The video below from the YouTube channel DeerCo is must-see TV, but it’s the details behind this buck that I find even more interesting.

Chase Grubbs is the name of the young man who kills the giant buck in southeast Iowa. And as I often do when highlighting hunting videos on this website, I won’t play the role of spoiler and reveal details before you have a chance to watch it. The video is 17-minutes long; plan accordingly.

DeerCo’s YouTube channel surpassed 100 subscribers only a few weeks ago, and today it has nearly 5K subscribers. This video is largely the reason for the quick increase. The hosts of DeerCo do an excellent job interacting with people who comment on their YouTube videos, and it was through this comments that I learned numerous facts about the hunters — and the 200-inch buck.

Chase and his DeerCo co-host, Jake, were interns for the well-known YouTube hunting channel Midwest Whitetail during 2020. Chase had never killed a Pope and Young whitetail before, but it’s clear he learned well from the skilled deer hunters who host Midwest Whitetail.

I’ll talk more about DeerCo’s ties to Midwest Whitetail in a moment. First, however, let me touch on a safety issue from the video. Several viewers commented that Chase isn’t wearing a full-body safety harness on this hunt.

Here’s DeerCo’s reply: “Mike, we appreciate your concern! Truthfully, Chase forgot his harness that day on accident. Instead of not hunting, he used and old-style waist harness he had in the toolbox of his truck as a last-ditch effort to hunt. If you continue to follow along, you will see we both wear harnesses on a daily basis. Thank you for watching! We appreciate you leaving a comment!”

I also learned more about the property by reading the comments section. DeerCo wrote: “We have two trail cameras on mock scrapes on this 20-acre tract. We gained permission on the ground in mid-September of 2021. That being said, we had cameras out for only about a month.”

Another topic covered in the comments section is game care after finding the dead buck. The air temperature was 73 degrees this particular afternoon, but Chase and his buddies kept the buck in the back of a truck until morning, then shot more video and pics the following morning. When asked about it, the hosts wrote: “Being that we shot him at night, we packed him with ice bags so that we could take pictures quick in the morning before we processed him.”

The Rest of the Story

Okay, now let me get to the most interesting part of this 200-inch buck story. As I said, Chase and Jake worked as interns for Midwest Whitetail. And in the video below Chase thanks the guys at Midwest Whitetail for teaching him a lot about patterning mature bucks, filming hunts, etc. But it was only when I started reading the comments section following this video that the story takes an interesting — and uncomfortable? — turn.

One person asked: “Is this ‘The Flyer Buck’ that Jared from Midwest Whitetail was hunting? He mentions in his most recent video that two kids who worked for them last year got permission on two surrounding farms.”

And before DeerCo could reply, other viewers chimed in: “Same deer. They got permission next to all of Jared’s hotspots.”

Oh boy! These comments got my attention!

Because I didn’t want to discuss this possible touchy subject without verification, I took the time to watch a bunch of Midwest Whitetail’s latest episodes, and sure enough, it’s the same buck. Jared, who co-hosts Midwest Whitetail, explained: “unfortunately he (Flyer) was killed in mid-October; a couple kids who used to work for us got permission on a number of neighboring properties around our farm, including that farm.” Click here for the video; fast-forward to the 6:50 mark. In addition to talking about the big buck being killed, Jared shows some incredible footage of Flyer from fall 2021, as well video of a world-class buck that Chase calls ‘Cronk,’ which was living on the same properties. Jared says this second monster buck was killed by a vehicle. Be sure to check out Jared’s video for all this backstory.

The guys from DeerCo did talk about Jared’s comments. They wrote: “All good! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and everyone hunts someone else’s bordering property. Deer are free ranging and are not owned by any one individual!”

I can’t disagree with DeerCo’s comments about deer not being owned by any one individual. That said, the fact remains Chase and Jake wouldn’t have any knowledge of these properties without Jared and Midwest Whitetail, and in my opinion, to seek permission on adjacent farms and then target the same deer the following season isn’t cool.

Regardless of how you feel about this topic, I do encourage you to watch the DeerCo video below, then watch Jared’s Midwest Whitetail video (fast-forward to the 6:50 mark) to see lots of great footage of two crazy-big whitetails from Iowa.