Kirt Darner's judgment...can anyone one tell me where he ended up??

B

bucktaxi

Guest
Just wondering if anyone on here knows what happened to Darner. Was he sentanced to jail time and if so where???
 
Its been postponed until mid January

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I've been out of the loop on this? Does this go back to the old days, or is there something new on him?
 
Ok check that previous statement by me.... just found and read about what's going on...

He's a fool! And he belongs in the pen.
 
the whole story...

Kirt Darner - The Rise and Fall Of A Legendary Trophy Mule Deer Hunter

Kirt Darner and his wife Paula go on trial in January for several Big Game related violations, one of which is for tranquilizing trophy Elk in New Mexico and then transporting them to a Ranch where huge fees would be charged for hunting them.

This seems to be the end of the line for the once popular "legendary" big game hunter and guide. I say "legendary" simply because now all his Big Game kills are questionable, even if they were legitimate. Hunters can be an unforgiving crowd, and rightly so. Fool us once, shame on you - fool us twice, shame on us. Many of us don't give game law violators a second chance.

Whether found guilty or innocent, it seems the final hand has already been dealt by the Boone & Crockett Club when the removed his Non-Typical Mule deer from the books.

When the B&C club notified Darner that they wanted a hands-on examination of the rest of his B&C entries, Darner notified the Club to remove them all, which they did.

The big Mule Deer in questions had already been listed in the B&C Club, it was killed back in the 40's.

I remember when the articles first started coming out about Kirt Darner. At the time, I had a subscription to Outdoor Life and soaked up every story I could find about Kirt. I, like many other deer hunters I'm sure, dreamed of one day getting a chance to take one of those big racked Mule Deer.

Kirt Darner's claim to fame at the time was that he'd killed more B&C Mule Deer than anyone else.

He appeared in ads for Remington's Model 700 and made the Outdoor show circuit giving seminars and lectures. If memory serves me correctly, he had a few deer hunting products that he pitched also.

It's sad if you stop and think about it. Many people who actually knew him claims the guy really does know a lot about trophy Mule Deer. From all accounts I found, the guy could have been a genuine Trophy Mule Deer expert and probably made a living by consulting and selling products. Unfortunately for Mr. Darner, not many of us will believe him or want to have anything to do with him nor will any company want to endorse him or his products after this.

Rich LaRocco, the Outdoor Writer who penned both of Kirt Darners books, has distanced his self from Darner. Can't say that I blame him. According to this article about Kirt Darneron LaRocco's website, Mr. LaRocco actually had a hand in bringing some of the discrepancies in Darner's stories to light. This led to closer scrutiny of Darner's claims which finally led to the truth about his B&C entries and their delisting from the Record Book.

Kirt Darner now joins another club in the Outdoor industry, one that isn't quite as rosy. The members of this club have names such as Noel Feather, Tink Nathan and Roger Rothaar to name a few. It's the Club of Famous Hunters who let their ego and greed bring them down. We as Hunters turn our backs on such a club and rightfully so. We need to be the ones policing our own sport. If we don't, then the general public will.

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any of you might know that I wrote both of Kirt Darner's books in the early '80s. Some of you also might know that shortly afterward evidence came into my hands that he had not killed one of his Boone and Crockett mule deer, and I turned that evidence over to Jack Reneau of the Boone and Crockett Club, which later ruled against Darner.

This is a long and sorry story, and I've never written it down until now though I've been happy to share it with people who have asked.

I first found out about Darner when I was senior editor at Outdoor Life Magazine (yes, I worked in Manhattan), and I was assigned to edit an article that my friend Jim Zumbo had written about the man. Darner was supposedly the most successful trophy mule deer hunter of all time and had seven bucks in the Boone and Crockett Club's record book.

I also found an article that been written by Doug Knight in Field and Stream magazine in the late '60s or early '70s. The article featured a hunt that Knight had enjoyed with Darner and another young friend in a New Mexico wilderness area, where Knight reported seeing some great bucks and where Darner and his friend both killed big deer.

Later, I left New York to return to the wild and free and sunny West and settled in Cache Valley, Utah. Clair Conley, editor-in-chief of Outdoor Life, asked me to stay with the magazine as Western field editor. I turned him down because the Western field editor of the time was my friend Dwight Schuh, who is now editor of Bowhunting Magazine. Clair said he was letting Dwight go, whether I took the job or not, and so I reluctantly agreed. If I had to make that decision over again, I would

have turned down the job a second time, but sometimes in life you learn the hard way, and when you're hardheaded, that's how you tend to learn all your big lessons. And that is the case with the Darner story

In 1982 I settled my family in Wellsville, Utah, an ideal location for my outdoor writing and editing career because it was right in the middle of some of the finest fishing and hunting country in America. Within two hours I could be hunting in Wyoming or Idaho and within a day's drive I could be fishing or hunting anywhere from California to Nebraska or Montana to New Mexico. And I took the opportunity to see the country, too, fishing or hunting in many locations and writing articles and taking photographs for Outdoor Life and several other outdoor magazines.

Not long after returning to Utah I received an assignment to write a piece on Kirt Darner for North American Hunter magazine, published by the North American Hunting Club. I phoned Darner in Montrose, Colorado, and arranged an interview. He was knowledgeable and engaging. He was also willing to help me accomplish some of my hunting goals and talked about arranging for me to bowhunt elk with Wayne Carlton, a friend of his who had been having great fortune calling in elk with a unique method he had discovered.

Darner was in his early 40s and had recently married for the second time. His wife, Paula, seemed genuinely interested in hunting, too, and it was obvious they enjoyed spending time together in the outdoors.

My article dealt mainly with Darner's advice to other hunters who were seeking a trophy-class mule deer. I had been seeing some great bucks while bowhunting in Utah and had spent several years trying to put a bow kill on the all-time Boone and Crockett list. Each year I was seeing one to three bucks that I thought would go into the B&C book, which at the time required a net score of at least 195. So it seemed logical to me that if a guy hunted with a rifle long enough and smart enough, he could take a B&C class buck occasionally. Darner had killed seven B&C bucks though if I recall some of them had been taken when the minimum was still 190.
(continued)

That fall Darner arranged for me to bow hunt elk with Wayne Carlton, originally from Florida. Wayne had been seeing a tremendous bull elk in a wilderness area and had relocated the bull shortly before the season. He thought that bull would score close to world record size, which was in the 380s at the time. We were planning to concentrate on that bull alone. Unfortunately Wayne's mother became severely ill in September. By the time of the hunt Wayne had flown to Florida to be with her, so Darner arranged for my hunting partner and me to hunt with a Texan who had moved to Montrose and owned a restaurant in town.

My hunting partner, broadhead and Tree Sling inventor Jeff Anderson of New Jersey, soon learned that our guide knew the area we were hunting near Dolores but knew little about bowhunting or calling. Fortunately, Larry D. Jones of Oregon, had given me one of his prototype metal-reed elk bugles, and so we decided we would try that. I had killed my first elk the previous bow season when Schuh used this call to lure a 5x5 within 28 yards of me at an elevation of almost 13,000 feet in northern Colorado, and he called in six or seven other bulls that season.

It didn't take us long to realize that our chances of taking a big bull would be low because the area was well-roaded, and most bulls were probably having a hard time surviving more than two or three years. So when the guide and I called a four-point bull within a range of 10 or 15 yards, I sent an arrow through his lungs. After packing the meat out, we spent several days trying to call in a bull for Jeff. We had some action, but when our guide mistook the droppings and odors left by domestic sheep for elk sign, we were getting a mite frustrated.

With just a couple of days left in the hunt Wayne arrived. A charming guy with a southern accent and a constant smile, he immediately lifted our spirits. He demonstrated his calling technique, which he had learned on his own, using a mouth diaphragm turkey call to bugle elk. We had several bulls, including a 6x6, approach within 70 or 80 yards but couldn't get Jeff the shot he wanted.


Later that year I wrote the first article about using a diaphragm call to bugle elk, basing it on interviews with Wayne. The article's publication in Outdoor Life sent Wayne into a new career path. He sold his pest control business and set up shop as a wholesaler of hunting accessories, and he later became a popular seminar speaker and eventually began producing hunting videos, and now he hosts a TV show for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

After the hunt we returned to Montrose, where Darner showed us Polaroid photographs of himself and his wife posing with a gigantic non-typical mule deer with antlers that were still covered with velvet.

"While you guys were elk hunting," Darner said, "Paula and I were hunting this buck in Wyoming. He scores over 280 Boone and Crockett points."

And then he proceeded to tell us a detailed story of how he and Paula had outsmarted this wily old buck high abovetimberline in a roadless portion of Region H in Wyoming.

"You know," he said, "I think I have enough stories and pictures to make a really interesting book about trophy mule deer hunting. I've always liked your writing style. Would you be interested in writing it for me?"

Indeed I was. And so we worked out a deal where I would interview him and write, "How to Find Giant Bucks" by Kirt Darner as told to Rich LaRocco. He would publish the book himself and would pay me $1.50 for each copy sold.

At a conference that year I mentioned my work to fellow outdoor writer Judd Cooney, a former conservation officer in Colorado, and he warned me against writing the book..

You need to stay away from Darner," he said. "He has a reputation of being a poacher."

"Is there any evidence against him?" I asked.

"I don't have any," Judd replied. "But I have a friend who does."

"If that's the case, I need to talk with him," I said. "What's his name?"

"I can't give it to you," Judd said.

"Well, if Darner truly is a poacher, I need to know," I said. "Have him call me. I don't need to quote him or anything, but if there's anything solid against Darner, I will disassociate myself from him. I've asked him several times if there's anything fishy about any of his deer, and he's always said he hasn't even bent the rules to take any of them. He says he has critics who are jealous and just can't believe a hunter can be good enough to kill as many big deer as he has taken. Plus his stories about each deer are really consistent each time he repeats them."

I never heard from Cooney's friend and went ahead with my work on the book. Nowadays I would probably heed Judd's advice. I used to believe a man is innocent until proved guilty. Now I realize that this principle applies only in a court of law. When it comes to your reputation or your family's financial or physical safety, it's wise to assume guilt when there's any reasonable doubt. I also



believe that where there's smoke, there's fire. Now, 24 years after I smelled the first smoke, I've come to believe that there wasn't just fire but a major conflagration.

One day I asked Kirt why he didn't have more field pictures of himself with bucks he had killed.

"I usually hunt alone," he replied. "And I pack really light, usually just carrying what I need in my pockets, and I just don't have room for a camera. I've never used a self-timer and frankly never thought about taking photos."

One reason I took him at his word is that when I killed my first mature buck, I failed to take a photograph of it even though I had a Minolta SRT-101 in camp. That buck was extraordinarily large in body size. Leonard LeeRue wrote in one of his books about two California muleys that each weighed more than 400 pounds, and another source claims the weight record is 385 pounds field-dressed. Neither of my two brothers nor I would be surprised if my buck came close to those figures, and yet I still didn't think about getting a picture after we hauled the buck out of the mountains. I regret that oversight, but even if I had a photo I'm sure that some would call it a hoax. In any case, if I didn't take a picture of such an unusually big deer, then I could understand why Darner didn't make a habit of taking field pictures, either.

Darner said he would start carrying a camera equipped with a self-timer to allay suspicions about his success. Indeed before the book was finished, autumn had arrived, and he supplied to the publisher photos of big deer he claimed to have harvested in Utah and Colorado. Those of you who have read "How to Find Giant Bucks" might remember a couple of those photos. I never saw those pictures until the book was off the press, and it was obvious that both deer were photographed in the same place in front of the same rock. Darner claimed that he transported the deer to the same spot for photographs and even took me to that location, which was near Montrose.
After the book was published I started hearing many rumors and theories about Darner. I felt it was my duty to follow up on these rumors, and invariably they led nowhere. Most critics would say that no single person could ever take as many record-class bucks in a lifetime as Darner claimed to have done because big muleys are so rare and so difficult to hunt. The rumors seemed to spring from envy as much as from incredulity. I began to think that killing more than two or three record-class mule deer in a lifetime would ruin the credibility of any hunter. Even today, my best proof that I'm not a poacher is that I don't have a Boone and Crockett muley to my credit. If and when I finally kill one, I fear that some hunters will say I broke the law to do it.

One especially troubling case involved a sheriff's deputy in Delta County, Colorado. The deputy had written a letter to Outdoor Life, contending that Darner was well-known as a poacher and that he had been charged with grand theft of an automobile. By then I was editing Darner's second book, "Hunting the Rockies," a compilation of stories by Darner and acquaintances of his. During one of my trips to
Montrose, I stopped in Delta to talk with the deputy. The county sheriff wouldn't allow me to interview him, taking a copy of the letter sent to Outdoor Life and promising that he would respond after looking into the matter. A few weeks later I received a letter from the sheriff, who said the deputy had been suspended because there was very little truth in the letter he had written. He said the deputy had no proof that Darner was a poacher and that Kirt had not been charged with stealing a car. A hunter who was angry that Darner had leased a ranch parked a truck to block access through a gate to the property. Kirt had moved the truck a few yards away from the gate, angering the hunter and the deputy.

Another interesting claim came my way during an elk bowhunting trip in the Washakie Wilderness east of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I called in and killed a six-point bull after a marathon hunt, and after returning to base camp, the outfitter told me that one of his hunters had told him he had proof that Darner had taken a deer illegally.

"If that's the case," I said, "I need the facts."

The outfitter said that the hunter was in a spike camp but would be coming into the main camp in a day or two. When he returned to main camp one day, I immediately sought him out.

"Yup, I have proof that Darner is a poacher," he said. "That big Wyoming deer was supposedly shot after Sept. 10. I was hunting in Wyoming then, and all the bucks we saw were totally out of velvet. He had to have shot that buck before the season."

Sept. 10. I was hunting in Wyoming then, and all the bucks we saw were totally out of velvet. He had to have shot that buck before the season."

"Well, that's an interesting theory," I said. "But I saw a 36-inch non-typical in full velvet on Sept. 17 in Region G in Wyoming, and one of my friends shot it the next day, and it was still in full velvet."

So much for that proof.

After the second book was published, my friend Kim Bonnett, a man whom I respect and admire and an accomplished hunter in his own right, told me that he had major doubts about a 36-inch buck Darner supposedly shot in Utah. Even though Kim and his wife had developed a close friendship with the Darners, he was cutting off contact with him.

Kim had invited Kirt to hunt a ranch he had leased in a remote section of central Utah. During a pre-season scouting trip, both men saw a gigantic non-typical mule deer, and Darner told Bonnett that he would be holding out for that deer. Darner showed up to hunt the deer and left the ranch shortly afterward, but not before one of

Kim's customers saw Darner with the buck, which he supposedly had killed the previous day. The hunter said the deer appeared to have been dead much longer than a day.

I already had interviewed Darner about this hunt and had written and sold an article about it. That piece was published in Petersen's Hunting Magazine. In it Darner had said his wife, Paula, also shot at an exceptional typical muley on the ranch. Bonnett said that he hadn't given Paula permission to hunt. He also said that nobody on the ranch had heard either of the Darners shoot. He also said that one of the Darners had entered a big typical in the Sunset Sporting Goods big buck contest in Price, Utah, and he wondered whether Paula or Kirt had shot that animal elsewhere. Kim was particularly offended by a paragraph in the article that criticized his guides for driving down a ridge before dark on opening morning, while the Darners were in position close to the prime deer area.


I called Darner about my conversation with Kim, and he said that he stood by his story and asked whether I had ever failed to hear somebody in my hunting camp shoot at a deer. "Yes, indeed," I said. (Incidentally, just three years ago while hunting with my friend Chuck Johnson, I shot an elk as I was walking just 50 yards ahead of Chuck on a bare hilltop in a brisk winter wind, and he didn't hear my .300 Magnum bark twice.) Darner said there obviously had been a miscommunication about Paula's permission to hunt. He also had an explanation about the Sunset contest, but I don't recall it.

As for the big non-typical buck's appearance, Darner said the eyes of a deer shrivel up quickly in the dry, hot air of southeastern Utah, and I knew that to be the case. "I have some pictures of us packing out that deer on Kim's lease," he said. "It's not like I killed a big buck somewhere else and packed it down onto the ranch. That wouldn't make any sense anyway."

Darner sent me some pictures from that hunt along with photos of some of his other recent hunts, including pictures of hunters with trophy deer taken on his own leases in Colorado. I finally had a chance to study the photos from Bonnett's lease and realized that the deer Darner claimed to have killed on opening day appeared to have been dead much longer than Darner's story had indicated. When I called Sunset Sporting Goods, the employees there were unable to give me any information about the Darners' entering the local big buck contest and said they no longer had the Polaroid photos they had taken of contest entries.

Even though I still had no concrete evidence that Darner was lying, I had strong suspicions that something wasn't right.

And that's when I received in the mail an envelope with no return name or address, and it contained a single object -- an item that was simultaneously confusing and shocking.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.

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. The buck 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.


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My photographs of Darner's mounted buck, shown on the cover of How to Find Giant Bucks, showed the same pattern. I had no doubt that the rack on Darner's mounted buck and the so-called Housholder set of antlers were one and the same. It was time to look into the Housholder picture -- was that really Bob Housholder in the photograph, and was this picture really taken in the '50s long before Darner claimed to have killed the same buck in 1977?.

I did a bit of research and soon learned that Housholder had been an official scorer for the Boone and Crockett Club and was well known among Arizona trophy hunters. When I was editing for Outdoor Life magazine, my chief contributor from Arizona was Bob Whittaker, an outdoor editor for The Arizona Republic newspaper in Phoenix. I placed a call to Bob to see if he had a phone number for Housholder and could tell me his approximate age.

"Well," Bob said. "I know who Bob Housholder is, but there are some things about him that you should know. I certainly wouldn't want to be placed in a position to compare Housholder's credibility with Darner's credibility."

"Why not?" I asked.

"I would rather not say," Bob replied. "But what I will do is send you some clippings of newspaper articles that will show you why you might not want to use Housholder to question anybody's character."

A few days went by, and then I received from Bob an envelope that contained the next surprise in the Darner affair.

Bob had sent me clippings of three articles about Housholder. All had been published in The Arizona Republic. One of them, titled "Hunter arrested in morals case" and dated March 26, 1983, described how Housholder, 61, had been arrested "for investigation of taking photographs of a seminude 14-year-old girl and molesting two girls," according to police. He had been booked on charges of exploitation of a minor, sexual abuse and furnishing harmful items to minors.

"Police believe Housholder asked two 14-year-old girls and two 10-year-old girls to pose nude or seminude for him and showed them photos of either naked people or sexual acts," the article reported.

"One of the 14-year-old girls allegedly posed for him, and he allegedly pinched two of the girls, Sgt. Brad Thiss, police spokesman said."


The article concluded, "The acts allegedly occurred at Housholder's home betwen April 1982 and this month. Housholder exhibits an animal collection at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. He was the first Arizonan to bag all 26 species of North American big game."

Another article outlined a plea bargain that resolved the case. Titled "Outdoorsman sentenced in sex-photo case," the piece revealed that Housholder was sentenced to three years' probation for a misdemeanor charge of showing sexually explicit photographs to a minor. He also was ordered to have no contact with anyone under 18 years old and to undergo mental health counseling.

"Housholder ... pleaded no contest to a charge of attempting to furnish obscene or harmful items to minors with the agreement that no other charges would be filed in connection with the case," the article stated.

A 14-year-old model allegedly told police she had posed nude 10 times for Housholder since August 1982.

"Housholder admitted to court officials that he took the photographs but claimed he 'did not know she was as young as she was' because he previously had seen her buy beer," the newspaper reported.

The Arizona secretary of state and a former U.S. congressman from Arizona had written letters supporting Housholder, who was asked to resign from his job as an administrative assistant with the Arizona Department of Transportation.

The third article, "Coroner's aide allegedly loaned out slain girl's photos," was published in 1985. According to police documents, Eloy Ysasi had provided photos of a murdered 8-year-old girl, Laura Dunn, to Housholder. The photos showed her corpse on an autopsy table. Police said Housholder told them he wanted the photos to discourage children from hitchhiking. Some of the photos allegedly were explicit closeups, and Ysasi denied providing those to Housholder.

Interestingly, Housholder was the man who started the Grand Slam Club in 1956. Another interesting aside is that one of the first chapters of the Grand Slam Club was the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, which has gone on to bigger and better things. Click here for details.

Whittaker provided me with more information about the photographing of dead girls and the resolution of the case, but nowadays I can't find it in my old files. I did realize, however, that Whittaker was right -- I couldn't put Housholder's character up against Darner's. I needed to find out more about the buck on the cover of How to Find Giant Bucks.

That's when I got my next anonymous letter. This one I suspected came from Darner or one of his pals. It was postmarked "Albuquerque, NM, 5 Dec 1989" and it contained the next surprise.

This envelope contained clippings of the same articles that Whittaker had sent me. Also enclosed was a typewritten letter.

"To Whom It May Concern," the letter read. "I have learned that a photo was sent to you of a man and a buck that supposedly resembles one of Kirt Darner's bucks. Is the question credibility? Here is definite evidence of Householder's (sic) questionable credibility. Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this."

Why the letter had not been signed was a mystery. I still needed to learn more about the Housholder photo.

Seeing the picture had reminded me of something I had seen that spring when I had been promoting my hunting consultant service at a sport show. That's where I met George Cook, a serious hunter and a representative for Sage, a fly rod company that was only four years old at the time. George unfolded a photocopy of an article that had appeared in the September 1949 issue American Rifleman magazine, the National Rifle Association's official publication. The photocopy was made on a machine that did a poor job of reproducing photographs or screened pictures. This was a common problem among photocopiers made before the early 1980s. Grays became blacks, and groups of black or gray dots would be represented by black splotches.

A deer in one of the 2 1/2-inch by 4-inch illustrations still looked suspiciously like the same buck that had appeared on the cover of How to Find Giant Bucks.

I had a copy of the book with me at the time, so George and I studied the rack shown in photocopy and compared it with the antlers pictured on the book. There were some obvious differences. The magazine photo, as fuzzy as it was, showed a forked main beam on the deer's right antler, but on Darner's buck, the right main beam was not forked and bent down at an odd angle. The right antler in the photocopy also didn't appear to carry as many long points as the Darner buck. At the time I concluded the deer were two different animals, but because the photocopy was so poor, a little doubt had stayed with me.

Somehow the date of the magazine had stuck in my head, and so I decided to try to find an original copy of the September 1949 issue. First I tried an old gentleman who had been a member of the NRA for years and used to lend me copies of the magazine when I was a kid. He had discarded his collection years earlier. Then I tried the library at Utah State University. USU didn't collect American Rifleman magazines. Then I tried to the University of Utah library -- its collection went back only to 1951. The Brigham Young University library also went back to 1951. Finally I asked Kim Bonnett if he had any ideas. Soon he called back.

"I found a shop in Michigan that sells old magazines," he said. "And they said they have lots of old American Rifleman issues. Give them a call, and they can probably find the issue you need."

So I phoned the Highwood Bookshop in Traverse City, Michigan, and spoke with the owner. I told him I wasn't sure which issue I needed, but I thought it was the September 1949 American Rifleman.

"If I recall the picture I'm looking for was used to illustrate an article about venison care," I said. "Would you mind looking in that issue to see if that's the one, and if so, I want a copy.

"Call me back in a few minutes," he said.

When I called back, he said, "I think I have your magazine. Send me $5 for the magazine and $1.50 for shipping, and it's yours."
I also ordered a copy of an old Outdoor Life that was probably its most famous cover ever, a GI painting that was actually a collage of outdoor scenes. When I worked for Outdoor Life, somebody had stolen that particular issue from the company's collection of back issues and even the original painting had come up missing. For another $5 I could get that magazine, too.

A few days later I received the magazine, which contained an article by Charles C. Niehuis, "Harvesting a Prime Buck," about proper game care. The piece was illustrated by 13 photographs, and one of them was the picture I wanted. That picture was much clearer in the magazine than it had appeared in the photocopy, but the screening necessary for publishing was too coarse to make a positive ID of the buck. And there were still apparent differences. I sent a good copy of the article to Kim Bonnett, whose partner Jeff Warren quickly realized that the picture in the magazine had been flopped -- the negative had been placed upside down in the enlarger to make a reversed print.

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In a mirror the magazine photograph made it obvious that this buck and the Darner buck looked identical. The picture wasn't clear enough that a person could say with 100% certainty that the pictures showed the exact same deer.

"If we had original negatives or prints," I told Kim, "I would bet they would show this is the exact same deer that Darner claimed to have killed in the '70s. I called American Hunter, and the editor said they don't have manuscripts or photos from that far back. I wonder if Niehuis is still alive. I'm right in the middle of my busy season and can't take time to do research right now. But wouldn't that be something if Niehuis were still alive and could track down the photos that went with his article?"

A few days later Kim phoned.

"You're not going to believe this," he said. "Niehuis is still alive and living in California."

I could not find a phone number to match the address that Kim gave me, so I wrote a letter explaining my interest in the photographs and asked Niehuis to call me.

A few weeks later the phone rang.

"This is Charley Niehuis," a voice said. "I'm the guy who wrote that article in 1949, and I think I might still have the negatives to the photo you want. I took several photographs of that deer. It was in 1948 when I was working for the Arizona fish and game department on their Kaibab study. A guy named Dean Naylor killed that buck."

Niehuis explained that his negatives were in an office he maintained in Colorado and that he would be happy to provide prints. He gave me his phone number and mentioned that he was 83 years old.

"As an old newsman," he said. "This story really interests me. I'm going to do some investigating of my own, but next time I'm in Colorado, I'll look for those pictures and get back to you."

I soon realized that the buck was listed twice in the Boone and Crockett Club's book, Records of North American Big Game, once under Dean Naylor and once under Kirt Darner. Coincidentally, I knew Jack Reneau, who had recently started working full time for the club. Jack and his wife, Susan, had featured several of Darner's mounts in a book that he and his wife, Susan, had written, "Colorado's Biggest Bucks and Bulls." After the publication of that book, I had contacted Jack and negotiated to buy several boxes to sell out of my booth at sport shows. The Reneaus' book and Darner's book had been great sellers, and though they didn't pay for our show expenses, my associates and I made enough to pay for our out-of-town meals and a bit more.

As I suspected, Jack was personally interested in investigating the matter for the same reason I was -- he had helped publicize Darner and now he felt an obligation that the public knew the truth.

"I know where the negatives to those photos that were published in 1949 are," I told Reneau. "I'll give you all the information I have on Darner's buck under one condition. When you get the photos, I want 8x10 prints of those original photos."

I also mentioned a couple of other suspicions I had about two other trophies Darner had taken. One was a desert sheep that was also in the record book, and another was a so-called Coues deer that would have surpassed the No. 2 or No. 3 listing. I sent to Jack copies of the Housholder photo along with slides that showed the American Rifleman picture reversed.

Some time went by, and I heard that the Boone and Crockett Club had pulled Darner's listing of the Naylor buck out of the record book. I was disappointed that I was not supplied with the photos I had demanded, so I called Reneau. He confirmed that the club had decided to disquality the Naylor/Housholder/Darner buck and also mentioned that the club had decided to reject a whitetail that Darner had entered as a Coues deer and was also deleting his Arizona desert sheep from the record book. The club had called in several experts on Coues deer and had decided to consider the rack as coming from a regular whitetail unless Darner were to supply adequate proof that it was a Coues deer. The club ruled that the ram had not been plugged and, hence, was not considered a legal harvest.

I was disappointed to learn that the Boone and Crockett Club had no plans to remove the rest of Darner's record-class trophies from its record book. At the time the Pope and Young Club had a policy that any hunter who was shown to have signed a fair chase affidavit falsely would be banned permanently from entering any animal in its record book. My assumption that B&C had a similar policy was wrong.

"Well, if you change that policy," I said, "I have since come up with information that calls into question some of Darner's other trophies."

About this time I received a call from Doyle Moss, who was working at the time for Darner's Hunter Information Service out of Montrose, Colorado. A Utah native and now a nationally known trophy hunter and guide and a hunting video producer, Moss asked about Darner's legitimacy. "I've been hearing some rumors," he said, "and I wonder if they're true."

"Well, I think you could get all the proof you needed right there in Colorado," I replied. And then I went on to say that Charles Niehuis had the negatives he had made in 1948 and that Niehuis was in Colorado or was soon gonig there. "Why don't you call him and arrange a meeting," I said. "I'll give you his phone number under one condition -- that I get 8x10 copies of those prints."

Later Niehuis told me that Moss had contacted him. At first he was fearful that he might be ambushed by an person with loyalty to Darner. But he was impressed with Moss's tone of voice and apparent sincerity and decided to risk meeting him.

Niehuis later wrote an outline for an autobiographical book that he proposed to write and sell. Here are excerpts dealing with his meeting with Moss, who was working at the time for Darner's Hunter Information Service in Montrose, Colorado:

"I leave to go to Montrose .... I go directly to the office of Tom Gilmore, Sheriff of Montrose County. I meet Tom, make known my purpose of being in Montrose. ... I am warned again that Kirt Darner and possibly Doyle Moss might be dangerous, and to avoid being trapped in a remote place by either one. ... I learn Doyle Moss has been on my trail making three long distance calls in one day wanting to know where I am staying, what kind of car I am driving, description, etc. ... So ... I go undercover, register under a false name and hide my car. The next morning I case the Darner Hunters Information Service ... but make no contact. Instead I go to the sheriff's office again and learn Bob Cox there is an investigator. Cox is known to me. ... I go the Stockman's Cafe ... and ... phone Doyle Moss to meet me there. I decide to take a chance, meet him in a place of my choosing, not his.

"Doyle Moss comes in. I recognize him because of his behavior and call him by name. ... We talk it over .... Doyle is a young man, 26 years of age. ... Although I already know it, I asked for his Social Security number. ... I ask the questions to get answers and verify what I have already learned. Doyle gives me more of his background and interest in Darner. He wants to show me some mounted heads, one with a bullet hole in the antler. ... Also, Doyle wants to show me where he lives, in a trailer house furnished by Darner. And he announces he has quit Darner.

"I decide to chance it. We go to his trailer and enter it. The front of the trailer is very barren of furniture. Interestingly, the walls are covered with photographs, paintings and sketches of Rocky Mountain Mule Deer. The amount and quality of the art surrounding a single subject is quite unusual. There are no other furnishings in the front room. This facet of his personality leads me to believe his driving interesting [is] hunting and hero worship of Kirt Darner. ... As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he does not have an ash tray in sight. ... I look his trailer over, including the bedroom which only has blankets on the floor. No bed on the floor. Every sign I read verifies his professing to be a Mormon. He serves me some lemonade.

"We step outside and at the truck I show him the pictures of Naylor and his buck. There is no question in his mind that is is the same buck that is on the cover of Darner's new book. Again I am told that Rich LaRocco wrote the book for Kirt Darner. ... Doyle again asks me for one of the photographs of Dean Naylor. I tell him I cannot spare one, but will make him one."

Naylor8by10croplogo.jpg


After Niehuis returned home, he sent Moss and me 8x10 copies of four photographs along with a note saying that they showed Dean Naylor and the buck he had just shot in 1948. The pictures were clear enough to show that the buck's antlers were the same antlers photographed with Housholder in 1957. The picture shown above even shows the unique bean-shaped bone deposit on the base of the right antler. Jim Zumbo photographed Darner with the same rack during the winter of 1980-1981, and this picture was used to illustrate Zumbo's article about Darner in the April 1981 issue of Outdoor Life magazine. That photo also is detailed enough to show the same bean-shaped deposit and other unique features. I was the senior editor for Outdoor Life in 1980 and 1981, and the first time I had heard of Darner was when Zumbo had proposed that piece. Later I learned that one of the Naylor pictures also had appeared in a 1951 hunting annual.

I photographed this same trophy with Darner during the winter of 1982-1983, and Darner selected one of those pictures for the cover of How to Find Giant Bucks that was published in 1983. Darner said that buck was one of his most prized trophies because he had seen the deer a year before he claimed to have shot it in 1977. He said he had just shot another great buck in the fall of 1976, and as it thrashed around on the ground in the last throes of life, a giant non-typical stepped out of the cover. He supposedly returned the following October and outsmarted the giant. He had told me this story several times, and the details had been so consistent that I was convinced Darner had shot the deer.

Interestingly, shortly before I had received the Housholder photo, Darner had requested my slides that I had made of him with his various trophies, and that is the last I have seen of them. Fortunately, Zumbo still had his slides when Reneau contacted him in the Boone and Crockett Club's investigation of the matter.

This photograph of Darner with the Naylor buck was taken by Jim Zumbo in the winter of 1980-81. It was reproduced in the April 1981 issue of Outdoor Life magazine.

DarnerZumbomainlogo.jpg


You can clearly make out the unique bean-shaped pattern of calcium deposits on the base of the deer's left antler. Most of the other unique features that were visible in the 1948 photographs are also visible in Zumbo's picture.

Anybody who thinks there's even a remote possibility that these pictures show two different racks probably also believes in Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster.

When I became convinced that Darner had not killed the buck on the cover of the book I

had ghostwritten for him, my immediate reaction was that he obviously had let his ego get the best of him. Yet I had learned so much from him that I assumed that he was a great hunter regardless of this mistake and that he had probably taken most of his other deer himself and with legal means. Kim Bonnett pointed out to me that it was probably more logical to assume that not one of Darner's other trophies was legitimate rather than all but one was legitimate. I have no proof that Darner has ever poached any of his trophies, but I have serious questions about several of them. Nobody knows how Darner came into possession of Naylor's rack. Whether somebody gave it to him, whether he bought it, or whether he got it in some other manner, I doubt that anybody will ever know.

I hesitated for many years to bring this issue to light for two chief reasons. All of us who knew the story expected the Boone and Crockett Club to make its investigation public. I thought Darner had suffered enough from the scorn of his peers among trophy hunters in the know and from the limited negative publicity that had made its way into the media. I certainly did not want to be the first to cast a stone as I myself was not completely without sin, and I doubt that few hunters are. And yet I would never think of claiming somebody else's trophy as my own. Still, I felt a duty to inform the public since I had been one of Darner's tools in defrauding the public, and so I never hesitated to tell others what I knew. Also, I didn't want others to think that I had known of or condoned his actions before I wrote the book. Zumbo and Reneau told me they felt the same way.

Over the years my connection with Darner had negative impacts on me and my career. A friend told me my name came up recently during a conversation with a fellow hunter whom he met on a jet while returning from a big game hunt, and the hunter immediately said something along the lines of, "Isn't LaRocco the guy who was caught poaching with Darner?" So perhaps you can understand why I've finally decided to divulge the truth about the Darner-Naylor buck.

Interesting, Darner and some of his loyalists have done their best to discount the Boone and Crockett Club's ruling. Some of these efforts are almost as unbelievable as this story has been so far.
 
Manny,

Just want to say thanks for the post. I must say this is by far the most interesting and intriguing post i have ever read on MM. As a young guy growing up "How to find giant bucks" was the "mule deer doctrine" around our house. When the stories and rumors of Darner's credibility surfaced, I'm not sure many folks were too surprised . Its nice to get the full scoop from the man who wrote the book. Thanks for taking the time to write it down for us.

Fever
 
Manny, What a story! One of Kirt Darners nephews guides for me. We have had alot of fireside chats about his Uncle, Kirt Darner. He tells me that his Aunt Paula opened up a can of worms, and thats how alot of this got going. He also told me that he knows for a fact alot of those deer were killed illegal. As most of you know, Kirt worked in the woods, Logging. He did kill MOST of the deer, but they were killed illegaly, either before legal season, or in their winter grounds. Anyhow, thanks for the story!

FYI....I have a copy of the Book, How to Find Giant Mule Deer.

Bob Staples
Blue Mountain Adventures
La Grande Oregon
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-18-08 AT 06:32AM (MST)[p]Bob - you should get that copy autographed! - It may be worth something someday.


Here is the latest update on the situation form the Gallup Independent which details that Darner plead guilty earlier this year and accepted a plea deal. His lawyer is pretty slick - keeps postponing things for as long as he can - a tactic often used when your client is hopelessly guilty. Anyway here is the article from November 10th, 2008:


New Kirt Darner sentencing date set


Copyright ? 2008
Gallup Independent
By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS ? A second sentencing date has been set for Kirt Darner, the former Grants big-game park owner who pleaded guilty to charges of stolen elk, illegal transportation of stolen elk, both felonies; and a misdemeanor, no bill of sale for those elk.

Darner had a sentencing date originally set for Oct. 14, but it was postponed because his attorney, Bill Ray Blackburn, of Albuquerque, had a conflict with his schedule.

On Thursday, Blackburn filed a motion to vacate the new sentencing date because he has a murder trial at the same time.

The court will most likely cancel this date and set a new one, meaning the pattern of delaying appearing in court continues in the sentencing phase as it did in the trial phase.

Hearings and trial dates were postponed because of motions by Blackburn for various reasons, at least five times between June 19, 2006, and March 20, 2008. Reasons included scheduling conflicts, and Darner?s medical problems.

Darner pleaded guilty on June 23 meaning that he could serve up to a maximum of 4.5 years in state prison, be fined up to $10,000, in addition to any fines the judge may impose.

Lemuel Martinez, 13th Judicial District Attorney, said the plea agreement, after two years of postponed trials, was the identical agreement Darner was offered within a few months of his grand jury indictment.

Darner was initially indicted in connection with 20 felonies and misdemeanors including allegedly illegal possession of sheep?s heads and elk possession and transportation, in his game park on Mount Taylor, for which he had no sales receipt.

Martinez said his office is committed to prosecuting any case involving illegal possession of wildlife in the state and the region.

The two big-game sheep?s heads were stolen from a taxidermist in Colorado, and wound up in Darner?s possession in Grants, Martinez said. Possession of the sheep?s heads were not part of the plea agreement.

The original indictment included the following charges: Receiving stolen property (one each Rocky Mountain and Desert Bighorn sheep skulls), unlawful possession of big game (elk), transportation of stolen livestock (elk), conspiracy to transport livestock (elk), failure to submit an invoice for sale of big game (elk), failure to have two forms of identification (elk), and having no health certificates (elk).

?We intend to ask the judge for the full prison time (of 4.5 years),? Martinez said.

If Darner had been convicted on all the original charges he could have served a maximum penalty of nine days short of 44 years in state prison, a fine up to $58,000, or both

UTROY
Proverbs 21:19 (why I hunt!)
 
I could easily get it autograped, all I got to do is act Kirt's Brother to give it to him, but Kirt's brother and his wife's health are not doing good, last I heard.
Besides, WHY would I want a POACHER to sign my book? I have more respect for a man like Davig Long, that consistently shoots big mulies, but works for them LEGALLY. He may not have the MONSTERS, but they are BIG bucks! We work hard for big mulies here in Oregon, but if you hunt hard, know what you are doing, and have ALOT of patience, and hunt where big bucks are, you will get one. There may be a few big bucks killed every year in unknown areas, but best thing a big mulie needs is AGE....so these ares are where you want to look for the big bucks, where they are known to be able to grow old.
Anyhow, this is just my opinion.

Bob Staples
Blue Mountain Adventures
La Grande Oregon
 
Darner must have something on Rich LaRocco because that sorry SOB never finished telling that story Manny........



great post/pic, thanks for sharing

JB
494742f95c53a850.jpg
 
Also on this topic, what ever happened to Paula Darner? Wasn't she also to be tried on the same charges?
 
>Also on this topic, what ever
>happened to Paula Darner?
>Wasn't she also to be
>tried on the same charges?
>

Apparently the charges were all dismissed against Paula. That's what I heard anyway.


dan-henderson_wanderlei-silva.gif
 
>LAST EDITED ON Dec-18-08
>AT 10:23?AM (MST)

>
>D13er
>I hope he never finishes it
>so you can continue to
>cry a river SOB
>Justin Richins
>

I agree with D13er, he started the story and would only give bits and pieces and used that to try and increase traffic to his website which could ultimately help him financially. If he had a change of heart and decided it was wrong to financially benefit from spilling the beans on Darner or trying to distance him from Darner then he should just take it off the website.

It would be interesting to know where he is going with it but the whole process of how LaRocco is going about it is kind of shady. I think it's nothing more than a marketing ploy

Drummond

Stay classy Utah
 
He has told me and others the whole story if ya want to know call him.. Rich has nothing to hide and is the most honest guy on the planet! That guy has a lot of neat stories! I wish he would start writing again..


Justin Richins
R&K Hunting Company Inc.
www.thehuntingcompany.com
 
My dad has a signed copy that I grew up reading and dreaming of those big bucks. I read the book again a couple of weeks ago and it is not as good of a book because the whole time I was trying to decide what is B.S. and what really happened.
 
Wow i must say this is a very interesting post, Man i wish i could catch somebody poaching a big buck, the beat down would be priceless.
 
!I grew up hunting for the love of the hunt, but many today do it for the $$$$$$$$$$$.......

Who?s to blame for commercializing big game hunts, I could name a few, guided hunts been going on for 100dreds of years but really big dollars are tempting people way beyond what is right and just today ???
 
Who's to blame for commercializing big game hunts? It's called supply and demand. As hunt quality has decreased (the supply side) over the years and exepdible income has increased (the demand side,) hunting has become commercialized. Just my opinion.
The Christian
 
Does anyone think it's odd that Doyle worked for Kirt Darner and Kirt was his hero; especially with all the "spidey" stuff being said?
 
I wouldn't go as far to indict Doyle for his association with Doyle, the names mentioned in the story are a who's who of hunting. He was also a very young man at the time. Just my 2 cents.

Rich
 
>Does anyone think it's odd that
>Doyle worked for Kirt Darner
>and Kirt was his hero;
>especially with all the "spidey"
>stuff being said?

no



great post/pic, thanks for sharing

JB
494742f95c53a850.jpg
 
>Does anyone think it's odd that
>Doyle worked for Kirt Darner
>and Kirt was his hero;
>especially with all the "spidey"
>stuff being said?


wow, what a first time post......
 
What I do find odd is all the detail he goes into when mentioning the who's who? How does all that crap relate to Darner being a fruad, a theif and a poacher?
 
Manny15: That was a fascinating post--thanks for sharing! The dishonesty & greed in our sport can be disparaging. I agree wholly with you that we, as sportsman, have an obligation to police our sport, and I believe you've done that by taking the time to share this travesty. Thanks again.
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-19-08 AT 09:00AM (MST)[p]>What I do find odd is
>all the detail he goes
>into when mentioning the who's
>who? How does all that
>crap relate to Darner being
>a fruad, a theif and
>a poacher?


I would say allot of the story makes it sound like nothing but circumstantial N jealousy.........

other then the lie he holds on the cover of his book and the wild elk dopin....oh and the receiving of stolen Ram heads........Chit!......
 

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