Mel Johnson has passed ....
Illinois
Contributors to this thread:
Hello, I just wanted others to know that Mel Johnson (The Whitetail World Record) has passed! Mel was a dear friend and he and his family are great people. Mel will be missed by many and he had made many friends in and out of The Industry thru the years! Rest In Peace Mel ! -}}}}}}}}}}}------------------->
Very sorry to hear..... I met Mel back in the nineties. Kevin Chapman & I drove 2 hrs up to his home so he could sign a newly released print, of his deer, that was auctioned off at our Whitetail Unlimited banquet. We stayed & visited with him for well over an hour, listening to his stories, talking hunting & seeing his record buck in person.....hell of a deer !!!
We also had him come to a IBS Banquet several years later. We honored him with an award introduced him & his wife to everyone there.
Very nice man, a true bowhunter & a great ambassador for bowhunting !!!
Godspeed on your new endeavor Mel......
I went to his house in '90 to have him score two of my deer heads from the previous year. He was every bit a gentleman and was easy to talk with. I ran into him at a Deer Classic a year or two later and he remembered me by name. I was impressed.
Lynn Wilcox's Link
http://www.prairiestateoutdoors.com/hunting/article/mel_johnsons_13_pointer
Good article on Mel & his bow kill.
The Johnson buck is & always will be, one of the greatest typical bucks you will kind. A full size mount of his deer is on display inside the main entrance at the Peoria Bass Pro Shop, only a few miles from where Mel lived & killed that buck.
"53 years ago a young man by the name of Mel Johnson headed out to hunt a monster whitetail he had been seeing. By the end of the hunt he was holding the largest typical whitetail ever taken with a bow and arrow. Even with all the technological advances and “big buck” killing products on the market today, the buck remains the undisputed world record typical archery buck 53 years later."
"With a typical score of 204 4/8, this buck is the only North American big game animal to ever receive both theIshi and Sagamore Hill awards, the highest recognition that the Pope & Young and Boone & Crockett clubs bestow on big game hunters. "
Lynn Wilcox's Link
https://community.deergear.com/the-hunt/the-mel-johnson-buck-50-years-atop/
This site also has a great 4 minute video of Mel telling his story of how he killed his buck back in 1965.