World record bull elk casey brooks
The Real Story Behind the Casey Brooks Bull, the Pending World Record Elk
Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter
Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite.
When Beau Brooks, a popular hunting personality, posted a New Year’s Day photo of his dad holding up the rack of an absolutely gigantic bull elk, outdoor social media went wild.
In the post, Beau noted the bull’s green scores, 480 4/8 net and 490 4/8 gross, which would be enough for the bull to dethrone the Spider Bull as the all-time Boone & Crockett non-typical world record. But aside from tagging Washington State as the location, and celebrating his dad, Casey Brooks, as the “King of Elk Hunting” with 86 bulls to his credit, Beau’s post was thin on details.
It was not long before commenters started criticizing the ethics around Brooks’ hunt. Aaron Whitefoot, a local elk hunter and enrolled Yakama tribal member, seemed to be leading the controversy on social media.
“Have to call this guy the driveway hunter,” wrote Whitefoot on Facebook on Jan. 4. That post was shared 375 times and garnered 1,300 comments.
Whitefoot, who declined to be interviewed on the recordin January, posted more
Bowhunter with 86 Bulls to His Credit Tags a Pending World-Record Elk
Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter
Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite.
Longtime bowhunter and Hoyt pro staffer Casey Brooks has always dreamed of tagging a world-record elk. And on Dec. 31, he killed an absolute giant of a Rocky Mountain bull that has the potential to break both the Pope and Young and the all-time Boone and Crockett records. This is according to an Instagram post that was shared by Brooks’ son, Beau, and then re-shared on Hoyt Archery’s Facebook page. Brooks’ bull was given official green scores of 480 4/8 net and 490 4/8 gross, according to those posts.
“For as long as I can remember, my dad has been chasing giant bulls, coming incredibly close to this moment multiple times,” Beau wrote in his original post on Jan. 2. “Dad and his friends had been tracking this bull for years, finding sheds and keeping tabs on him.”
Details behind the hunt are slim, and neither Casey nor Beau responded immediately to requests for comment. Beau did not specify where his dad was hunting — only that he killed the bull in late December. But he tagged “Washingto
Renowned Archer Tags Pending World-Record Bull Elk
If you pay any attention to the latest and greatest in Western big game hunting, odds are you’ve already seen photos of Casey Brooks’ potential world record-nabbing bull elk. The brutish, palmated 9-by-8 is circulating headlines, social media feeds, and hunt forums after Brooks’ son, Beau, shared photos and videos of the head and horns on Thursday, January 2. According to a photo of the official Pope & Young scoresheet, Brooks harvested the bull on New Year’s Eve.
“For as long as I can remember, my dad has been chasing giant bulls, coming incredibly close to this moment multiple times,” Beau Brooks wrote in an Instagram caption. “He…has taken an astounding 12 bulls over 400 inches and 86 bull elk in total with a bow. But this bull—this absolute monarch—stands above them all.”
Casey Brooks with the giant potential world-record elk via Beau Brooks' Facebook.
Brooks already holds the third- and fourth-ranking nontypical P&Y records, with bulls scoring 436 1/8 and 430 6/8, respectively. The location tag on the Instagram post indica
Brooks Talks About Hunting His Pending World-Record Kittitas County Bull Elk
“I want to get the story out there. I want people to know what really happened.”
So states Washington bowhunter Casey Brooks during a two-hour interview with friendly podcaster and fellow elk-ophile Cameron Hanes in finally breaking his silence on his memorable 2024 raffle tag hunt that sparked innuendo, photoshopping and a brief game warden investigation that found “no violations,” as skillfully as the pending world-record Rocky Mountain bull.
Brooks, 59, and who lives in La Center nearby Vancouver, also detailed the pursuit of the Kittitas County enormous in an Outdoor Lifearticle out yesterday.
His trophy was measured by Pope & Young scorers at last week’s Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Show in Redmond, and it tallied 482 4/8 inches net and 491 6/8 inches gross. Two more scorings are needed to make it official, per OL. It was Brooks’ 12th bull of more than 400 inches and 86th elk overall.
The long and the short of the story is that after his buddies found the bull’s sheds in 2024 and he drew the $7 raffle tag, Brooks said he hunted the animal on public l
Creeping into archery range on a bugling bull elk takes skill, stealth, and nerve—and it's one bow hunting's most sought-after experiences. But what if the bull elk you're stalking scores over 400 inches? Better yet, what if it ends up being a top-five record book animal? That's a scenario that most elk hunters will only dream about.
For a select few, though, a top-five bull elk became a reality. With help from the Pope & Young Club, the definitive record-keeping organization for all archery-killed big game in North America, we dug up the top-five typical and non-typical American elk ever taken with archery equipment—along with photos of the animals and thrilling stories from the hunters who shot them.
None of these bulls score under 400 inches, and the biggest non-typical—taken in Canada in 2021—measured just a hair shy of 450. Some of the stories aren't what you'd expect. The biggest typical of all time, for example, was taken during a DIY public land hunt deep in the Montana backcountry. From Alberta to Arizona, these are the biggest, baddest bulls ever taken with a bow and arrow.
Typical
1. The Felix Bull
The number one typical elk o