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It was a late 80’s Early 90’s Yamaha ATV add the guy said he killed the buck and tried to make some fame and money from it.

Turns out they were shed antlers he borrowed from someone then said they were stolen.

If anyone is more familiar with the story / hoax please add on...

Kirk Darner was another scammer back in the day.

Walton scammed several product guys if I remember correctly.

ALABAMA OR GEORGIA? The first widely publicized case of this sort occurred in the 1980s, with a rack that, while huge, was of less than world-record size. The hunter in question, Owen Walton, said he’d shot the deer in his home state of Alabama on Jan. 28, 1986. There even were field photos of Owen with the buck to back up his claim.

Based on the fact that the buck was given an official B&C entry score of 187 6/8 net points – at the time, the highest ever for a typical from the Southeast – several magazines ran features on him. Indeed, one appeared in our Nov. 1986 issue.

To my knowledge, there still isn’t any hard evidence that Owen did anything wrong. However, after the stories started appearing in print, there came a stunning claim: that the rack worn by the new Alabama record was a set of sheds picked up 100 miles to the east, on Georgia’s Flint River!

Ed Vanderslice Jr. told North American Whitetail writer Duncan Dobie that Owen had “borrowed” the sheds from him in 1983 and later claimed they’d been stolen. Now, Ed claimed, they were sitting on the head of a deer Owen said he’d shot in Alabama. The Georgian said the rack could be identified by some scratch marks made by a harrow having run over the sheds as they lay in a field.

Dennis Campbell, who’d measured the rack for B&C, believed Ed’s story; in fact, he’d noticed those scratches while scoring the deer. Wanting to get to the bottom of things, he asked Owen to meet him at a local dentist’s office to X-ray the shoulder mount.

According to Dennis, Owen agreed to do so, but then didn’t show. The next day, when Dennis asked why, Owen said an “antler collector from Texas” had showed up at his home the night before the scheduled X-ray session and offered $1,500 cash for the rack. There were two stipulations: that the collector not be identified, and that Owen take the deal right then or forget it. Owen said he took the money and gave the guy the rack.

It’s interesting that no antler collector in Texas or elsewhere ever has admitted to being, or even knowing, Mr. Anonymous. Nor has anyone said they’ve seen this rack since then. It presumably was destroyed. In late 1987, B&C rejected Owen’s entry.

So ended one of the strangest tales in whitetail history. As for the buck, it seems no one ever got him. Thus, in a novel way, he became one of the few bucks ever to achieve fame without giving his life to do so.

The Walton case’s impact on the deer industry was significant. Reports were that several major companies (including optics and ATV manufacturers) with whom Owen had reached endorsement deals lost the thousands of dollars they’d already paid him. The companies chose not to pursue legal action; however, for years afterwards, many manufacturers of hunting products saw the “Walton incident” as reason enough to avoid signing endorsement deals with hunters that they didn’t know.

Kurt

Also agree with Midwest on the fluke aspect on giant bucks getting killed. That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of guys that consistently kill big deer, but I’d wager that a very high percentage of the state record bucks killed in most states were killed by hunters with, what many people would consider, minimal/below average hunting experience. You have to give them credit, though. They made it count at the moment of truth.

My guess is he "V" cut another buck with the hair on and removed those antlers just under the rosette, then screwed the big sheds to the underside of the reddish colored V-cut skull. He then V-cut the host deer on the atv to match and placed the repaired notched rack with darker red forehead to the host deer. Not sure how he secured that part to the deer for lift photos? Maybe some super long decking screws....all I know is forehead hair color doesn't change half way up in a straight line.

Mitch once approached Barry Wensel and showered him with praise about his knowledge of backtracking deer in the snow........soon thereafter Mitch started using some of Barry's material in his own "how to" speeches.

Mitch also took and plagiarized a great hunting story from another legendary Michigan hunter, the late Jimmy Dean. Mitch complimented Jimmy Dean on the cool hunting story and then proceeded to have a near identical hunting story himself the following year. Let's just say Jimmy didn't appreciate it.

Yeah, some guys don't care one iota about entering their deer in the books but Mitch and Owen were not of that sort by any stretch of the Mitch Groupies.

The cape had to be split. There's no other way to account for the droopy right ear and eye. Plus the blood in the right ear.

Larry Huffman had access to the biggest bucks the world has ever known. He had no reason to be jealous. How is it that only Rompola's buck carried different width measurements at the pedicels than any other bucks in history?

I think the answer to that is too obvious to require any elaboration.

Case closed.......or call Columbo

"A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."

“There’s a sucker born every minute.”

P.T. Barnum