Every avid whitetail hunter, almost without exception, dreams of that big buck. The Pope & Young animal. The Booner. The one to fill the empty hole on the wall reserved specifically for “that” deer. The one. Hours are devoted to the quest akin to that for The Holy Grail. Food plots. Stands. Cameras. Topo maps. Google Earth. And that’s all before the first moment is spent high above terra firma. Watching. Waiting. Hoping. Nervous. Anxious. Wondering … will it happen today?

For Tennessee’s Tyler Porter, that day was September 2, 2017. That’s the day the hole on the wall was filled with the whitetail of which dreams are made. A former educator, the 32-year-old Porter currently partners with his father, Larry, in their Greenfield-based Ken-Tenn Hunting outfitting endeavor. “We’re in our third year now,” said Porter. “It’s a combination of ground we own, along with ground we lease. We cater primarily to archery hunters; however, we do do some muzzleloader and (modern) rifle hunts as well, but they’re relatively limited.”

Porter’s bruiser was taken on opening day of Kentucky’s archery season in Caldwell County on land that he and his family own.

The hunt, said Porter, and the beautiful buck that came as a result actually dates back a year ago to 2016. “We started getting trail cam pictures of this particular buck,” said Porter, “and we could tell he had a lot of potential, if he was given time (to mature). Maybe a year or two, we guessed. But all the pictures we had in 2016 indicated he wasn’t a mature buck, so Dad and I elected to pass him up that year. In fact, we didn’t even hunt him. We didn’t even hunt that particular farm.”

Fast forward now to early 2017. “We got the cameras going,” he said. “Come June, and we’re working on minerals and food plots. That’s when I saw him again; him, and two other bucks. I told Dad it was the same buck we’d seen the year before. He wasn’t tremendously wide, but had a little flier off one of his points and a lot of the same characteristics (of the earlier buck). So we were starting to build a history with this particular deer.”

Porter and his father continued to monitor the buck throughout the summer of ’17. “We got tuned into his core area,” he said, “and stayed out of there as much as possible.” With baiting legal in the state of Kentucky, Porter opts to construct and place a feeding station. “Pretty soon,” he said, “the buck was using it three or four afternoons a week. If not during daylight, then at night.”

Over the next few weeks, Porter and his father caught glimpses of the buck as they maintained feeders and food plots and conducted their intensive pre-season scouting. “He’d been using the area quite heavily,” he said. “After evaluating all the trail cam pictures, we decided that this was a deer we want to focus on. So we discussed it, Dad and I, and came up with a game plan. I had a stand hung the year before, but I’d tweaked it. I’d relocated it so I could hunt it with a south wind, which seemed to work out quite well.”

Opening day dawned with Porter not in his stand, but still at his home in Bartlett, Tennessee, some 200 miles away from what would become his buck of a lifetime. “During the early season in Kentucky,” he said, “I tend not to hunt the mornings. I’ve learned that you can booger up more things than you can (in the morning). A lot of times, the deer are at the feeders right at daylight, and you’ll blow them out more often than not.” His plan, then, was to hunt the afternoon shift, which he did — but not without a bit of a hiccup en route.

“I left the house early,” he said. “And I always bring the (video) camera with me. I’ve never gotten a kill shot (of my own) on film. So I get halfway to the farm and realize I’d forgotten the camera. Do I go back for it?” After some momentary soul-searching, Porter turned the truck around to retrieve his video equipment. “I filmed the whole hunt,” he said. “Everything. I’m so glad I went back and got the camera.”

Porter, with camera and bow in hand, eventually made it to his predetermined stand. “I did manage to get to the farm early,” he recalls. The weather, he said, for Kentucky’s opening day was perfect. “The best it’s been in the 8 years I’ve been hunting this piece of property,” he said. Arriving at his hand, Porter sprays down with scent elimination spray, climbs up, hangs his bow and pack and readies the video camera. Action, he remembers, isn’t long in coming. “I hadn’t been there 15 or 20 minutes,” he said, “when a doe and twins came out of the woods. That was about 5:30. They stayed out in front of me for 30 or 40 minutes before a little buck, a little 6-pointer, came out. But then something spooked them and they all left.” It was 6 o’clock, which meant there was still plenty of time, Porter guessed, for something to happen. Something big.

He had reason, he recalls, to stay put and stay on his toes. “As I walked in that day,” he said, “I pulled the card from the trail camera one last time, just to check it. The afternoon before we’d had a good rain, the remnants of Hurricane Harvey, I reckon. I figured (the weather) would keep the deer all bedded up.”

He was wrong. “That same afternoon with all that rain,” he said, “there was deer movement like crazy. And that buck was there with them. I texted Dad and wrote ‘He was here last night! He probably won’t be here today.’ I hoped I wasn’t jinxing myself, but he hadn’t really been (on the camera) two days in a row in daylight. And that for a period of, I’ll say, at least six weeks.”

Porter need not have worried. “So everything runs off,” he said, “but five minutes, and they start filtering back. And when they came back, the buck was with them. He comes out into the field from my left, quartering toward me as he’s feeding.”

Bow in hand and camera rolling, Porter stands ready. “I’m waiting for him to give me a shot. But that joker stood (quartering toward me) for 10 minutes. He just wouldn’t present a shot.” Porter snaps a photograph with his cell phone, in part to record the moment for posterity, and in part to calm himself.

“At first, I was all, ‘Man, I’m nervous!’ Buck fever. But by the time I’d been standing there for five or six minutes, I begin to tell myself, ‘All right, Tyler. Just chill out and make this happen.’”

Five minutes turns to eight; eight roll over to 10 — a very long 10 minutes. “Finally,” Porter said, “he turns 180 degrees and starts walking away. Now he’s 25 yards from where he’d been standing, and walking straight away.” Porter draws.

“I’d been on my 20-yard pin,” he recalls. “Now, I’m at 30. Once he starts walking away, I changed to 40. But he gets out there and stops. I knew the feeder was at 40 (yards), so if he was between me and the feeder, I could judge that.” Thirty-five yards now, and Porter prepares to feather his release.

“He never really gave me a good shot (out there),” he said. “And I thought, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ But before I could make a mistake, he turned and came right back to where he was at 25 yards.” By now, Porter has drawn, let down, changed the camera angle, gotten it rolling, turned and drawn again. “Now he turns broadside,” Porter said, “and I smoked him.”

As Porter recovers from the release, the buck mule-kicks and bolts. “I’ve killed does with these Rage broadheads,” he said, “but I’ve never killed a really big deer with my bow. As soon as that arrow hit him, though, it instantly opened him up. I could tell it was a good hit.” As the buck disappears into the timber, Porter rings his Dad and his wife. “No one answered,” he said. “I thought, ‘Someone’s going to answer before I get down.’ Finally, I got Dad on the phone.” Fifteen minutes turn into the longest 20 minutes of Porter’s young life. Another 10, and he climbs down.

Porter’s estimation from the base of his tree to where the buck of a lifetime lay still was about 70 yards. “I hit him right behind the crease of the shoulder,” he said. “Heart shot, which I found out when I field-dressed him.” The shot, Porter admits, was a tad low. “I was anticipating him to duck (the arrow). I always shoot for the heart. If he ducks me, I’m still going to get the lungs. This time I shot heart, and he didn’t duck at all. It smashed him. At 25 yards, he didn’t have a whole lot of time to react to anything.”

Porter’s Rage had done an incredibly efficient job. “You hear these people on television saying, ‘You take a Rage, and it’s like a paint can spilt.’ Well, it was all that. That broadhead penetrated clear to the opposite shoulder. Not a pass-through, but clear penetration.”

A short time later, Porter’s Dad, armed with muscle and a John Deere Gator, arrived at the farm. “I’ve never had to pull one out in velvet,” he said, “and you have to be very careful if you don’t want to mess it up. We took precautions and wrapped the antlers before we started.

All would agree, a tremendous animal like Porter’s deserves an equally skilled hand at the mounting table. “Dickie Wooten (Wooten’s Taxidermy) in Paris, Tennessee, is doing the work,” Porter said. “Dickie and Kathy are the best taxidermists in West Tennessee, and have been in the business for over 35 years now.”

As for Porter, he’s understandably thankful to many folks for this incredible opportunity, and puts his family at the top of that list. “My wife and I are blessed with two beautiful girls — Abigail, 5, and Audrey, 3 — and are expecting our third girl in January. I want to thank them for letting me chase my dream of killing a Boone & Crockett whitetail! As soon as I recovered the buck, I called them and got to share the moment with them. That’s something I’ll never forget.”

Profile: Names and Numbers

Hunter – Tyler Porter

Hometown – Bartlett, Tennessee

Occupation – Outfitter/Guide – Ken-Tenn Hunting, Dawson Springs, Kentucky

Measurements – Velvet

Gross score – 179-5/8

Measureable points – 19

Left side – 11 points

Right side – 8 points

Left Side

Main Beam – 23-4/8

G1 – 4

G2 – 11

G3 – 10-6/8

G4 – 8

G5 – 2

Abnormal points – 2-4/8; 2-4/8; 1-7/8; 1; 2

Right Side

Main Bean – 23-6/8

G1 – 4-1/8

G2 – 8-4/8

G3 – 9-4/8

G4 – 7-1/8

Abnormal points – 2-6/8; 1-4/8

Gear List 

Bow – Mathew's Drenalin

Arrow – Carbon Express

Broadhead – Rage X-treme Two-Blade

Sights – Trophy Ridge

Release – Scott

Binocular – Nikon

Range Finder – Nikon

Treestand – Big Dog Treestands

Scent Elimination Products – Ozonics

Camouflage Pattern – Mossy Oak

Minerals – Shock Effect Probiotics

Feeders- Boss Buck