Bowsite.com

......:......7 points on one side and 8 on the other, with a gross score of 459 7/8? and a net score of 442 3/8? after deductions. The antlers are beautifully symmetrical, with the brow tines an astonishing........

The auction is being organized by Gary Hubbell of United Country Colorado Brokers & Auctioneers in Hotchkiss, Colorado.

It would be a rack that I'd be interested in seeing, but not owning. If I had unlimited discretionary income, maybe I'd buy the rack for the RMEF to display. I think that its role in history and the record books has greater value to the hunting public than to me.

But...I am having fun imagining the look on the wife's face. "Honey. I just invested $150,000 in an elk rack."

Obviously the rack is worth a serious amount of cash, I couldn't even venture a guess. $150,000?? No idea.

I'd also like to have one of the new supercharged Teslas to drive around town. Both have about the same chance of happening.

Joe

This one animal sculpted an entire generation of elk hunters, embodies what we dream of finding ANYWHERE let alone a unit that is currently OTC, and marks the turn of an era. It represents the best, the past, the lost, and those who actually have more than 4 generations of roots here. To see it is a privilege. To be able to look at that bull every day and wonder where he summered, and how he wintered, and how many cows he had, what other bulls he fought, and what cave of timber he most loved for bedding....and...and...and...

are priceless.

But call me nostalgic.

Oh how I dreamed of that bull when I was young. I knew the story forward and backwards and the score by heart.

Old John found that bull surviving in Dark Canyon and did it with an old open sight carbine, if I remember right.

He needed another year grandpa said. I often think of what he could have been.

That Bull is a legend...and a insane story given the circumstances...

Some of the comments are like" So what..who the hell is wild Bill Hickcock to me and that six shooter won't blow a hole as big as my sawed off Mossberg"

I can understand some of the "worth nothing if I didn't kill it."

If I were to buy the $3K 411 scoring typical 6X6 from wyliecoyote's taxidermist friend and hang it in my house, I'd feel like a fraud.

If I were to buy the Plute bull and hang it in my house, I'd feel like I stole some history or sequestered history. I'd have to donate it to the RMEF.

But first, I'd invite a bunch of you guys to come over in Lou's fleet of Teslas for a private viewing and some 25yr old Macallan to lubricate stories.

"Honey. I'm selling the house and the kids so that I can buy an elk rack to donate to the RMEF."

I hope whoever buys the Plute bull displays it publicly. I'd like to see it with my kids.

In a sense I grew up with that bull - certainly it was the first rack I ever saw up close or put my hands on. A hell of an introduction to what an elk might be - like taking Christie Brinkley to the Jr. Prom.

Throughout the 70's and a good portion of the 80's it hung in Tony's Conoco in Crested Butte just as you turned in from Gunnison. Like in many mountain towns that had not quite been discovered, Tony's sold a bit of everything: coveralls, ammo, hats, tinned meat, auto parts, comic books, whatever - all of it arrayed around the antique iron stove.

The store was long and creaky and dark with scratched glass counters and the smell of old wood and older men. I was 7 in 1973 when I met Tony and he was about 100. In the years following, I'd grow up yet he always stayed the same. As did that great brooding head with the dusty eyes and the impossible spread of bone, on the wall above and to the right of the ancient NCR register. Tony would talk as if he knew John Plute, which I don't think was possible but it gave a vibrancy to the stories that kept us rapt.

As kids we were usually coming into Tony's for Big Red chewing gum and to replace the Mepp's and Panther Martin's we were continually losing to the willows and rocks of Copper Creek, the Slate, the East, and myriad unnamed beaver ponds. As we grew older and ventured farther afield, we'd sometimes find little groups of summer elk - eating boletes in dark timber, or gathering on glacial snowpack to escape the biting flies; and some had cute little fuzzy nests atop their heads. They were impressive in a way, dancing bits of buff and thunder crashing through the deadfall, but it was awfully difficult to reconcile with them being the same animal as we'd visit in Tony's.

They had little of the gravitas and none of the timelessness that radiated from the Plute bull like light. If even a non-hunting snot-nosed punk of 12 years old could pick up on this, it must have been potent indeed.

No question that my being an obsessive elk hunter now comes in large from those years of gazing up at that head, imagining that animals like that were out there and that I might have the temerity to pursue them.

So yes, I give it enormous value. Priceless. So much so that it has apparently engendered in me a heretofore unknown predilection for nostalgia and literary meanderings. Son of a bitch, I must be getting old. I'd apologize for rambling but I don't think us old guys do that.

that said the value to me is nil. but the value to others who know the history and such could be a surprisingly large number.

oz

Those comments were a joy to read sir...........

That bull is history and should be displayed publicly. As some have suggested, it should be there to place that bug into many more future hunters. People need to dream..........................

If I had the money, I would pay whatever it took to be able to donate it.

If I owned a big bar or resort, I might pay a fair bit to be able to hang it in my business and attract customers.

Superbowl jerseys, shoes, rings, framed photos, gold medals, etc.

I don't necessarily know that someone would want to buy this to hang on the wall and claim to have killed it, no more than someone would buy a gold medal or superbowl ring and claim it was their own.

As some have stated, to me personally, the rack isn't worth what it would cost to purchase it. At some threshold if someone came to me and offered to sell it, I'd buy (who wouldn't if, say, a guy offered to sell it to you for $100? or trade it for a dozen arrows?)

However, to someone with $, maybe they want to purchase it and donate it to an organization/museum/display for a tax write-off. Maybe they want to purchase it and hang it in their den and tell their buddies "that was the WR back in the day - let me tell you about it". More power to them.

It's just not in my price league. Neither is a $10,000 superbowl ring, or a $1,000 jersey.

I know it don't mean much to you but it does to me. Lasting that long until someone picked up the new record in Az. Stood as the world record coming from Colorado.

It does and will always be something to remember!!!

Here in BC the world record (maybe former WR) Boone & Crockett non typical elk hangs in the rec center in Revelstoke. Neat to be able to view it most anytime. It was actually a pickup head found dead in Arrow Lake, a hydrodam empoundment on the Columbia River. But that is digressing from the Plute bull.

Here's a copy of a picture of that bull from years ago with Ed and my buddy's daughter, Leona.

Kurt, you might even recognize the backdrop and location:)

Agree, it should be hanging up for public display. A lot of history and nostalgia around that bull.

Which is pretty freakin' ironic, since I've never attended one, but my belief is that it would be worth far more to the future of Wild Elk for the inspiration it would give than the same amount of cash could ever be. Perhaps more than ANY amount of cash could ever be...