Pre Rompola scammer
Whitetail Deer
Contributors to this thread:
Does anyone remember this buck and the story behind it?
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...
I do remember the buck but I don`t remember the hoax. The deer I believe is from a state not know for big bucks.
I remember the picture. And if memory serves me correct, I think the state was Georgia. Correct me if I’m wrong. At the time it was a big deal, but now, it seems it occurs, all to frequently!!
Owen Walton was the guy’s name.
Kirk Darner was another scammer back in the day.
T... I have to dig out the magazine and read the add
Which one? I think Darner had a Remington Arms add with all the mulies he poached/bought. I remember him having a display at a sports show in Oklahoma City back in the 80s I think.
Walton scammed several product guys if I remember correctly.
Don't recall this ad but I do have a Moto4. Things just keep running.
Wow talk about a blast from the past, I remember the pic .
EF.... give it some thought. It will come to you.
I remember it. Story below. At least Rompola was smart enough to manufacture his own. lol!
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.
Here's what I remember about the Owen Walton story,a couple of farmers find both sheds from a big whitetail buck.Owen talks them into letting him borrow them to show to someone and the next thing you know he has killed a Big Buck and had the head mounted.then a guy that knew one of the farmers see's the mount and tells the farmer that the antlers look JUST like the sheds that he had.Owen was Suppose the meet with somebody and have the head x rayed and he told them he was offered a Large sum of money the day before so he sold the mounted head.Thats the best I remember and the last I heard of it.Oh and I think he got a FREE Yamaha 4 wheeler be cause in his story he said, I'm glad I had my Yamaha 4 wheeler or I wouldn't have made it out to my deer stand on time to Kill that Big Buck that afternoon. I also remember Kirk Darner had shot some Big Muley Bucks with I beleive it was a Remington 700 7mm mag,didn't know he wasn't on the up and up.
Kurt
BigStriper, I just posted the entire story above.
Who is “we”, EF? You, Topgun & Thornton?!
Don't bite t-roy. He's having a tough time working out that title.
I remember Kirk Darner with all those MONSTER mulies when I was younger and everyone was just in awe of him.....20 years later the truth comes out. You never hear that story going around.
That's clearly a Yamaha ATV.
Doesn't matter how good of hunter you are, a WR whitetail is a freak of nature. Killing one would take a complete stroke of luck and is why the top whitetails are usually killed by average or even novice hunters who happened to hit the lottery.
I can think of numerous of what Midwest just said. Wayne Bills of Todd Hurley come to my mind.
I can honestly say I was invited into a house in NW Kansas to look at some of the landowners whitetail mounts. He had one head there that was a clean very heavy 12 point. I swear the deer would go over 200"s. When I asked him the score he said he did not know and could care less. He also said he never even reaches for his bow unless he figures the deer is at least 5.5 if not 6.5 years old. By the look of his mounts none were under 160"s. Shawn
I have a very good friend that has some absolutely amazing deer and elk that he has killed and has never had one of them measured or entered into a book. Some people just don't care!
bowman94...... X2 on the Bills buck at least. That buck was killed within just a few miles of where I grew up. He got invited to hunt by a friend, never deer hunted before, used a borrowed shotgun, made a fluke shot on the deer, etc, etc.
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.
Owen did a MUCH better job attaching the sheds to the deer than Mitch....The ear butt muscle is still attached to the back of the skull and just slight sagging on the muscle over the eye socket. Not quite sure how he did it as there are pedicles present but a straight line hair color change half way up on the forehead. His repair job is strong enough that he's got the antlers lifting the deer head off the atv.
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.
Wow, and to think i used to fantasize about being on the front cover of WTM with NY's biggest buck ever... glad i'm just an old shmuck still enjoying the hunt... i don't have the face for magazine covers anyway.
Yea Door Knob, I was thinking maybe a Stan Pots mask... wait gimme a second :0)
I cant figure out why he mounted the antlers on a doe
Just goes to show that Mitch was not the first to pull off a scam of this type.
I wanted to believe the Rompola buck was real. Unfortunately, I don't. After reading Larry Huffman's take on it, and Larry handled more top end bucks than anyone, and personally speaking to Gordon Whittington, I can't get there. Larry believed he faked more than one of his bucks based on the evidence.
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.
One thing you can usually see. Guy like buddy on the four wheeler read what you can about the title. He's saying it's more than luck and it is HIS SKILL that got him the deer. Difference of a chest thumper vs most hunters. Who is more likely to cheat to get to the top?
Quote:
"I think Larry is also jealous."I doubt it. He passed away more than 10 years ago, in January 2007.
Not so sure, sticksender.......Some people can hold a grudge a long time!
Jealousy ain’t got nothing to do with it. Why aren’t people jealous of James Jordan, Mel Johnson, del Austin, mike Beaty, jay Gregory, don kisky, gene and Barry, Myles Keller,etc just to name a few. Another name for post rompola scandal would be the ghillie god Marc Anthony who may have got the idea from rompola.
I've never bashed him. I just can't get past the droopy right ear/eye and the blood in the right ear. I've arrowed a lot of deer. I've never had an ear fill up with blood under any condition.
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?
Review all arguments in the thread that was locked. If you think the pedicles, ears, and brow tines looked abnormal, all were proven that many other deer have them.
Like this one shot by a fellow Bowsiter on another thread
My question remains the same... why does anyone care? Legal or not, it doesn’t effect you, one dam bit. I know it doesn’t effect me, and I believe it’s legit.
For me it has nothing to do with the way the antlers look or ears look. A guy wants to be a hero and have all these articles written about himself about how great of a hunter he is. He has all of his deer state record deer scored. Then he shoots the biggest one of them all, takes pictures and puts them in advertising. Then as soon as somebody wants to authenticate it he suddenly goes into hiding and hides the antlers. Why would anybody do that?
"Why would anybody do that?"
I think the answer to that is too obvious to require any elaboration.
To all of you super sleuths....on Towson md craigslist....just what y'all need!!! A dental xray machine....cheap!!
GREAT !! We have the x ray machine.................and now the antlers are missing !
Case closed.......or call Columbo
Been bowhunting for 50 yrs ,the largest WT i ever saw was shot by a old guy at work.Who hunted with his brother 2 days a year.A perfect 12 point 18 inch back points (4), never scored because he taged it with his brothers tag,(so he could keep hunting for the day) never mounted either.Only saw it one time would go over 200" he was afraid he would get caught and would not sell it.Every time i see a big rack i think of the biggest one.
I scratch my head that bow hunters that have been around and presented with evidence, still are divided on what seems obvious to me. I think a better quote is:
"A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."
I like this one better:
“There’s a sucker born every minute.”
P.T. Barnum
^^^You mean like this one?
I'm thinking it's safe to say antlers are alot like finger prints and a box of chocolates....no two are the exact same and ya never know what you're gonna get from the deer.
That one has droopy ears too...8^)
"My question remains the same... why does anyone care? Legal or not, it doesn’t effect you, one dam bit. I know it doesn’t effect me, and I believe it’s legit." Just a mystery involving deer hunting, a subject we are all interested in. Some people like to do crossword puzzles...