IN SEARCH OF MONARCHS
Easing through North Park timber, Edison Pillmore stepped into a clearing too quickly and startled a small group of deer. They bounded for cover as the hunter reflexively shouldered his rifle. The enormity of the two racks rocking over his sights stunned him, but he managed to peg the bead to the biggest buck’s ribs. At the crack of his .303 Savage, the animal faltered, then pitched to earth. That 1949 Colorado mule deer set a world record for typical antlers and earned Boone and Crockett’s coveted Sagamore Hill Award.
THE GLORY DAYS
Across the West, hunters won’t soon find deer hunting to match that of the 1940s and ‘50s. After Lewis and Clark noted the big-eared deer on the prairie, settlers shot the animals for meat. The Homestead Act of 1862 brought more bad news for deer. In 1879 John Wesley Powell advised Congress to allocate 2,560 acres for each farmstead on the Plains. Congress mandated 160. Overgrazing ensued. As bison vanished,
