The buck is just amazing, frozen in time, lifting his head into an autumn sun, about to work a licking branch at a scrape. With a drop tine and too many kickers to count, the center piece of “Big Country Bucks” threatens to walk off the canvas and under our stand on the edge of an Iowa bean field. The painting puts you there, watching two bucks face off, as several does and a yearling buck watch. Of course, in a stand on an Iowa bean field is exactly where wildlife artist Larry Zach wants you to be as you look at his painting.

     “I want to give the guy who is stuck in an office all day a five or 10-second break,” Larry said, “I want to take him away to his favorite stand and put a big whitetail in front of him. That’s what I’m looking for out of one of my paintings.”

     Larry has the kind of job most die-hard deer hunters would love. He spends each fall morning in the stand, each evening in the stand, gathering mental images and dreaming up scenes that will cover his canvas at the studio. Larry’s road to a career in wildlife art was long and winding.

     “I always had an interest in art,” Larry said. “I used to draw a lot. A good friend of mine encouraged me to enter the state’s duck stamp competition. I won, and that launched my career in wildlife art.”

     People started to call Larry, wanting to see his studio and other paintings. “I didn’t have anything to show them,” Larry said. “I figured it was now or never - if I was going to live out this fantasy, this was my shot. I enjoyed teaching, but being inside in November was killing me. It would be a cold morning, frost on the ground, bucks rutting, and I was in a classroom. I wanted to be out there.”

     Larry left his career as a high school teacher and started painting full time. The work suited him well and he soon was making a name for himself in the world of wildlife art. Larry has won numerous wildlife awards, but draws the most satisfaction from turning images he finds in the nooks and crannies of his farm into beautiful paintings. Larry also draws a great deal of satisfaction from his relationships with conservation organizations.

     “I met some QDMA members at a Wisconsin Deer Classic many years ago and became a member,” Larry said. “I considered myself a trophy hunter at the time. Now I am a deer manager. That has made all the difference in the world. I love to see a healthy, balanced herd - that’s what QDM and the QDMA are all about. I have as much fun managing my farm as I do hunting. Some folks go to a therapist; I go to the farm and get on my tractor.”

     Larry has a couple of properties that are intensely managed. He owns a 260-acre farm and is a shareholder in another 3,600-acre farm nearby. Both properties are home to high-quality food plots that compliment the region’s intense agriculture. Larry also plants trees and continually works on timber stand improvement.

     “I have come a long way on my farm,” Larry said. “I am always thinking up new ways to maximize its potential. We have worked to reestablish some prairie habitat, put in a wetland and several ponds, planted corn, soybeans, winter wheat, and rye.”

     Like the rest of us, Larry faces serious management challenges. Getting neighbors to follow the QDM philosophy and harvest enough does are just some of the areas he has been concentrating on lately. But being located in the heart of “Big Deer Country” has its advantages, including some unbelievable whitetail bucks.

      Though Larry can paint any critter with fur or feathers, whitetails are his favorite. According to Larry a painting can be beautiful, but it should truly represent the animal. Many of Larry’s paintings portray some aspect of a whitetail’s behavior. Larry prides himself on accurate, as well as beautiful paintings.

     “I’ve seen some really great artist who paint a great picture that doesn’t tell you anything about the deer, or worse, tells you something that isn’t true,” Larry said. “I saw a painting of a whitetail buck in hard antler guarding a doe and fawn in summer. It was pretty, but it wasn’t an accurate portrayal of a whitetail. Of all the critters, I know whitetails the best, through taxidermy, photography, and years of watching them in the woods. The more I learn, the more fascinating they become.”

     In a sense, Larry’s passion for whitetails has come full circle. Larry loves hunting whitetails so much they often grace his canvas. Because Larry wants to be a better painter, he has moved from his lofty perch on a deer stand, down to “deer level” so he can get a better look at what he wants to paint. “I have started hunting out of ground blinds lately and it’s really helped my painting,” Larry said. “It opened up a new world for me, getting down on their level.”

     The quality of work Larry produces doesn’t come easy or fast, so Larry only completes a few major painting each year. But you can bet each one is not only beautiful, but accurate in the way they detail the life of the whitetail he chose to paint. Larry’s intimate knowledge of particular whitetails, not just whitetails in particular, is another advantage that his paintings to another level. Larry just didn’t paint the “Big Country Bucks,” he knew them.
     “That buck was something special - he is just impossible to improve upon,” Larry said, “A lot of people around this area knew this buck, he touched a lot of lives. I borrowed the sheds from this great buck to use as a reference for the painting. I call them ‘grinners’ because you can’t help but grin when you pick them up.”
     Next time you see a Larry Zach painting, take a close look. Not only is the whitetail beautiful, he’s a whitetail. Larry probably saw him one frosty November morning last season from his “morning office.”

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