An 8-point frame with 5 additional abnormal points, Chris Fox's buck scored 173 6/8 and is the highest scoring non-typical ever recorded in Polk County by the Tennessee Deer Registry. Photo by Bill Cooper.

From his home in Etowah, Chris Fox has a great view of the Chilhowee Mountain Ridge, just south of where the Hiwassee River makes a deep cut through the Cherokee National Forest on its eastward run to the North Carolina state line. The national forest provides a variety of recreational opportunities to a great many Tennesseans, but for Fox and many other local residents, deer hunting ranks near the top of the list.

Hunting on the national forest is managed through a cooperative agreement between the Forest Service and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), which divides the 620,000 acres of forestlands into different management units within their wildlife management area (WMA) system. Types of hunts, dates and bag limits are also set by the TWRA.

Fox primarily hunts the South Cherokee portion of the WMA in Polk County, which includes the Chilhowee Mountain area. During the fall of 2006, while hunting on a special bear and boar managed hunt, Fox encountered one of the biggest whitetails he had ever seen in the national forest.

"The buck had stopped and was standing broadside within easy shooting distance," Fox said. "The deer's rack was extremely massive from the bottom to the top, but all I could do was look. I went back and hunted the area during the next scheduled deer hunt but never saw the buck again."

Last fall, Fox hunted the WMA during the same managed hunt for bear and boar. In this instance, he did not see any big deer; however, three other hunters reportedly did spot a buck with an extremely big rack.

"All of the sightings came from approximately the same area of the WMA, but I obviously had no way of knowing if the other hunters had seen three different bucks or if they had all seen the same deer," Fox said. "I was familiar with the area, having hunted there previously, but this was not the same part of the WMA where I had encountered the big buck in 2006."

The following week, the WMA had a scheduled deer hunt and Fox decided to hunt within the area where the buck, or possibly bucks, had reportedly been seen. The terrain of the primary hunting location included a series of hillside finger ridges and adjacent hollows situated between the top of a high mountain ridge and an adjacent deep valley.

Shortly before daybreak on a very cold December morning, the hunter drove his pickup along a narrow woods road that followed the crest of the mountain. After parking the truck, he picked up his rifle and gear and began walking out to a nearby finger ridge, looking for a good vantage point to watch the hillsides below.

"In spite of never having much luck with the technique, I had decided to try rattling that morning," Fox said. "There was no wind and I knew the sound would carry really well, but after going through several rattling sequences without having any response, I decided to walk back to the truck and drive a little farther along the top of the mountain."

On the way back to his vehicle, Fox jumped a doe, which offered some encouragement that at least a few deer were moving on that cold morning. After reaching his second location, the hunter quickly grabbed his rifle and headed off down another narrow ridge.