The Mundy Buck

“Death steals everything except our stories.”

― Jim Harrison

Where do memories go when they fade away? What happens if hunting stories stop being told as the legendary bucks of the past fade into the sepia toned backgrounds of photo albums stored in boxes? As the ritual of sharing hunting tales changes in this age of online media, could the bucks of the past and their stories begin to disappear?

In the time of year when the meadows begin to change from green to amber and before the sheep were driven down from their summer grazing pastures, Frank Mestas was riding in the truck with his father checking the grass. His grandfather purchased the land high above the Rio Brazos for 50 cents an acre and Frank’s family kept their sheep there to graze for the summer.  Bouncing along in the truck that afternoon in 1962, 15 year old Frank would have no idea that what would happen next would be documented in the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish state record books and become the subject of years of speculation and misinformation.

Now 81 years old, Frank recalls that day with his father checking the grass and then stopping on the way down the mountain road to shoot a buck that would score 288 6/8 in the Boone and Crocket scoring system. At that time and for many years after, it was the widest recorded non-typical mule deer by Boone and Crocket standards at 49 2/8 inches wide. Frank’s buck was also number one in the Burkett System, a scoring system that measures the displacement of water, with the antlers weighing 13 1/2 pounds. To this day, Frank’s buck is the second largest non-typical mule deer ever recorded in New Mexico’s state history.

It was all Frank and his father could do to load the giant buck into the back of their pickup truck but when the impressive animal was finally loaded, Frank and his dad headed down the mountain for home. Along the road, the pair ran into local rancher Bill Mundy as the road passed through what is now known as the Mundy Ranch. Seeing the antlers in the back of the truck, Bill whistled to the guys to stop and let him take a look at the buck. Frank recalls Bill calling him, “Panchito,” which was young Frank’s nickname at the time, and Bill asking to keep the buck for  himself. Frank said that at 15 years old, he had no idea of the potential value of the buck. Frank gave Bill the animal and the 288 6/8 inch buck would be forever known as the Mundy Buck.

The Mundy Buck would become the cornerstone for future hunting promotions and real estate opportunities in northern Rio Arriba County. Frank says that there weren’t many elk in the mountains in those days, but there were a lot of big mule deer bucks.

There was much conjecture around who really shot the Mundy Buck.  Some claimed that Frank’s uncle shot the deer; some said it was Frank’s dad; some believed Frank was bird hunting when he shot the deer; while others claimed that it was a ranch hand on the Mundy Ranch or even Bill Mundy himself who pulled the trigger.

Bill Mundy had the buck shoulder mounted and after many years the deer changed hands. The buck ended up on display at a bed and breakfast in Utah for several years and later turned up on eBay in 2010 where the starting bid for the mount was $180 thousand dollars.

Soon the true memories of that early fall day will be gone with Frank and all that will be left are late night theories made on on-line mule deer forums. The whereabouts of the Mundy Buck are not widely known today.

As hunters, we value the emotion of a hunting photo, a taxidermy mount and especially the story of a hunt. Throughout the upcoming hunting seasons, we will acquire new stories to tell about our successes and likely some of our misadventures. We will take and post photos on social media as a way to tell those stories and with any luck, those stories will create a thread within larger conservation narrative that will keep the traditions of hunting alive.