The Mystery of the Ahrens Buck, a World-Record Whitetail That Vanished

The lean gray-haired man with the Cheshire-cat grin slid a snapshot across the tabletop to the man who sat next to him. The man’s eyes opened wide when he saw the picture. Soon the four other hunters and antler collectors seated around the table were straining to see the photo. As it passed from one person to the next, Dr. Charles Arnold, one of the country’s foremost antler collectors. grinned and waited for his usually guarded photograph to get back to him

 Hunters who were at an adjacent table overheard something about a “new world record” and one of them glanced over the shoulder of one of the collectors. His buddies saw the excitement on his face as he returned to his seat. Soon they were also out of their chairs to look at the photo. By the time the color print was back in the pocket of Dr. Arnold, an East Coast dentist, more than 50 hunters attending last April’s opening-day party for the Minnesota Deer Classic were talking about the picture of the incredible antlers.

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One month and 1,000 miles later, Mark LaBarbera walked unannounced into Arnold’s New Hampshire dental office in the hope that he could solve the mystery of the whitetail in the photograph.

After he and the dentist had talked about some of the antlers that Arnold owns, such as the world-record Jordan rack and the Minnesota-record Breen head. LaBarbera showed Arnold a rare photo of Jim Jordan holding his world-record rack. The picture, which had been given to LaBarbera by Boone and Crockett scorer Peter Haupt, may be the only photo that exists showing Jordan with his rack.

“I’d sure like a copy of this photo,” Arnold said, “but I don’t have anything to trade.”

“How about all the facts about the potential world-record deer?” LaBarbera asked.

Arnold’s eyes moved from the Jordan picture to peer sideways at LaBarbera. A Mona-Lisa smile cracked the corner of his mouth as he asked, “What new world record?”

“The one in the photo you showed a few guys at the Minnesota Deer Classic,” LaBarbera said

 Arnold glanced again at the photo and then back at LaBarbera. ”I can’t tell you much about it,” he said. “I promised to let the guy who buys it have it officially scored and to let him break the story and get all the recognition.”

Always cautious, the 48-year-old collector would only share tidbits of information about the mystery rack. Eventually, Arnold said that the deer, according to his experienced but unofficial measurements, would score about 211 Boone and Crockett points -nearly five full points more than the record-holding Jordan rack. Arnold said the mystery deer is a 12-pointer by Eastern count and that it was on display at a hotel “in the boonies of Minnesota.”

Arnold refused to say anymore, except that he intended to sell the antlers to the highest of two bidders during the coming year. He refused to show LaBarbera the picture of the mystery antlers.

Since that time, the rack-was reputedly sold for a figure between $30,000 and $50,000. No one, however, knows who bought the antlers-except Arnold and the new owner, and neither is telling.

While collectors tried to learn of the mystery deer’s whereabouts and to substantiate the rumor that it sold for so many thousands of dollars, articles on the rack appeared in a hunting club magazine and in a Minneapolis newspaper.

Shortly after the newspaper article appeared, Alex Martin, a taxidermist in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, called the newspaper with information about Arnold’s mystery rack.

Martin later told LaBarbera what he knew. He said that his neighbor, Sal Ahrens, had been working the family farm near Sauk Centre when he spotted a deer with a huge set of antlers at the edge of a field. The 29-year-old Ahrens shot the huge deer in a clover field abutting a swamp a few clays before the 1956 firearms season opened. This would fit in with what Arnold said about the deer possibly being taken illegally.

In later conversations with Ahrens. the farmer doesn’t talk about being excited when he drew a bead on the buck. His finger squeezed the trigger of his .300 Savage and he shot what some people now believe is the largest typical whitetail in the world.

In those days, however, antlers weren’t that important, especially when compared with putting food on the table and getting on with the family chores. The deer was so big, Ahrens and his brother, Ferdinand, couldn’t move it, so they quartered it, tossed the antlers in a swamp and hauled the meat back to the farmhouse.

Later, Ahrens recovered the rack, and his father did a shoulder mount of the head and antlers, using rolled-up linoleum for the neck support and charcoal for the eyes.

Ahrens was proud of the big rack and happy to loan it, for display, to the Palmer House Hotel where it was the topic of conversation for more than 12 years. Sadly, what might be the largest deer head in the world hung above the men’s room door at the hotel, which was hardly fitting for such a trophy.

When the Palmer House was sold, the antlers were moved to a bar in Beckely’s Resort where they hung for a few more years.

While the antlers were at the resort, Alex Martin was managing a local Sears department store and running his taxidermy business part-time. He convinced Ahrens to let him remount the huge whitetail in a manner befitting the enormous rack. Ahrens readily agreed.

“I remember that deer’s rack was seven inches around the base — big around as a man’s wrist,” Martin said. He displayed the new mount at his Sears store for about nine months and had it in his basement workshop for another year. During all that time, neither Martin nor his relative, game warden Hank Nelson of Appleton, Minnesota, bothered to score the rack. The only measurement they made was of the outside spread by laying the rack sideways, as if the deer had been lying on its side.

It measured a whopping 31 inches, Martin said, nearly a full yard of antler width. The reason Martin says he remembers that measurement is because the rack was higher than the stools at the Palmer House.

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Ahrens eventually took the head back to his house but rumors had already begun to circulate about the deer in that part of the state.

Word of Ahren’s huge rack eventually reached Dr. Arnold, who said one of his contacts talked about the antlers in the same breath as the Breen head-the Minnesota state record-so he knew it had to be big. Arnold flew to Minnesota a number of times to view the rack and measure it. He even reported once buying a children’s fare ticket so that he could bring along, on the seat next to him, one of the racks he already owned. Arnold wanted to show the then owner of the mystery rack that it would be in good company as part of his collection.

Ahrens didn’t know he had a potential world record, not that it would mean much, he admitted, to a man who simply shot the deer to put meat on the table. Actually, he couldn’t understand why anyone would pay money for someone else’s deer antlers.

Ahrens said to friends: “I told the guy he was crazy.” Describing the sale, he said, “Arnold had a money belt around his waist and pulled out $8,100. I told him he was out of his tree. Now, I guess he knew what he was doing.”

Ahrens never saw the rack again. Neither has anyone else, apparently, except Arnold, his wife and the person who reportedly bought it next.

Montana antler collector Dick Idol was one of the two original bidders on the rack after it changed hands and was held by Arnold. Idol had seen a photo of the rack and wanted to inspect and measure it before discussing a price.

“Chuck Arnold told me there was no need to rush, so I went on a hunting trip,” Idol later said. “When I returned, he said he had sold the head to someone in Texas. I asked him if it was McLean Bowman, who is also a collector and who was the other bidder, but he said it wasn’t. None of my contacts know who has the head now.”

As this issue goes to press, Bowman, who is a Texas resident, would neither confirm nor deny rumors that he owns the Ahrens rack but he was anxious to learn more about it. He asked LaBarbera for copies of what had already been written about the rack because as he said the facts matched what he had already heard about it. Bowman also asked for taxidermist Alex Martin’s address and phone number. When insisting that Outdoor Life provide the taxidermist’s phone number, Bowman said, “It would be in the best interests of a writer trying to find out the facts to stay in the good graces of the man who has the rack in his hands.” That’s as close as he came to saying that he actually owns the rack.

Later in the conversation, Bowman said to LaBarbera, “I can tell you one thing for darn sure. The rack exists. It’s real. I’m one of the only people who knows what its measurements are. I could tell you within a quarter of an inch.”

But he wouldn’t. He did admit that he has already checked with Wm. Harold Nesbitt, administrative director of the Boone and Crockett Club, to find out if an illegally taken deer would still be listed in the record books. “Nesbitt intimated that it would,” Bowman told LaBarbera.

The San Antonio-based collector urged that Outdoor Life not publish the story of the mystery rack until we had facts — not rumors — to go on. But as long as the owner of the rack keeps it from the hunting community, the true facts will remain buried — as useless as the antlers would be if Sal Ahrens had left them in his swamp.

Bowman said publicity might muddy the waters and cause the owner to keep the rack hidden for another year. The current Boone and Crockett scoring period ends December 31, 1985, so the rack will have to surface before then if it is to be recognized in the next awards program.

Dr. Arnold also denies that the Ahrens whitetail is the mystery deer. He said the facts about the mystery deer have not been uncovered and that the Ahrens deer is a different rack. Arnold claims the Ahrens rack scores close to 205 points — a new Minnesota record but not a new world record. People who have been following the mystery believe that sounds like a last-minute smoke screen. They believe that the known facts of both deer arc too similar to be coincidental.

According to Boone and Crockett director Wm. Harold Nesbitt, however, photocopies of pictures that eventually surfaced through Alex Martin indicate the Ahrens deer would be scored as a typical whitetail.

“A deer cannot be recognized as a world record, however, until it has been entered in the Boone and Crockett Awards program and officially measured by a panel of judges at a score higher than the existing record,” Nesbitt pointed out.

Nesbitt likened scoring trophy game animals and managing the records to running the Miss America Pageant. There are always plenty of rumors about prettier heads.

“Just like those people who say they know of a better-looking woman from Texas who could have won the Miss America title,” he said, “there are hunters who tell me they know of deer that would score higher than the current world record. Nothing is officially recognized, though, until it measures up to the criteria of the competition.”

The Head Hunters

Many persons assume that the new world-record deer is a deer that has just been shot or one that has yet to be killed. But as the mystery deer, which was shot in 1956 proves, this is not necessarily so.

Adding to the aura of record-book bucks is the way many of the heads arc tracked down and traded by a group of people who collect antlers the way other people deal in stamps or art work. Both the Jordan head, which currently holds the world record. and the Breen head, which is the top rack in Minnesota, are examples of what can happen in the ins and outs of shooting. tracking and recognizing a record.

The Jordan head, the world-record typical rack, was taken from a deer shot in 1914 by 2I-year-old Jim Jordan near Danbury, Wisconsin. Jordan gave the deer to a taxidermist for mounting. The man moved a couple of times and the rack ended up at a rummage sale in Sandstone, Minnesota. A distant relative of Jordan’s bought it at the sale for $3 and had it officially scored.

In I 964, Boone and Crockett measurer Bernie Fashingbauer scored the antlers at 206 6/8 points, which set a new world record. A panel of judges that remeasures all potential world records adjusted the I0-pointer’s score to 206 1/8 and recognized it as the No. I whitetail. The “location of kill” was listed as Sandstone, Minnesota. and the “hunter” was shown as unknown.

Jordan came to visit his relative and recognized the rack from the deer he had shot 50 years earlier. Dr. Arnold bought the rack in 1968 for $1,500. In 1977, a Minneapolis outdoor writer told Jordan’s story, which set off an investigation by Boone and Crockett. In 1978, the club recognized Jordan as the hunter and Wisconsin as the location — 64 years after the buck had been shot. Sadly. Jordan died two months before his achievement was recognized.

The 10-point Breen head is the Minnesota record typical whitetail but it’s actually bigger than the Jordan head. This rack, taken by John Breen near Funkley, Minnesota, in 1918, would be the world record with a score of about 210 points, except it was penalized eight points, according to the Boone and Crockett system of measuring. because of six freak antler formations. The Breen head ranks fourth in the world at 202 points. Dr. Arnold bought the Breen rack for $1,500, too.

Why do these people go to such lengths to track down record heads? Much of Arnold’s satisfaction comes from the detective work that is necessary to trace a record head. This involves following up rumors overheard by a taxidermist or a sporting-goods shop owner.

”I get the biggest thrill out of just finding these big heads,” Arnold said. “You wouldn’t believe the phone bills I run up while trying to track down these rumors. And 99 percent of the leads are dead ends. I collect heads for their beauty: for what only nature and the deer’s genes could produce.”

This attitude helps explain why, after handling thousands of record-book racks, Arnold has kept only about 12 typical and non-typical antlers. When Mark LaBarbera interviewed Arnold at his home, these sets of JO-pound symmetrical and nonsymmetrical antlers lay at his feet waiting to be recapped so they could be shown off to their best advantage.

Secrecy is also an essential part of successful antler collecting. Over the past 25 years of collecting, Arnold has learned that “Loose lips lose antlers.” As the dentist has traveled throughout the United States and Canada he has patiently paid his dues to become the dean of antler collectors and, at the same time, has learned and forgotten the locations of more record-size racks than any other sportsman.

Now Arnold’s devotion to his collection has led him to discover, buy and sell a mystery rack to a mystery buyer. Where it is and when and if it will ever reappear only adds to the buck’s strange story. But as the history of the Jordan head bears out, riddles and enigmas can play a large part in setting a world record.

What Makes A Record?

How big is a world-record whitetail? The No. 1 Jordan head, which Charles Arnold is holding in the accompanying photograph (above), has beams that measure 30 inches long and an inside spread of 20 inches. This means that each main beam is longer than a standard desk is high. The smallest rack in the most recent (1977) Boone and Crockett listings has main beams that arc more than 23 inches long and an inside spread of 20 inches. That deer, which was shot in I 974 in Missouri, ranked 392.

Record-book whitetails, however, are not judged only on size. Other factors, such as the length of the points and the circumference of the main beam between different tines are considered, too. Deductions also are made for such items as the difference in length between opposite tines. The final score is reached when tile deductions are subtracted from the sum of the measurements. To be considered for the Boone and Crockett listings the typical whitetail deer must score 170 points and the typical Coues deer, a whitetail subspecies, must score 110 points.

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If you, or someone you know has a large whitetail rack, you can order a scoring chart and measurement instructions from the Boone and Crockett Club, 205 S. Patrick St., Alexandria, VA 22314. One scoring sheet costs 50¢ and four sheets cost $1.

This story, “World Record Whitetail? Tracking the Mystery Buck,” appeared in the February 1984 issue of Outdoor Life. According to various sources, photos later surfaced that showed two abnormal points had been removed to improve its typical score.