Last season, Jonathan Armstrong bagged the state's top typical gun kill while hunting in Henderson County. His big buck scores 178 4/8. Taxidermy by Velma Smith. Photo by Bill Cooper.

Along with "age" and "genetics," the one word synonymous with big whitetails is "agriculture."

In Kentucky, this automatically refers to the state's western end. Certainly near the top of the list would be the Ohio River bottomlands around the Henderson area.

Len Stovall lives and farms in Henderson County. Like many local hunters, he's addicted to hunting big whitetails. During the summer and early fall of 2006, trail cameras on Len's farm recorded several photos of an exceptional whitetail. Because its rack was so recognizable, with very long tines on both its right and left antlers, the buck was assigned the nickname of "Hightower."

Later, during the November gun season, Len diligently hunted the area with Jonathan Armstrong, a good friend and frequent hunting companion. They concentrated their efforts near those locations where the buck had been photographed. But the season ended without an encounter.

Understandably, both hunters anxiously looked forward to the fall of 2007 for another opportunity to hunt Hightower. But as August, September and October passed with no sign of the buck, their plans gradually evaporated. Especially discouraging was that during this period, they'd positioned trail cameras at the same farm locations where the deer had been photographed the year before.

"Our natural assumption was that something had befallen the buck," Len said. "Certainly we considered the EHD outbreak within the state. However, we had not seen any evidence, nor heard of any deer loss in our general area.

"I thought there was a possibility that the buck might be staying on an adjoining tract of land referred to as 'the Sanctuary,' where no hunting is allowed.

"An earlier storm had blown down a number of large oaks on the property. The resulting was a huge, nearly impenetrable thicket of briars, honeysuckle, saplings and brush. Even so, it seemed reasonable to assume that the buck would show up occasionally at night in the same areas where the previous photos were taken."

On opening day of the 2007 gun season, Hightower remained missing. But two other impressive bucks did show up. On opening morning, Len's 9-year-old daughter Emma took a great 8-pointer with a 20-inch spread.

And that afternoon, from the same stand, Len himself dropped a superb 140-class 8-pointer.

While Jonathan was helping Len drag his buck out of the woods, he remarked that he'd seen the same buck chasing a doe that morning, but hadn't been able to get a shot at the deer. That would turn out to be the most fortunate missed opportunity of the hunter's life!

Before daybreak on Sunday morning, it had begun raining. By midday, it had gradually lessened to a steady drizzle. Shortly after noon, Jonathan returned to the same stand location he had hunted the day before, positioned in a fence line bordering a large cut cornfield.

That rainy afternoon was uneventful until shortly before dark, when Jonathon spotted a buck walking along an overgrown fence line across the cornfield, approximately 300 yards away. Despite the distance and the dim light, he could see that the deer had a sizable rack.

Quickly maneuvering the rifle into a solid shooting position, the hunter carefully aligned the crosshairs of his Zeiss scope and squeezed the trigger.