Kay and I once attended a writer’s conference that remains in my bank of memories. However as we left Ruston for our trek to the conference I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. Our last stop before heading for Springfield, MO to attend the 40thannual meeting of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association was at one of our local burger joints. I drove away fuming at the sloppy service; the rudeness and indifference of the server; the fouled up orders, vowing from this point on to steer clear of that particular franchise.
Once we got to Springfield, my yearning for a breakfast sandwich got the best of me and I reluctantly pulled up to a drive-through of the same franchise as the one back home that had raised my hackles. To my surprise and delight, the servers were friendly – downright cheerful – and our orders were filled promptly and correctly. After nearly a week in Springfield, I learned that this is the way most folks are up there. We came away from every store; every hotel; every eatery with good feelings that these folks know how to treat customers and seemed to genuinely appreciate our business.
You can probably guess which stop in this Missouri town captivated my attention the most. Springfield is home to the original Bass Pro Shop and to an outdoorsman, it’s like turning a kid loose in a candy store. While the friendly sales folks there made the shopping fun, I stumbled upon a display in the store that left me dumb-struck.
Springfield’s Bass Pro Shop is headquarters for the traveling display of the most awesome buck mounts ever assembled anywhere. It’s the King of Bucks display and fortunately, the collection of most of the country’s most astounding trophy buck mounts just happened to be “in house” that week.
Bass Pro’s King of Bucks display includes 200 of the world’s greatest whitetail bucks. Among the trophies are three of the current world records, 24 state and provincial records, 30 typical racks scoring above 230 and 53 non-typical that scored above 230. I also saw 10 of the top 13 Pope and Young (archery harvest) non-typical racks. These are not replicas; they’re the real thing and they’re awesome.
Two racks in particular caught my attention because of their popularity among deer hunters the world over. One was the “Hole in the Horn” buck that was collected in Ohio way back in 1940. This buck is generally considered the most famous whitetail in the world with a Boone and Crockett score of an astounding 328 2/8. It consists of 45 points and the main feature is a mysterious hole in one of the palmated drop-tines, a hole that was first thought to have been caused by a .22 bullet. However, George Winters, a witness who helped untangle the dead buck from a chain length fence next to a railroad track recalls seeing a piece wire from the fence that had pierced the porous tip of the antler.
Another buck that captivated me was taken in Louisiana in 1958 by Sammy “Peanut” Walker near Grosse Tete in south Louisiana. This buck’s bizarre array of headgear is indescribable. In fact, the mass of bone with no main beams, weighing more than 10 pounds, has never been officially measured simply because it defies all the rules for antler measuring.
Walker had put out standers and released his hounds when the buck bounded out past him. One load of buckshot dropped the monster buck in his tracks. Walker discovered the antlers were still covered in velvet, which meant the buck never dropped his antlers in late winter but kept adding on to the unbelievable array of mass.
The next time you have the chance to travel to Springfield, be sure and go see the King of Bucks display at Bass Pro. When the display makes its way to one of Louisiana’s Bass Pro Shops, don’t miss seeing it. To help your day get off on the right foot, though, I suggest you eat breakfast at home before heading out.