The General wasn't wild enough, there's another fresh wrinkle to the story. In 2025, a giant antler showed up at the Iowa Deer Classic. The antler's owner had discovered it in her late grandparent's belongings. Not much is known about this antler. We do know that the antler came from Sargant, Nebraska in 1961. The old stomping grounds of the legendary deer.

Someone noticed the new shed looked a lot like another set of sheds from January of 1964. Pheasant hunter Larry Sanger picked up that set. The interesting thing about the Sanger sheds is that the hunter saw the buck that dropped them. One antler fell off when the hunter jumped the buck in a plum thicket. This led him to investigate further. A little backtracking led to the match.

The location of the 1961 and 1964 sheds seemed like more than mere coincidence. Each shed had too many similarities to discount, especially the split brow tines. Duncan and Ryan Pellersels, who owns the 1964 set, decided to find out for certain. The University of California tested samples from both sets of sheds. The results proved a 100 percent match. Both sets of sheds came from The General. It seems likely the 1961 shed also came from the same deer. The later sets seem to show the tell-tale signs of a buck regressing as it ages. There is no doubt the original set was the buck's peak.

The incredible thing about the 1964 set is the timeline it sets for the buck's age. The General was likely at least 4.5 years old when he grew the world record crown in 1958. It's even more likely he was 5.5 years old. This would put the deer's age at 10.5 or even 11.5 years old in 1964! This is ancient for any whitetail deer. Even captive whitetails don't live this long very often. It adds to the mystique of the animal. He managed to live for over a decade in the wild! We can only assume he was a master at evading hunters. It also raises aother important question. How many other sheds from The General might be sitting in a basement or attic, waiting for discovery?

The Legacy of The General

Altered antlers aside, this is still one of the biggest whitetail bucks to ever walk the Earth. Keep in mind that the sheds spent years in a barn before discovery. There is a good chance the antlers lost several inches as they dried. This is the fun thing about The General, the unknown. We'll never have an accurate inside spread. Never will we know how he would have taped if measured immediately after harvest. That unknown is the most intriguing part of the tale. It's also why this buck has cemented itself in hunting history. The General was the ultimate story about "the one that got away." We wouldn't have it any other way.