Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter
Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite.
The Midnight Troubadour
Tough and timeless, this polo is built for the long ride. Featuring a crisp, non-collapsing collar and a rugged, stretchy fabric, it's the perfect shirt for any cowboy's wardrobe.
Score: 442 5/8
Year: 1968
State: AZ In hunting towns, it's not uncommon to see a good-sized elk rack and four hooves sticking out of the back of a pick-up in hunting season. What isn't all that common is to see a world record rack thrown in with a washer and dryer set, stopped at a traffic light. For antler buyer Alan Ellsworth, that's what he saw February, 28 1995. Ellsworth is an antler buyer who grew up in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona — a place that has now become synonymous with giant, record-book bulls. But the elk he saw in the back of that pick-up was old and faded. Even so, Ellsworth pulled onto Main Street behind the truck and knew it was a 420-something rack. When the truck turned into a local restaurant, Ellsworth was feeling a little hungry himself and ended up buying the rack from its owner. Ellsworth traced the story of the hunt to the previous owner's brother, Alonzo Winters–a deceased cattle-rancher from Arizona. In the fall of 1968, Winters and his friend spotted this bull in the White Mountains near the Black River. Winters shot the bull with his Savage Model 99 .308. Even though the rack was stored in a garage for years, Winters would show it off every chance he got. Winters died in August 1994, the day before his 77th birthday. The elk was given to his sister, who Ellsworth ended up following into that parking lot in 1995. When Ellsworth and an official measurer put a tape to it, the score, along with proof of a fair chase hunt, proved that this elk was, and still is, the typical world record. Boone and Crockett Club
Score: 442 3/8
Year: 1899
State: CO When elk are killed a good century back, details of the hunt tend to get fuzzy. Nearly 20 years ago, OL outdoor writer Jim Zumbo struck out to see and hear about what was then the world's largest elk. Legend has it that John Plute, 31, was a miner around Crested Butte, Colorado — as most able-bodied men from the region were. He lived in a boarding house, occasionally trading wild game meat for rent. He hunted every chance he got. One day in 1899, he went up to Dark Canyon, 12 miles west of Crested Butte and killed a fine bull, a mighty fine bull. He didn't typically haul out the racks as it was tough to pay rent with something that useless back in those days. He told others about the s
