Kirt Darner Story W/ Pic

prohunter

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My Dealings With Darner

(continued from page 6)

The envelope was addressed to my last name only, misspelled "LARROCCO." In it was a black-and-white 3 1/2 x 5-inch snapshot along with a short, unsigned letter. The letter stated that the photo was taken in the 50s and showed "Bob Housholder, who is now 65 yrs old." The letter also pointed out, as several others already had noticed, that two different bucks shown in Darner's second book, "Hunting the Rockies," were photographed in front of the same rock. Darner had claimed that he had killed one of the deer in Colorado and the other in Utah. I had already heard Darner's contention that he had hauled both carcasses to a favorite location where he liked to photograph trophies. Indeed the first time I had visited him he had taken me to such a location, where I had photographed him with some of his heads. But the old picture was harder to explain. Even a cursory look at the snapshot showed that this rack was configured exactly the same as the antlers of the buck shown on the cover of "How to Find Giant Bucks." Both racks had some rare and distinguishable features, such as a so-called acorn point on the right antler, a downturned main beam, a cluster of three points on the G3 tine along with a cheater point and a curved down cheater off the G4 point. The brow tines also appeared to be identical.

The antler configuration alone wasn't quite enough proof, however. A few years earlier I had leased a big ranch in northern Utah, and one of my guides, Jason Barlow, had found a big non-typical antler on the property. If the other antler had been identical, the buck would have scored about 230 Boone and Crockett points. This non-typical antler had bases that were about 5 1/2 inches in circumference and carried eight or nine points, including two or three cheater points. Later I found what I was sure was the other antler, but it was a typical antler that, if matched, would have comprised a trophy scoring a bit over 190 B&C. A couple of months later, a poacher on our property killed a deer that had a rack that was almost a perfect match for the sheds we had found. (That poacher was a relative of one of my other guides, Rocky VanderSteen, who also had a suspiciously large number of trophy-class mule deer in his trophy room. I suspected that Rocky had told his family member where to trespass with the least likelihood of being caught.)

We compared the poached deer's antlers with the sheds that we happened to have in camp. The poached buck appeared to be younger than the animal that had left the sheds, based on mass alone; the poached deer's antler bases weren't much more than four inches in circumference. However, the sheds showed the same bends and curves, and the non-typical points were almost identical except for some missing cheaters. Yet the poached rack featured short ridges in the exact locations of the cheaters, indicating to me where cheater points probably have have grown if the deer had been allowed to live another year. Yet I was convinced that the sheds came from a different deer, based simply on mass. Later that year, during the November blackpowder season, I had a chance to hunt myself. While hunting with Rex Thomas, a freelancer who had been an editor at Petersen's Hunting Magazine and a PR man at Browning and is now an employee of the National Rifle Association, I missed a huge buck. That animal circled us and perched on a rocky hillside out of muzzleloader range, wary of us but not wanting to leave the vicinity of a dozen does. Rex got out his spotting scope, and we were able to watch that deer for five minutes. That deer appeared to be the same one that had dropped the shed antlers that Jason and I had found and had the same antler configuration and the same cheaters.

I decided to examine the Housholder photograph more closely. With a 10x loupe I could see what was essentially a fingerprint of the Housholder buck. When an antler grows, blood veins in the velvet leave deposits of calcium on the surface of the antlers. The deposits are left in ridges and dots or tiny mounds. The ridges indicate exactly how the veins were patterned, and the dots appear in unique patterns known as beading. Even two clones of the same buck would show different ridge and beading patterns. If the Housholder buck and the Darner buck were one and the same, surely a close examination would determine that.


"The rich...who are content to buy what they have not the skill to get by their own exertions, these are the real enemies of game." Theodore Roosevelt
 
Don't leave us hanging now man. I think that the buck that is in question is one of my favorite NT's of all time. There is just something about that rack that I have always loved, its a sweet one.
 
LAST EDITED ON May-02-06 AT 09:31PM (MST)[p]The buck in question is the one next to Darner in the lower right hand corner of this photo.
How long 'till the rest of the story?
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ARE THESE THE SAME BUCK????
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HouseholderBob57.jpg
 
Yup, its the same. Too bad, Im sure the guys a great hunter, probably killed some or most of those bucks legaly. He tried to push the envelope and make some $$$ off of lying. Sad.




 
Looks the same to me. I found it interesting that the buck on the Cover of the book, has the words over the top of the "acorn point". I think that that would be one of the most distinguishable points on the deer. I wonder if it was covered on purpose for that exact reason!?!??!

Either way, its too bad that the greed of " the trophy " can lead people down a road that takes them away from what true hunting is all about!

Well, cant wait to hear the rest of this story!


SCOTT
 
They look pretty dang similar, I can't imagine them being different deer, hopefully we don't have to wait another 2 months for another installment, I guess it gives us something to post about though, lol.
 
257--those bouncing boobs are very distracting in trying to calculate these 2 buck heads.
 
Like previously stated, the words over the acorn point on the book hide that for sure. Appears to be the same buck.
So is Bob Housholder the true hunter of that buck with him holding the yard stick? And how did Kirt get his hands on the rack?
Bob Housholder has a brother who I think is still alive, wonder if he knows something about this?

Brian
 
There are dead give away's leading to both those bucks being the same....Left antler is crabclawed,Right mainbeam is super long and dips down and checkout the left eyeguard.......

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Again here is the story of the buck in question as told by our own "Wetmule"
(Good Job)
I have heard nearly the exact story from informed people in years past.
wetmule (108 posts)
Mar-14-06, 01:32 PM (MST)
122. "RE: Kirt Darner 210+ B&C"
The buck on the cover of the book was killed by Dean Naylor in Kaibab in the fall of 1948.After returning from WW2 he settled in Phoenix and worked for the phone company earning approx. $32 a month. He and his brother went to Kaibab in 1948 and he was lucky enough to kill the buck with his 30-30. They took the buck to the check station where it drew alot of attention. He was proud of the rack but more glad he had a winters supply of meat.Among the crowd at the check station was staff AZ Republic photographer Charlie Niehuis who shot several rolls of film of the buck. The photos appeared in several publications accompanying Niehuis authored hunting articles including the Sept. 1949 issue of American Rifleman. Also at the check station was Phoenix taxidermist Jeff Sievers who was there to try to drum up business. Mr. Naylor wanted to mount the buck but couldn't afford it and he agreed to sell the rack to Sievers for $5 which was the cost of the Kaibab permit. Sievers took the rack back to PHX. The only official B & C measurer in the state at the time took the rack home to measure it where it was measured and photographed by his dad and also Charlie Niehuis took more pictures of the buck as it was getting measured. It was then returned to Sievers shop where it was mounted to be used for display. In the early to mid seventies the buck was either stolen or somehow disappeared.Coincidently Darner, if I'm not mistaken was attending community college or junior college in PHX at the time.
The story was broken by B&C official measurer Mike Cupell and a subsequent story appeared in the Sept. 1990 Arizona Hunter & Angler magazine detailing all of what I said above with alot more details. All of this is old news and has been beat to death. I have seen the buck in person and I know all the people involved from AZ to CO to Utah and I have seen many of the photographs that were used to break this story and have examined them myself. In my opinion there is absolutely no doubt at all it is the same buck. Every tine, spread, dimple, calcium deposit, blood line, bend, weave, dip in the beam, blemish etc., etc. matches perfectly. There was no doubt in the B & C opinion and there is no doubt in mine. Now people will come on here and tell you that the buck was carbon dated and that Darners buck was wider and blah, blah, blah the defenders will use all possible means to make their case. These bucks antlers are just like fingerprints and visible deer DNA, no two are exactly alike.
You could possibly make the case that a 2,3 or 4 point buck could look almost identical to the next or could look identical to thousands of other bucks, but I imagine even with those very similar bucks no two will ever be exactly the same. Now try to say that a 272 inch monster that is a one in a million trophy, and try to say that there are two of them and they look exactly alike in every possible way. I don't think so.
----------------------------------------------------------------
THANK YOU WETMULE!
Now that everyone here can see with their own two eyes, does anyone still want to hash out that old "carbon dating" arguement that was Darner's defense?
 
DUDE! Carbon datin gis 100% accurate! They try it on a penny and it comes up like 1,241,894,348,903,713,804 years old!!!!




 
Why is Darner holding the buck like he just shot it out in that sage country? That thing is as mounted as a doe in heat. He has hunter orange on and even has a rifle straped to his back. NO NO doubt that this the same buck.

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one shot
 
Case solved.
Same buck.
Bigger smile.

Chef
"I Love Animals...They're Delicious!"
 
Yep, same buck! I remember meeting Kirt at a sport show and buying his book, I even got him to autograph it for me..... That buck on the cover was my favorite...... Very Sad. Groundhog
 
Wow, I've heard about that pic for years but to finally see the side by side comparison is really something. Nothing like a smokin' gun in the whole Darner debacle eh? No doubt those 2 bucks are the same.

My question is, why would he put that buck on the front cover of his book? Did he think that everyone was dumber than him and he'd get away with it? If you stole or bought a buck and you were claiming to be the hunter wouldn't you keep it as a lower profile than your own legit bucks? Or does he have his own legit bucks? Putting that buck on the cover is as 'bout as dumb as Rustlin' live elk.
 
O.K. BOYS!!!

THE PICTURE IS SO PHONY HELL WON'T HAVE IT!!!

GOT HIS RIFLE ON HIS BACK!!!

GOT HIS HUNTER ORANGE ON!!!

THE BUCK IS MOUNTED!!!

HE'S ACTING LIKE HE JUST SHOT IT!!!

THE ACORN POINT IS HID!!!

AND TO THINK I BOUGHT THAT SAME BOOK!!!

THE ONLY bobcat THINKING:AS PHONY AS THAT PICTURE IS I WOULDN'T TRUST THIS GUY DARNER WITH JACKMASTERS RED-HEAD!!!
 
Appears as thought the cover photo and barn pics could have been taken the same day with the same shirt on, same hair length, etc.
 
OK, he lied and misrepresented the buck. Did he poach it? Did he steal it? Did he buy it? Did his wife Paula trade, ah never mind.Did Darner claim he killed it or did he just never said anything?
 
On page 26 of "How To Find Giant Bucks", Kirt Darner writes;


"One year I killed a 39 inch wide monarch within long rifle range of the road, and the next year in the same place I shot a gigantic 38 incher with an incredible non-typical rack. The cover photograph of this book shows me with that second buck."
 
Anyone have a copy of that September 1990 Arizona Hunter & Angler article?
 
Red Rabbit,

I think your right on... It does look like the photo on the book and in front of the barn WERE took on the same day... In the photo on the cover, he has his rifle on one shoulder and his binoculars on the other... In the photo in front of the barn, he also has his rifle and binoculars... Plus like you mentioned... Same clothes, hat, and hair length...

Justin
 
Wow! Plus the mounted deer next to him on the barn looks to be posed exactly like the "dead" one on the books cover. Great taxidermy work! {sarcasm/on}It looks so lifelike!{sarcasm/off}

Chef
"I Love Animals...They're Delicious!"
 
this is a sad, sad day...even with all of the evidence pointing to something not being right with Darner I was holding a little glimmer of hope that he was legit---until this post, kind of like finding out when you were a kid that Santa isn't real...
 
LAST EDITED ON May-04-06 AT 02:32PM (MST)[p]>this is a sad, sad day...even
>with all of the evidence
>pointing to something not being
>right with Darner I was
>holding a little glimmer of
>hope that he was legit---until
>this post, kind of like
>finding out when you were
>a kid that Santa isn't
>real...

What planet have you been on? This is old news. Nice to see the pictures together, but still old news....
 
IF YOUR GOING TO BE A BEAR BE A GRIZZLY BEAR!
The sad thing about Darner is he took advantage of Mr Larocco and used him to try and make himself look legit. Everybody has an ego but Kirt used his to make money off of a trusting guy like Rich. I know Rich and if he would have even had a doubt he would not have went forward with his book
 
old news but for me this is the first time I've SEEN something concrete with my own eyes....
 
Let me just say something my grandfather always said

If you're a liar you're a thief & if you're a thief you a liar!
The two go hand in hand period??.
 
Great pics--thanks for posting

Not related to Darner--

Good site for Federal poaching cases, both historical and breaking cases: www.fwoa.org

Do a search under "mule deer"

You just might see some names that you'll recognize
 
In Kirts book, "Hunting the Rockies". Look at the two pictures of his Utah non-typical and the Colorado typical. Same rock their sitting on and same tree in the background. It even looks like he is wearing the same clothes in these two pictures.
 

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