AN IDEA IS BORN
Because I was a magazine man, it was the photos Dick brought with him, mostly from Fred’s collection but some from various others sources Dick had ferreted out, that really enthralled me. I was so amazed and awed by the astounding array of photos depicting big and sometimes bizarre bucks, as well as nostalgic camp and hunting scenes, that I couldn’t help but think others likewise would be amazed . . . perhaps sufficiently to pay money to delve into this realm of big whitetails. (By the way, one of the photos Dick had at the show was of the now-famous “Hole In The Horn” Buck with the inscription “Kent, Ohio.” From that picture, we eventually tracked down that buck and brought what many still consider the greatest non-typical of all time to the attention of the whitetail world.)
With the idea of a big-deer magazine rolling around in my mind, I returned to our magazine offices in Marietta, Georgia, anxious to share what I had experienced and seen with my partners — Steve Vaughn, Chuck Larsen and Chip Gerry. But I wasn’t depending on just words to convince them of the salability of big bucks and the “other worldly” realm of giant whitetails out there just waiting to be revealed to an evermore eager hunting market. Before leaving the show, I had shared my developing idea of publishing some sort of deer-only magazine with Dick and convinced him to let me take back a few dozen photos to help convince my partners that monster bucks would wow the market and would sell!
When we sat down and I began to describe the deer fever at the Dixie Deer Classic and the throngs of people who had gathered to share in their common love of the sport, there were plenty of nods of agreement and comments acknowledging the undeniable allure of deer hunting, especially big-deer hunting.
When I began to tell them about the new world of big-buck hunting that existed beyond our own regional experience, they were intrigued and excited. I could see the wheels beginning to turn. Then I produced the pictures. Two days later, Steve Vaughn and I were on an airplane headed to Dick Idol’s home in Seeley Lake, Montana, having decamped Raleigh in favor of western Montana because of, you guessed it, the region’s big bucks.
A WHITETAIL SHRINE
Dick’s home was a virtual big-buck museum, with a magical air. Our first day in Montana was spent gawking at the mounts, racks and photos of the outlandish bucks Dick had accumulated. It didn’t take us long to know for certain that such dream bucks would have the same appeal to the rest of the country’s serious hunters as they did to us, even if most of us hunters were unlikely to ever even see such a buck in the wild, let alone shoot one for ourselves. Still, as with beautiful but unattainable women, we certainly like to look and dream, perhaps in the hope than someday, just maybe . . .
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