Hunt nets dough for Y.

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jun 12, 2004 | by Dick Harmon Deseret Morning News

It's been going on since cave man days, when the main sport/ occupation was hunter-gatherer. But it still took BYU athletic department officials by surprise this week when the big-ticket item at their giant auction was a nimrod package to go hunting.

Yeah, they threw all kinds of deals at a gathering of interested fans and general-public types. They were selling packages for road trips, sideline passes, golf with coaches, clubs, equipment, private coaching lessons and all kinds of gear.

But the big item was a hunting trip to Texas, courtesy of Ty Detmer. It includes a private jet flight to Corpus Christi and a ride to Detmer's 1,200-acre ranch. There you would have three days' accommodation and food with Detmer as the guide as you stalk and hunt all kinds of exotic and domestic game. Critters like dahl sheep, mouflon sheep, African oryx, feral pigs, wild boar, coyotes and bobcats.

The auctioneer got $16,000 for one Detmer hunt and $13,000 for another. On that night, Cougar Club fund-raisers received bids totaling $73,000 and more than a third of it came from the two gigs at former BYU quarterback Detmer's place -- a sort of get-a-way wilderness if you ignore the 8-foot chain link fence surrounding all 1,200 acres.

"I was surprised," senior associate athletic director Peter Pilling said.

"I didn't know the bid would go that high," athletic director Val Hale said.

"I knew it would go high," said head trainer George Curtis after working behind the scenes with Detmer and helping arrange for the private-jet ride.

As it turns out, this hunt thing is big.

I checked with some friends who live and die to hunt, and they concurred that hunts on private ranches could go that high, depending on the trophy game, company and client. The price can climb even higher if tied to a tax deduction and donation.

For instance, there is a permit that used to be called the Governor's Tag, now the statewide conservation permit, which goes to the highest bidder each year in Utah. The high-bid hunter can go to any hunting unit in the Beehive State and take a trophy buck. This special deal allows the hunter to harvest that prize beyond the usual 10- to 12-day window in the fall.

The high bid for this permit last year was more than $82,000 -- the same price as a building lot in Utah County. On top of that, the hunter could pay $10,000 more for a guide and another bounty for a finder. A finder is someone familiar with the movement of trophy animals. For a fee, he'll tell you where they're hiding.

Three years ago, the owner of the Governor's Tag shot his prize just above Mapleton, not very far from U.S. 6 and the populated Wasatch Front. The finder guy may have been the attendant at the Chevron station with a good pair of binoculars.

Bob Underwood, who hunts in Africa and just returned from a deer hunt in Spain, could see the Detmer $16,000 bid, although he said anything outside the King Ranch in Texas might be left wanting.

I stopped in to see my mechanic, Eric Patton of Mapleton, because he always gets cranked up over hunting permits. For instance, his father-in-law, Jack Walters of Richfield, has put in for an elk permit for his own property the past 33 years and failed to draw.

Patton said $10,000 tags on private property for elk is the norm and the Detmer deal might even be a bargain when you consider transportation and company and if the game were something desired.

"If you are making a donation and getting a tax break, I could see a lot of hunters with money doing that," Patton said.

David Spice, Patton's chief assistant, walked in on our conversation about that time. He was wiping an auto part with a rag and jumped right in without missing a beat.

Said Spice: "I'd pay $10,000 to go shoot Osama bin Laden, but not a deer."

Fund-raisers? Don't forget the ancient sport of our ancestors. It's in the blood.

E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com