Tennessee Claims New World Record Whitetail

It's official - Stephen Tucker and his 47-point whitetail buck are in the record books. Tucker, of Sumner County, Tennessee, shot the trophy buck in November during a muzzleloader hunt. 60 days later, the drying period was complete and the rack was ready for measurement.

On Monday, four Boone and Crockett judges spent nearly four hours measuring the rack and it registered 312 3/8 inches. That score beats the current non-typical world record from a 2003 Iowa buck of 307 3/8 inches, which only had 38 points.

The rack was scored at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), which did a great job of documenting the entire process on their Facebook page. The official world record for a deer killed by a hunter is pending official certification, which won't take place until the Boone and Crockett awards banquet in 2019. But, TWRA also declared Tucker's trophy as a state record as well. It crushed the previous state record from the same county back in 2000 at 244 3/8 inches.

With all the staggering measurements aside, the most eye-opening number may be the value of the antlers. USA Today asked Jared Steele, owner of Great Basin Antler Buyers in Utah about the rack, "It's hard to put an exact number on it, but to the right buyer it could be worth a $100,000," said Steele. "Especially if it turns out to be a world record because there are people who collect stuff like that who are millionaires. To them it might be worth more than $100,000. You never know."

As for Tucker, he hasn't decided what he wants to do. "I don't have any plans for it right now," Tucker said Tuesday. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to go with the flow. I just feel very blessed."

If Tucker decides to allow vendors and wildlife organizations to pay him to display the rack, he probably will find that it actually increases in value.

"It's going to hold its value for sure," Steele said. "It would be like an investment. Once more people learn about it, more people will get interested and want to see it. People are going to want to display it on different shows, and all sorts of stuff will come from it."

What would you do? Leave it in the comments!