Rompola Buck

Chas'n Tail

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I came across an old pic of that Rompola buck here a few days ago, and I've since been researching on him and the deer he killed. Crazy story, interesting fella, and potentially one hell of a deer. I haven't been able to find anything real recent though. Anybody seen anything outside of a blog entry in the last 10 years? If you don't know about this deer, you really should read the story. It's super interesting, and probably the greatest whitetail mystery of all time.
 


wby257

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He is a very humble man, Doesnt try B.S. his way around the Whitetail world. To me he got shit on. And does what he always did, hunt for big deer.
 

Duckslayer100

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[FONT=&quot]"My educated guess — based off of 23 years of working here at [/FONT]Deer & Deer Hunting[FONT=&quot] — is there was something so sinister about both sides of the 1998 Rompola Buck that it had to go away, and everyone involved with it had to zip their yips and fade into the background."[/FONT]

This would make a good podcast series. Think "Making a Murderer" but on deer hunting.
 


NDSportsman

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Met Mitch in 2003. Saw the mount myself. He's just a dedicated deer hunter, never wanted the publicity. He's got lot's of huge deer mounts. You'd probably be surprised at the size of some of the deer mounts hanging in farm houses that never heard a word of outside a family circle. Some people are very private and don't care to let the world know.
 

Duckslayer100

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Met Mitch in 2003. Saw the mount myself. He's just a dedicated deer hunter, never wanted the publicity. He's got lot's of huge deer mounts. You'd probably be surprised at the size of some of the deer mounts hanging in farm houses that never heard a word of outside a family circle. Some people are very private and don't care to let the world know.


Well, can you blame them? The amount of scrutiny and just plain yuckiness that can come out when a big deer is killed, especially these days with social media, is enough to make most folks want to hide under a rock.
 

Captain Ahab

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Well, can you blame them? The amount of scrutiny and just plain yuckiness that can come out when a big deer is killed, especially these days with social media, is enough to make most folks want to hide under a rock.

Haters have ruined a lot of good things. That and conspiracy theorists.
 

Wags2.0

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I’d like to know the amount of book mule deer and whitetail horns are lying in a pile in pole barns in this state. I bet the number is staggering. I’m happy we don’t feel the need to advertise
 

riverview

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I’d like to know the amount of book mule deer and whitetail horns are lying in a pile in pole barns in this state. I bet the number is staggering. I’m happy we don’t feel the need to advertise

I was a john Deere mechanic and was on a lot of farms in the 80s and 90s and I saw a lot of big horns just nailed to a shed or in a pile
 


Chas'n Tail

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fascinating- what scenarios fit the zip their lip theory???
Only thing I've read that might qualify is that it was actually shot within the city limits. And of course that's all here-say anyway. Other than that, who knows.
 

CrankB8

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I've done quite a bit of reading about this buck and have yet to make my own opinion on its authenticity. Lots of pro's and con's on each side of every story I've read. One tid bit I found interesting is where I read that within 2 days the supposed kill, as well as during the mounting of said deer, that 3 certified scorers had physically handled and inspected this deer. At that point I was strongly leaning towards a legit deer. A few articles later I read the same verified story of these three scorers...however all 3 were "really good friends of Rompola", in fact 2 of them were under studies of his and learned/became certified scorers under his tutelage. So many weird facts and theories to go along with this buck that I hope one day someone does barely break Hanson's record and then Rompola appears out of the shadows and lets his buck be x-rayed...if it's still around and a fire didn't destroy it...
 

Captain Ahab

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I've done quite a bit of reading about this buck and have yet to make my own opinion on its authenticity. Lots of pro's and con's on each side of every story I've read. One tid bit I found interesting is where I read that within 2 days the supposed kill, as well as during the mounting of said deer, that 3 certified scorers had physically handled and inspected this deer. At that point I was strongly leaning towards a legit deer. A few articles later I read the same verified story of these three scorers...however all 3 were "really good friends of Rompola", in fact 2 of them were under studies of his and learned/became certified scorers under his tutelage. So many weird facts and theories to go along with this buck that I hope one day someone does barely break Hanson's record and then Rompola appears out of the shadows and lets his buck be x-rayed...if it's still around and a fire didn't destroy it...



What I don't get is if he went through all the trouble to "fabricate" these horns, why would he have a video of the recovery? It would seem that fabricating horns and then placing the thing in the forest piled up by a tree would not be something that a guy would go through the hassle of doing. You could be caught in the process of placing the animal. You wouldn't have the time or work area to fabricate in the woods I wouldn't think. To do a great job, it would take a couple days I would think. The city limits thing wasn't the big beef, it was skull plate and horn fabrication. Really messed up deal.
 


ndlongshot

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So the guy just disappeared? How? Somebody local has to know what happened to this fellar? Did he claim the rack burned up? Sorry i'm out of the loop. I suppose these are questions everyone has.
 

espringers

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it doesn't even make sense to fabricate a story like this. to what end? and what motivation? if it gets named the world record, its gonna be under constant scrutiny. so, if it was a fake, it certainly would have been discovered eventually and then the whole world knows you are a liar, cheat, fake and a fraud. given his credentials in the bow hunting world, he had absolutely nothing to gain by fabricating this.
 

CrankB8

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I don't get most of the recovery on video idea either. I read one guys theory of it not being "legit" because the scene in the video where the deer died wasn't disturbed enough for a deer to die right there. Another writer said he couldn't believe it was real because of the distance between the buck's burr's. The widest he had ever found on a deer that he inspected was 3 1/4". Rompola's would have been 4 3/4". No way he could believe that this deer would measure a full 1 1/2" greater than anything he had ever laid hands on...my response to that to that would be: how many deer with an antler spread of 38" have you ever measured? Since that number would be zero who's to say that a 4 3/4" burr spread is unfathomable or unrealistic...
 

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So I read a couple of you are indicating the antlers have been destroyed in a fire. Is this confirmed or just speculation
 


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